William Jackson was a slave in the home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis during the Civil War. It turns out he was also a spy for the Union Army, providing key secrets to the North about the Confederacy.William Jackson, a slave, listened closely to Jefferson Davis' conversations and leaked them to the North.
Jackson was Davis' house servant and personal coachman. He learned high-level details about Confederate battle plans and movements because Davis saw him as a "piece of furniture" -- not a human, according to Ken Dagler, (sic) author of "Black Dispatches," which explores espionage by America's slaves...
...slaves who served as spies were able to collect incredibly detailed information, in large part because of their tradition of oral history. Because Southern laws prevented blacks from learning how to read and write, he said, the slave spies listened intently to minute details and memorized them...
Jackson wasn't the only spy. There were hundreds of them... One of the most iconic spies was Harriet Tubman, who ran the Underground Railroad... (more)
