E C Downs

Four Years a Scout and Spy: the Recollections of a Union Agent During the American Civil War E C Downs

The most perilous post is the army-scout and spy

The author of this book, Major E. C. Downs of the 20th Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry has provided the penmanship for the actual subject and principal character of this account. His name was Lorain Ruggles, a remarkable man who held the rank of corporal in the Union Army, but who was known to those who had any real idea of his true identity and purpose in the army as 'General Bunker.' Downs knew his subject well, for he met him when marching to war in the company of just ten men and enlisted him on the spot on condition that he furnish Ruggles with an Enfield rifle. This book is written in the first person as by Ruggles himself and recounts his numerous adventures during the American Civil War as a scout and spy in the service of many of the commanders of the Union, but most especially for Ulysses Grant. This most perilous of all military occupations was, of course, undertaken in civilian clothes or even on occasion in the uniform of the enemy and so discovery would result in summary execution. Ruggles a raconteur of the first rank clearly enjoyed and had an immense talent for his life on the 'knife's edge' during wartime, he recounts it within these pages with good humour and thrilling detail. An excellent Civil War account revealing a different perspective of the conflict from behind the enemy lines.
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