Phillip Henson the Southern Union Spy

[Gene C]

written by George S Johns in 1887, about 120 pages.

Philip Henson and this book have been mentioned on a few previous posts, so I thought I would read it.

Regarding the author - George S Johns who was a reporter, later the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (the book was printed in St. Louis) and he would have been about 29 when this book was written. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Sibley_Johns

The author or publisher has this disclaimer in the front of the book,
"The materials were gathered and the work completed in the leisure time of four days so that it will be recognized readily that full investigation and careful arrangement were impossible."
It appears the book was made in preparation of a G.A.R encampment in St. Louis in 1887

This is how the author describes Phillipp Henson on p10. "His heroism is of that quiet, modest kind that is unconscious of its self; that does great deeds and does not know they are out of the ordinary; that tells of them as if they were common acts of everyday life. His nature is that of the honest, strong-fibred, staunch type, full of native shrewdness and unswerving integrity which looks clear eyed along the path of duty and sees no obstacle to cause a moments hesitation in the way; that faces danger with the cool intrepidity that is a stranger to fear; that moves straight on where other men stop and tremble; or even flee for their lives, that regards personal fame and honor so little that when a thing is done, no matter how wonderful or daring or admirable it may be, it is done with, and that is the end of it, leaving to others the sounding of its praises."

This book is an overly dramatic, over embellished account of his experience as a spy for the Union. The story ends at the close of the war. It's hard to tell if any of this is true, other than he did serve as an informant. The last 11 pages are letters of testimony regarding Mr Henson. Amazing they were able to assemble them within only four days.

Most of what seems to be known of Mr. Henson comes from this book.
Sources for a Wikipedia article about him do not verify much in the book, or their own article. A web site (no longer available) for dixiereckoning.com is referenced. Phillip Henson, according to the wikipedia article, was a Special Secret Service Agent after the war for General and President Grant looking into Lincoln's assassination. No reference is listed (dixiereckoning.com?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Henson
The book seems to contradict this (p86), "In March of 1867, Co. Henson removed to Corinth and published the Corinth Republican, the most influential Union paper in the state. In September of the same year he sold his interest in the paper and moved to a little farm about three miles from the city, where he know lives (1887). No reference in the book that he was a special agent after the war.

Edwin Fishel wrote the following in 'The Secret War For the Union - the Untold Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War' -
"Some readers will be aware of a subliterature on Federal and Confederate spies, consisting of two dozen spy memoirs and modern books descended from them. These writings are so heavily fictionalized that even the most believable parts are suspect. Some of the memoirist were not in intelligence work at all, a fact that modern writers are not aware of or choose to ignore. And even memoirist with experience in espionage, such as Allan Pinkerton, paid almost as little respect to factuality as did the authors of the complete fictions.

This seems to be one of those books

[RJNorton]

The late Rick Stelnick used to maintain a Dixie Reckoning website. The site no longer exixts, but here is what Mr. Stelnick wrote on the site's first page:

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What if a man, came to possess information, which, if made public, would change the historical record concerning the circumstances of the death of one of America’s legendary leaders? As a result of his investigation into the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Philip Henson, a scout and spy during the Civil War, and a special secret service agent afterwards for General and President U.S. Grant, became that man. In the case of the murder of Lincoln at the hands of John Wilkes Booth, an actor turned assassin, the telling of the tale, including Booth’s own demise twelve days later, began immediately. Needless to say, examination of the event has been extensive. But, Lincoln scholars haven't been able to come up with an answer to a nagging question: What was Booth's connection to certain characters from New York City in the months, weeks, and days leading up to his act on the evening of Good Friday April 1865? For his part, Henson tracked a trail of blood money through a literal labyrinth of Northern treachery and treason and Southern deceit and dishonor. In the course of his inquiry he would uncover an organization older than U.S. Congress itself, its mercantile membership comprised of the storied seventeenth and eighteenth century Dutch American settlers of New Amsterdam.

Following up the clues and leads of 1988’s groundbreaking book Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln & 1995’s April ’65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War, including the uncovering of an ethereal name, Demill & Co. and a spectral address, 178½ Water Street, N.Y.C., Dixie Reckoning: A Reassessment Of The Lincoln Assassination & Lost Confederate Treasury unmasks the shadowy Northern and the sinister Southern individuals who were John Wilkes Booth's benefactors. The very same figures who behind the scenes pushed and shoved the actor front and center stage for the performance of his life. They would also prove to be the men whose daring and derring-do inadvertently egged on a desperate man to dare and to do what an accomplished actor does automatically, if and when, he forgot his lines before a standing room only audience - improvise. A slight re-write of the script here, a small change in a scene there. Depressed but determined, he devised a dramatic and didactic development, whereupon a kidnapping became a killing. Destined and doomed to die demonized and disgraced, a disheartened and disillusioned Booth would discover to his distress that his last act martyred, immortalized, and anointed Lincoln as an American deity, and elevated him to equal status shared by Washington, Jefferson and Roosevelt. Additionally, readers will discover, as regards what historians and history buffs alike have labeled “the crime of the century”, that there were, in fact, actually two crimes; the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the disappearance of the Confederacy’s treasury. Dixie Reckoning brings to light what has been hidden in plain sight for 150 years. Further, it will also reacquaint Americans with an unsung hero of the Civil War epoch, Philip Henson, whose own true tale lends itself and serves as an unvarnished companion guide.


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Another page in the website included Mr. Stelnick's bibliography. Gene, the book you mentioned is listed.

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Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln. William A. Tidwell with James O. Hall and D.W. Gaddy © University Press of Mississippi 1988 and April ‘65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War. William A. Tidwell © Kent State University Press 1995

Benjamin Brief, DeMille Files and Reford Folder used with kind permission of Mr. Bernard Stein.

Flight Into Oblivion. Dr. Alfred Jackson Hanna © Johnson Publishing Company 1938

Gotham: A History Of New York City To 1898. E. G. Burrows & M. Wallace © Oxford U. Press 1999.

Lincoln and New York. Edited by Harold Holzer © New-York Historical Society 2009

My Secret Mother: Lorna Moon. Richard de Mille © Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1998

National Archives Microfilm Publications Microcopy M-599. Investigation and Trial Papers Relating To The Assassination Of President Lincoln. Washington, D.C. 1965.

Philip Henson Papers & Photos used with kind permission of Ms. Grace Henson White.

Philip Henson, The Southern Union Spy: The Hitherto Unwritten Record of a Hero of the War of the Rebellion. George Sibley Johns © Nixon-Jones Printing Co., St. Louis 1887

Sic Semper Tyrannis. Dr. William L. Richter © iUniverse 2009

Slow Train To Paradise: How Dutch Investments Helped Build American Railroads. Dr. Augustus J. Veenendaal, Jr. © Stanford University Press 1996

The Foundation and the Superstructure: Or the Faith of Christ and the Works of Man. Richard Mead Demill, Esq. © G.P. Putnam’s Sons 1908

The Last Years of the Life of General and President Ulysses S. Grant and the Writings of His Memoirs. Dr. Marie Ellen Kelsey © The College of St. Scholastica 2006

The Lost Confederate Treasure. Dr. William Rawlings, Jr. © Splash magazine 2005

The New York Times Archives © The New York Times a.k.a. The Gray Lady 1851-1901

The War of the Rebellion. A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Additions and Corrections. Washington: G.P.O. 1902

Traders or Traitors: Northern Cotton Trading During The Civil War. Dr. David G. Surdam © University of Northern Iowa 1999

Victory Or Repudiation: The Probability Of The Southern Confederacy Winning The Civil War. Marc D. Weidenmier & Kim Oosterlinck © Claremont McKenna College 2007



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Back in 2013 Betty posted this sketch of Henson:

[L Verge]

Philip Henson Papers & Photos used with kind permission of Ms. Grace Henson White.
Benjamin Brief, DeMille Files and Reford Folder used with kind permission of Mr. Bernard Stein.

These two references listed above were the elusive items that drove me nuts while dealing with Mr. Stelnick. I wanted proof that they existed. Jane Singer assisted by contacting Grace Henson White, who appeared willing to help one day and then turned mute on the subject the next. Bernard Stein was conveniently deceased, and I couldn't find a Spiritualist.

I even contacted the White House Historical Association and the U.S. Grant Association inquiring about the supposed report on the Lincoln assassination that Henson was said to have conducted for President Grant. I never received a reply from either group. Maybe there is a highly classified Book of Secrets related to the presidential office somewhere??

[Gene C]

Here is the link to the book on Henson in the Internet Archives.

https://archive.org/stream/philiphensons...0/mode/2up

According to the Wikipedia article, Henson served as a special agent until Grant's death in 1885. If he had this long beard as shown above ("it is the truth that Col. Henson has the longest beard in the world, measuring six feet four inches in length...fully six inches resting on the carpet. This alone makes him a marked figure anywhere..." p13), I would think that would make him a little to conspicuous to be a Special Secret Service Agent. According to Wikipedia, "Grant asked him to conduct a 'confidential and discreet' investigation."

As Laurie mentioned, one of the difficulties regarding verification of Mr. Stelnick's story, is the reference to "Philip Henson Papers and Photos". I am not aware that anyone other than Mr. Stelnick claims publicly to have seen or read any of them. With the reported death of Mr. Stelnick, no one seems to know where his research papers are either.

Perhaps someone knows, or can find, some verifiable source to show Henson worked for the Gov't in some capacity after the war. But what if there is nothing to find....

It's an intriguing story, and one I have serious doubts about.
Phillip Henson remains an elusive individual, but if he turned farmer after the war as the book claims, there may not be much to discover after all.

[L Verge]

(09-01-2015 05:16 PM)Gene C Wrote:  Here is the link to the book on Henson in the Internet Archives.

https://archive.org/stream/philiphensons...0/mode/2up

According to the Wikipedia article, Henson served as a special agent until Grant's death in 1885. If he had this long beard as shown above ("it is the truth that Col. Henson has the longest beard in the world, measuring six feet four inches in length...fully six inches resting on the carpet. This alone makes him a marked figure anywhere..." p13), I would think that would make him a little to conspicuous to be a Special Secret Service Agent. According to Wikipedia, "Grant asked him to conduct a 'confidential and discreet' investigation."

As Laurie mentioned, one of the difficulties regarding verification of Mr. Stelnick's story, is the reference to "Philip Henson Papers and Photos". I am not aware that anyone other than Mr. Stelnick claims publicly to have seen or read any of them. With the reported death of Mr. Stelnick, no one seems to know where his research papers are either.

Perhaps someone knows, or can find, some verifiable source to show Henson worked for the Gov't in some capacity after the war. But what if there is nothing to find....

It's an intriguing story, and one I have serious doubts about.
Phillip Henson remains an elusive individual, but if he turned farmer after the war as the book claims, there may not be much to discover after all.

Do I remember correctly that Henson's long beard was the cause of his death? Was he the one who got his beard caught in a wagon's wheel -- sort of like Isadora Duncan's famous scarf?