This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

12
The Journal of Mississippi History
contracted for 100,000 bushels of salt at thirty-five dollars a bushel.40 In one letter Claiborne suggested, ?If you could shell those places, & seize the salt-boilers, we should get rid of the guerrillas and their sympathizers.?41 In subsequent memorandums he reported that saltmaking was proceeding at a rate of five hundred bushels a day,42 and that twenty wagon loads of salt had been shipped to General Joseph E. Johnston?s army.43
As the war progressed and Union victories became more frequent, Claiborne sent more valuable information. In July, 1863, he told Banks of fortifications being erected at Mobile, of the location and size of Johnston?s army, of the movements of General William J. Hardee, and of the location of a Confederate train of four hundred wagons.44 Claiborne was particularly energetic in 1863 in informing Banks of the smuggling trade carried on between New Orleans, the Rigo-lets, and Mississippi coastal towns, naming ?the Alice, the Venus & other vessels? that ?regularly bring out contraband? and implicating the suttler at Fort Pike.45 Early in the following year he reported the construction of seven Confederate rams on the Alabama River. ?Two of them, the Tennessee and the Nashville, are very powerful, mounted with six guns,? Claiborne wrote, ?It is believed that they can sink any vessel of the blockade fleet; and there is good reason to believe that the attempt will shortly be made.?Mft On two occasions Claiborne was able to supply General Banks with the names of persons serving the Confederacy in New Orleans, the general?s own headquarters. On July 10, 1863, Claiborne wrote:
40	Ibid.
41	J. F. H. Claiborne to Banks, July 22, 1863, ibid.
42	[J. F. H. Claiborne] to Banks, July 27, 1863, ibid.
43	[J. F. H. Claiborne], Memorandum to Banks [enclosed with letter of July 28, 1863], ibid.
44	Ibid.
45	[J. F. H. Claiborne], Memorandum to Banks [enclosed with letter
of December 12, 1863], ibid.
j. F. H. Claiborne at ?Laurel Wood? Plantation, 1853-1870	13
Arrangements are making to run the blockade to Havana from two points on this coast. The parties engaged in it have all been in or are in the Confederate service. They have two men in New Orleans?a Capt. Dane or Dean & one Asa Weed (who was once arrested here as a spy, and liberated with a view to this very object) employed to give them information about your movements, the movements of the blockading squadron etc. Dane & Weed communicate with one of the parties here, by means of a schooner (The Venus) which makes a weekly trip from the city to Toomer?s Mill near Fort Pike, and the information they give is duly sent to Jackson. Weed or Dane, or both of them are soon to visit your camp at Port Hudson.*1
Later in the same month Claiborne intercepted and copied several letters destined for Confederate sympathizers in New Orleans. One such letter, addressed to Mason Pilcher of the Bank of New Orleans, showed that the bank had ?advanced $405,000 to the Richmond authorities; that it is now in communication with Richmond; and in all probability, making arrangements to export, unlawfully, on its own acct. near 7 millions lbs. cotton, or to dispose of the same to the blockade runners of Mobile.? In transmitting the copies of the letters Claiborne wrote, ?If you use them, Genl., pray do so in a way not to lead even to a surmise how your information was obtained. My position here is very precarious & the registered enemies in Mobile are doing their best to have me arrested.?48
Late in 1863 Claiborne became involved in a grandiose scheme of treason that reached into the Confederate State Department and into the very heart of its operations abroad. The episode began with a letter from Claiborne to Banks, dated December 12, 1863, headed ?Strictly Confidential?: There is at my house a confidential, accredited agent of J. P. Benjamin, who may be induced to give intelligence of vital importance to you, and to the Government: 1. In relation to matters in Eastern Texas. 2. Operations on the Mississippi?plans of
47 [J. F. H. Claiborne] to Banks, July 10. 1863, tbid.