For factors unfathomable to me, the least recognized co-writer of the 1988 groundbreaking book â??Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincolnâ? which was written by retired Brigadier Basic William Albert Tidwell with Researcher Extraordinaire James O. Hall and David Winfred Gaddy is ex-Analyst of the National Security Agency and the former 1st Director of the National Cryptologic Museum, Mr. Gaddy. Where the late wonderful Messrs. Tidwell [1918-1999] and Hall [1912-2007] continue to be cited to date, Gaddy is seemingly a very best kept secret when it comes to serious study of spies and scouts of the American Civil War by students and scholars of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
To date David Winfred Gaddy, having drawn upon his personal clandestine profession and covert experiences, has published a keynote speaker half dozen or so very nicely-written adhere to-up articles in regard to the treasure trove inside Come Retribution. Most interestingly, even so, is the fact that Mr. Gaddy wrote Gray Cloaks and Daggers which first produced public the existence of the Confederacyâ??s Secret Service Bureau and the Confederate Secret Line and Signal Corps thirteen years prior to the publishing of Come Retribution!
Spook Speak Deciphered
My personal initial encounter with Gaddy’s solo authorship was his brilliant essay Under A Southern Rose: Of A Time When â??CIAâ?? Meant Confederate Intelligence Activities thathe delivered as the keynote speaker for the Alexandria Library Annual Lecture at the historic St. Paulâ??s Episcopal Church in February of 1989, and which functions Mr. Gaddy at his descriptive very best:
keynote speaker