Honorable Mention, 2015, Delmarva Book Prize
Winner, 2015, The Bachelder-Coddington Literary Award, Given by the Robert E. Lee Civil War Round Table of Central New Jersey
Winner, 2016, Gettysburg Round Table’s Distinguished Book Award

As intelligence experts have long asserted, “Information in regard to the enemy is the indispensable basis of all military plans.”

Despite the thousands of books and articles written about Gettysburg, Tom Ryan’s groundbreaking Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign: How the Critical Role of Intelligence Impacted the Outcome of Lee’s Invasion of the North, June – July 1863 is the first to offer a unique and incisive comparative study of intelligence operations during what many consider the war’s decisive campaign.

Based upon years of indefatigable research, the author evaluates how Gen. Robert E. Lee used intelligence resources, including cavalry, civilians, newspapers, and spies to gather information about Union activities during his invasion of the North in June and July 1863, and how this intelligence influenced General Lee’s decisions. Simultaneously, Ryan explores the effectiveness of the Union Army of the Potomac’s intelligence and counterintelligence operations. Both Maj. Gens. Joe Hooker and George G. Meade relied upon cavalry, the Signal Corps, and an intelligence staff known as the Bureau of Military Information that employed innovative concepts to gather, collate, and report vital information from a variety of sources.

The result is an eye-opening, day-by-day analysis of how and why the respective army commanders implemented their strategy and tactics, with an evaluation of their respective performance as they engaged in a battle of wits to learn the enemy’s location, strength, and intentions.

Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign is grounded upon a broad foundation of archival research and a firm understanding of the theater of operations that specialists will especially value. Everyone will appreciate reading about a familiar historic event from a perspective that is both new and enjoyable. One thing is certain: no one will close this book and look at the Gettysburg Campaign in the same way again.

“Thomas Ryan's masterfully researched and written study builds upon the pioneering work of Edwin C. Fishel, Stephen W. Sears, and others. Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign is destined to become a classic Civil War study.”

“Through an in-depth and insightful examination of Union and Confederate intelligence organizations, personnel, and operations during the 1863 Gettysburg campaign, Thomas Ryan details how George Meade’s success in the behind-the-scenes ‘intelligence battle’ against Robert E. Lee set the stage for Union victory in the three-day engagement. This book is an important and original contribution to our understanding of why Lee lost, why Meade won, and the titanic clash in Pennsylvania.”

“Accurate and timely information is the lifeblood of great generalship. Too often do military historians neglect exploring the flow of information and the effect it has on the decision-making of the great captains. Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign, the excellent new book by Thomas Ryan, gives us a new and insightful window into Lee’s decisions and the Union effort to counter them and helps us understand why the campaign ended as it did

“No one has studied the critical (and largely overlooked) role that intelligence played in the Gettysburg Campaign like Thomas Ryan. The vital information collected by scouts, spies and civilians—and how it was processed and used by the opposing high commands—is told here for the first time in tremendous detail that helps complete the story of how and why the campaign developed as it did, and the battle ended with Lee’s defeat.”

"...a deeply researched, well written, compelling, readable, and balanced account of intelligence operations by both armies during these critical weeks of the war."