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On Feb. 25, 1863, Sgt. Milton W. Cline arrived at the Army of the Potomac’s headquarters for detached duty with the new Bureau of Miliary Information (BMI). As chief of scouts for the BMI, he would prove particularly proficient at intermingling with Confederate forces to gather information.
In late January 1863, following the Union’s defeat at Fredericksburg, President Abraham Lincoln replaced Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside with Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac. As Hooker set about rebuilding his new command, he ordered the establishment of “a system for collecting information [on the enemy] as speedily as possible.” The result was the formation of the Bureau of Military Information, an all-source intelligence organization under the leadership of Col. George H. Sharpe. Over the next months, Sharpe built a remarkable organization that both gathered information and produced intelligence during some of the hardest fighting of the Civil War.
The basis of Sharpe’s knowledge of the location and movements of the Confederate army came primarily from a large number of enlisted scouts. One of Sharpe’s first actions was to transfer to the BMI three scouts—Sergeant Cline, Sgt. Daniel Cole, and Pvt. David Plew—from the Third Indiana Cavalry, who had served with Hooker in Maryland earlier in the war. Cline arrived at BMI headquarters on Feb. 25. Born in New York to German immigrants, Cline spent some time as a sailor before settling in Indiana to farm. When the Civil War began, he decided to enlist in the Union Army.
Sharpe immediately put the 37-year-old Cline to work, sending him out alone on his first mission within two days of his arrival. General Hooker believed, but could not confirm, that many of the Confederate forces facing him across the Rappahannock River had been shifted downstream from Fredericksburg in mid-February. Sharpe sent Cline to identify what enemy troops remained, especially along Hooker’s right flank. Known for his ability to circulate as one of the enemy, Cline headed upstream and attached himself to a company of the 9th Virginia Cavalry commanded by Capt. John W. Hungerford. Hungerford escorted Cline, presumably clad in a Confederate uniform and passing himself off as a partisan scout, on an extensive tour of the Army of Northern Virginia units remaining in the area. Along the way, Cline carefully took note of every detail.
Returning to Hooker’s headquarters on Mar. 5, Cline wrote a detailed report that was further enhanced by a debriefing by Colonel Sharpe himself. According to historian Edwin Fishel, during the ten-day mission, Cline had traveled 250 miles and identified “sixty-four major installations, twenty-four camps, twelve locations of batteries or heavy artillery, twenty-three fortifications, and five wagon and ambulance parks.” Cline also reported on conditions in the Confederate camps and that the rebels believed they could amass 75,000 men within six hours, if needed.
This late February scouting mission was typical of Cline’s many exploits for the BMI during the war. He commonly operated alone and, disguised as a Confederate, mingled with rebel troops and Southern civilians alike to gain information on the location, strength, and condition of General Robert E. Lee’s forces. An impressed Sharpe made Cline chief of the BMI’s diverse group of scouts, a position Cline held until September 1864, when he was discharged along with the rest of his original unit, the Third Indiana Cavalry. Cline later moved his family to Illinois and, in 1871, to Colorado, where he reportedly played a role in negotiating for the release of several women and children held captive by the Utes. He died in October 1911 at the age of eighty-four.
Article by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian. New issues of This Week in MI History are published each week. To report story errors, ask questions, request previous articles, or be added to our distribution list, please contact: TR-ICoE-Command-Historian@army.mil.
| Date Taken: | 02.20.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 02.20.2026 13:52 |
| Story ID: | 558478 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 8 |
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