A Southern Union spy from Blount Springs, born 1827, died 1911. After the war, Ulysses S. Grant asked him to investigate Lincoln’s assassination, an inquiry that stretched more than twenty years and ended unresolved when Grant died in 1885. Upon Grant’s election, Henson became the United States’ first Special Secret Service Agent, serving until Grant’s death; denied a government pension afterward, he supported himself lecturing on his espionage career. Died in 1911 at his son’s home in Paris, Texas, and is buried beside his wife Celestine in Corinth, Mississippi. The live post’s own sourcing includes family history and a photograph shared by descendant Charlene Hallman, verified independently.
Full story: Philip Henson: The Southern Union Spy from Blount Springs.