Dabney
by Staff EditorOne of the most popular pieces of war folklore, the details surrounding this story have never been substantiated though its sheer popularity and the fact that it has withstood the test of time makes it worth mentioning. The story about a black couple who provided intelligence on the movement of Confederate troops in Virginia reportedly first appeared in a magazine in an article written by a Union officer who supposedly witnessed their exploits.
Dabney and his wife were runaway slaves who escaped the South and crossed Union lines in Virginia. Though he had no formal education, it was clear that he was very bright and had a solid knowledge of the geography of the area. He developed an interest in the Union flag-signal system and set about learning everything he could about it. After a few weeks on the Union side, his wife asked permission to be sent back across Confederate lines to work as a personal servant to a Southern woman. A few days after her departure, Dabney began reporting on Confederate troop movements to Union officers. His reports checked out and he was asked to provide the source of his intelligence. He said that he and his wife had worked out a system that would signal troop movements based on the way she would hang the laundry out to dry, as both the house and the clothesline were visible from the Union camp where Dabney was working. As she would get information on which way troops would be moving, she would hang the laundry in a particular sequence to denote the direction of the movement. For example, a shirt would represent a particular general and a pair of pants hung upside down indicated a westward movement. When read in sequence, Dabney was able to uncover which troops were going where. While the intelligence itself did not yield great results (Union intelligence officials could have provided similar information) the fact that the story has been repeated so many times over the years makes it a valuable part of Civil War folklore.
The contributions to Civil War intelligence made by African-Americans is impressive considering that few, if any had any military or intelligence training. Many did not even have a basic education yet relied on their instincts and natural talents to abet a cause they believed in and for that, their stories deserve to be remembered in the annals of American history, whether they are factual or folkloric.
