Thomas Hines

Thomas Henry Hines (October 8, 1838-January 23, 1898) was a Confederate spy during the American Civil War.

Hines was from Warren County, Kentucky, although he was born in Butler County, Kentucky. He was a professor at the Masonic school in LaGrange, but with the advent of the war, he joined the Confederate Army in April 1861. He initially led "Buckner's Guides," which were attached to Albert Sidney Johnston's command. In November 1861 he was given a lieutenant's commission. The Guides were disbanded in January 1862. Hines journeyed to the capital of Richmond, Virginia, immediately. In April he decided to join Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan and he re-enlisted in the army as a private in the 9th Kentucky Cavalry in May 1862. Morgan recognized Hines' talents and commissioned him as a captain.

In June 1863, Hines led an invasion into Indiana with 25 Confederates posing as an Union unit in pursuit of AWOL deserters to see if the local Copperheads would support the invasion. After visiting the local Copperhead leader, Dr. William A. Bowles, and learning that there would be no formal support for Morgan's Raid, they were discovered, and in a small skirmish near Leavenworth, Indiana, Hines had to abandon his men as he swam across the Ohio River under gunfire.

After wandering around Kentucky for a week, he rejoined Morgan at Brandenburg, Kentucky; Colonel Basil Duke made a disparaging comment in his memoirs about how Hines had appeared. It was Hines' reports that encouraged Morgan to be rough with anyone posing as a Confederate sympathizer in Indiana. Hines stayed with Morgan until the end of the Raid, and was with Morgan during their imprisonment in Ohio Penitentiary. Hines was the one who discovered a way to escape the jail and led Morgan back to Confederate lines in Tennessee, evading capture in Cincinnati, and staying for one night at the Johnson house. In Tennessee, Hines diverted the Union troops' attention away from Morgan, and was himself recaptured. He escaped that night by telling stories to the soldier in charge of him and subduing him when given the chance.

Gravestone of Thomas Hines

Hines led the Northwest Conspiracy in 1864, and escaped Chicago by hiding in a mattress. In the same year he tried to free Confederate prisoners of war by recruiting former members of Morgan's Raiders who had escaped to Canada, including Morgan's telegrapher George Ellsworth.

After the war, he was a member of the Kentucky Court of Appeals from 1878-1898. He died in 1898 and was buried in Fairview Cemetery in the Hines series of plots, which includes the gravesite of Duncan Hines, a second cousin twice removed.

His home, in Warren County, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Trivia

• On the historical marker placed for Hines' entry into the state, near Derby, Indiana, the Indiana Historical Society placed the year it occurred as 1862, when it actually occurred in 1863.

References

• Horan, James D., Confederate Agent: A Discovery in History (1954).