James Dickerson Hogan’s Confederate Service
During the Civil War James Polk Dickerson Hogan was a member of the Second South Carolina Cavalry. An account of his service, at least during the last year of the war, is given in John Bakeless, Spies of the Confederacy (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1970). This account will be followed here. J.D. served with Sergeant George D. Shadburne and the “Iron Scouts.” This name was bestowed by the Yankees. The scouts were part of General Jeb Stuart’s Cavalry Corps. After Stuart’s death they were under the command of General Wade Hampton.
In the last year of the war from the Spring of 1864 to the Spring of 1865, the southern military strategy was on resisting General U.S. Grant’s advance. This began with the Battle of the Wilderness on May 4, 1864 and led to Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor on May 30, the siege of Richmond and Petersburg and eventually Appomattox in April 1865, where General Robert E. Lee surrendered. At each step Grant had a superior army but the Confederates were able to hold off the Army of the Potomac by never concentrating at the wrong spot. This was accomplished, in the view of Bakeless, by the Confederacy’s perfection of espionage and intelligence gathering. For weeks prior to each advance by Grant, the spies of General Lee were telling him what was coming.
There was a network of southern agents in Washington, D.C. and the north. But by the time their information reached Lee, it was a week or more old. The main intelligence came from the scouts and spies operating at the front, along Grant’s lines and deep within them. Bakeless describes these individuals, including J.D. Hogan by name, as “experienced scouts and secret agents sent out by local commands and moving continually back and forth in the Federal rear areas. Especially valuable among these sources were Sergeant Ike Curtis, Sergeant Dick Hogan, Hugh Henderson Scott, George D. Shadburne and Channing M. Smith, Company H (‘the Black Horse’), 4th Virginia Cavalry.” (Bakeless, Spies of the Confederacy, p. 350).
Illustrative of the information sources used by the scouts about Grant’s intentions was the Union’s railroad system. Bakeless sums up how Hogan and his comrades utilized the railroad for their intelligence gathering:
The spies maintained a continuous watch over the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, running southwest from the vicinity of Washington through the country where the coming battles would be fought. Movement of troops and supplies along this line was an essential element of information, which the Confederates from time to time secured through various agents. Hugh Henderson Scott was one of the spies watching it in February 1864, probably under the direction of Sergeant Hogan. As early as March 8, 1864, General Wade Hampton was able to pass on to Lee and Stuart news brought in by Shadburne which showed the Federals were beginning to move troops south. (Bakeless, Spies of the Confederacy, pp. 353-354).
One of the tactics in monitoring the railroad involved Hogan and about ten others establishing a permanent camp in February 1864 within the Union lines at Brentsville, Virginia near Washington, D.C. Bakeless describes their operation, “In mid-February, Shadburne, assisted by Hogan, led a detail of three mounted men and five or six infantry to a point near Brentsville, only about thirty-five miles from Washington. Here they settled down in a very secret, semipermanent camp, just outside the town, and devoted themselves to continuous observation of what the Federals were doing. On St. Valentine’s Day, Scott and two others breakfasted in the village itself, within three or four hundred yards of Union cavalry. When they had finished, they withdrew calmly to the ‘blind or ambuscade we had on a hill,’ returning in due course to their own lines to report what they had learned.” (Ibid., p. 354).
After Grant’s forces converged around Richmond in the Spring of 1864, the scouts also moved south to monitor the advance. They established a base in the Blackwater Swamp behind the Union lines. Their activities are recounted by Bakeless:
Assisting Shadburne was an almost equally skilled group, Sergeant Hogan, Sergeant Joe McCalla, 1st South Carolina Cavalry, a certain “Dolph” Kennedy, and Hugh Henderson, 1st South Carolina Cavalry. Shadburne and his friends—and there were a good many others—were now operating from two secret base camps well inside the Federal picket lines, in territory that the misguided Yankee invaders imagined they could control. Both camps were in the country drained by the Blackwater River—so badly drained, however, that the area was usually called the Blackwater Swamp, a wild tangle of bogs and thickets, almost impassable except to people who knew it well. In other words, to Shadburne and Co.—and certain charming and helpful young ladies. (Bakeless, Spies of the Confederacy, pp. 343-344).
Bakeless concludes his narrative about the Blackwater Swamp camps, “From these secret bases, Shadburne, Hogan and the others carried out frequent guerilla raids, some enjoyable horse-stealing, some illicit purchasing in U.S. Army canteens, a great deal of astonishing espionage, and a little sabotage.” (Ibid).
There were limitations to the intelligence gathering done by the scouts. This led the Confederates to a major tactical error in June 1864. The scouts learned of the Union’s western strategy but not of its James River strategy. The result was that the southern cavalry was suckered out of position long enough for the union army to cross to the south side of the James River, which allowed them to siege Petersburg and Richmond through the back door. As Bakeless puts it, “Grant was, indeed, trying another envelopment, but much bolder than any he had tried before. He was moving away from Lee’s front entirely, preparing to cross the James River, leave Lee behind, and bring his full force down on Beauregard, isolated in front of Petersburg—while Lee and the whole Army of Northern Virginia sat waiting for Yankees, where no Yankees were ever going to come.” (Ibid., p. 382).
The befuddlement of Lee started in the first week of June 1864 while the two armies confronted each other at Cold Harbor. Hogan was one of the scouts who sent information that Grant’s cavalry under Sheridan was leaving the Richmond area and heading to Charlottesville. The Union cavalry was to met up there with General David Hunter’s forces marching east from the Shenandoah Valley. They were to come back toward Richmond along the Virginia Central Railroad, tearing up the tracks to the west. This would destroy an important Confederate supply line and would also draw the Confederate cavalry away from the James River.
Bakeless summarizes the role of Hogan and his comrades in alerting Lee about Grant’s movements:
Sheridan received his orders June 6 and moved out June 7. Though they do not seem to have found Grant’s other forces, Shadburne, Hogan, Wallace Miller, Lieutenant Bob Shriver, Walker Russell, Phil Hutchison, and others reported to Generals Wade Hampton and M.C. Butler that a large force of Yankee horsemen had moved northward from behind Grant’s lines, then still at Cold Harbor, and were crossing the Pamunkey. (Bakeless, Spies of the Confederacy, p. 383).
In order to defend against Grant’s western strategy, Confederate bugles sounded “Boots and Saddles” June 9, and Hampton began a forced march west, pausing only to graze the horses from noon till two o’clock every afternoon and from midnight till two o’clock every night. Being aware of what the Yankees meant to do, the Confederates moved swiftly to the right place. On June 11, Sheridan found Hampton’s gray cavalry squarely across his path at Louisa Court House, with Butler’s cavalry a mile to the rear at Trevilian Station. On the twelfth, Sheridan limped back to Grant in defeat. Early, meantime, had beaten Hunter in the Shenandoah.
The Federals thus suffered two tactical defeats, but their main strategic purpose was accomplished. There was no Confederate cavalry to interfere with Grant’s swift bridging and crossing of the James River, which made possible the siege of Richmond and which led on to Appomattox. The information provided by the scouts concerning the western attack contained only half of Grant’s plan.
The Union’s new strategy of crossing the south side of the James River and laying siege to Petersburg started on the night of June 14-15, 1864 with one Federal corps going in small vessels down the York River, through Hampton Roads, and up the James, almost to Petersburg, where it confronted Beauregard. Another marched to the James River and was ferried across that same night. At the same time the Army engineers began building a 2,100-foot bridge across the James, beginning at 4 P.M. and finishing at midnight, so that supporting corps began marching across by the time the first two had begun to arrive.
Lee was handicapped by lack of cavalry. Hampton’s and Fitzhugh Lee’s divisions were absent in pursuit of Sheridan. There were not enough cavalry around Richmond for vigorous reconnaissance and not enough to concentrate quickly on the south bank of the James to oppose the crossing Federals. Grant also had the good fortune to be moving through a part of Virginia where there were few country roads. The road net consisted of a few very large quadrilaterals. Hence Grant could screen his troops by posting strong forces at a few crossroads. So far as surviving records show, practically no information about Grant’s crossing of the James came in through the espionage system.
Bakeless remarks on the drawbacks of reliance on intelligence, “The absence of Hampton’s and Fitzhugh Lee’s sorely needed cavalry divisions was due to the misplaced efficiency of a handful of Confederate spies. But for them, Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee would probably have been available on the James to delay Grants’ crossing. The rebel espionage had been clever. But it was a little too clever—it spoiled everything!” (Ibid., p. 382).
Rank and File “Stomach” Strategy
The Confederates were fooled because the intelligence which the scouts provided was only half the Union plan. Several months later J.D. Hogan helped in a more successful mission and one that was well-appreciated by the Confederate rank and file. This was the “Beefsteak Raid.” He helped steal a herd of 5,000 cattle in September 1864 from the Union forces at Coggins Point on the James River near Richmond, Virginia. Bakeless records this adventure, “Aided by the Iron Scouts, Shadburne kept an eye on those steers for several days. He was probably sending regular reports to Hampton, but only one, dated September 5, 1864, survives. This tells exactly where Grant’s quartermasters were keeping the potential steaks that hungry Confederates craved: ‘At Coggins’ Point are 5,000 beeves, attended by 120 men and 30 citizens without arms.’” (Ibid., p. 340).
The report provided by the scouts about the Union cattle told Hampton how to get there; what trouble might be expected, and where to look out for Yankees. It warned there would be delay if the Union forces burned down “Frog Hole Bridge.” The Federals did burn down a bridge or two; but Hampton, thus forewarned, was fully prepared to get his cavalry across. Shadburne’s report made only one mistake. It located the Federal XVIII Corps correctly but gave it the wrong number.
The intelligence report about the cattle was carried by J.D. Hogan, as Bakeless points out, “Shadburne had sent this particular report by a trusted assistant, Sergeant J. Dickerson (Dick) Hogan, 2nd South Carolina Cavalry, a talented young secret service agent, then in his late teens; but he himself remained behind in observation. This is said to have been one of the occasions when Shadburne moved about City Point, near Grant’s headquarters, in feminine garb—an exploit made no easier by his height of six feet two inches. On September 8, three days after hearing from Shadburne, Hampton sent Lee his plan for raiding the herd. One day later, Lee approved it.” (Bakeless, Spies of the Confederacy, p. 340).
More information about J.D. Hogan life during the Civil War would be found in his service record at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. and Columbia, South Carolina, in the records of his military unit and in the accounts left by his comrades. See also:
Boykin, Edward. Beefsteak Raid (New York, Funk & Wagnalls [1960] 1926, 305pp).
Cooke, John Esten. “General Wade Hampton and his Cavalry,” PWT (February 21, 1880).
Lykes, Richard. “Hampton’s Cavalry Raid,” Military Affairs 27: 1-20 (1957.
“Obituary of J.D. Hogan,” Atkins (Arkansas) Chronicle (January 28, 1923).
Pope County Arkansas Pension Record # 25493 (1915)
Wellman, Manly Wade. Giant in gray; a biography of Wade Hampton of South Carolina (New York, Scribner, 1949, 387pp).
Wells, Edward Laight. Hampton and his cavalry in '64 (Richmond, Va., B.F. Johnson pub. company, 1899).
