{"id":717,"date":"2012-08-08T01:52:19","date_gmt":"2012-08-08T01:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-gilder\/?p=717"},"modified":"2012-08-08T01:52:19","modified_gmt":"2012-08-08T01:52:19","slug":"men-in-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/2012\/08\/08\/men-in-black\/","title":{"rendered":"Men in Black"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/responsive\/files\/2012\/08\/dodge1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-724\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/responsive\/files\/2012\/08\/dodge1-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>No, not Tommy Lee Jones and Johnny Cash. The Bureau of Military Information, the BMI! I am intrigued by them. Did not know anything about these\u00a0 sharp (no pun intended) men who were gathering intel long before the CIA made it popular.<\/p>\n<p>Figured I would find out about the BMI. First search yielded intel on how to measure my body fat. Nope. Not that BMI. I already knew from Matt&#8217;s lecture that George H.\u00a0Sharpe was the lawyer\/man running this stealth organization. But, then I read an excerpt on the 70\u00a0operatives employed by the BMI. I saw someone&#8217;s name, a familiar one, a person well known in Omaha, Nebraska. Grenville Dodge.<\/p>\n<p>Usually known in the history textbooks as the engineer who masterminded the Transcontinental Railroad, Dodge also designed the siege of Vicksburg. But that wasn&#8217;t what caught my eye. Dodge created spy networks. Heck, he even employed two women spies, Jane Featherstone and Mary Malone. Dodge protected his well paid\u00a0sleuths by always\u00a0refusing to devulge their names. Well, almost always.\u00a0He once\u00a0yielded to U.S. Grant. It did not turn out well for the apprehended spies. Not Grant&#8217;s fault. But that&#8217;s another story.<\/p>\n<p>After the Civil War, Dodge\u00a0became an Iowa congressional politician and then went on to textbook\u00a0railroad fame. So, why\u00a0was I diverted to Dodge? Iowa borders Nebraska (where I reside) and Dodge&#8217;s house still exists for tourists (me included) to visit. Today, the main street\u00a0through\u00a0Omaha is Dodge Street. Nope. Not for\u00a0Grenville\u00a0Dodge, but for\u00a0one of his relatives, Augustus Dodge.<\/p>\n<p>I started looking for\u00a0Men in Black and\u00a0I am far from done. But, I found a\u00a0Dodge instead. Not bad\u00a0for an evening&#8217;s historical\u00a0hunting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No, not Tommy Lee Jones and Johnny Cash. The Bureau of Military Information, the BMI! I am intrigued by them. Did not know anything about these\u00a0 sharp (no pun intended) men who were gathering intel long before the CIA made it popular. Figured I would find out about the BMI. First search yielded intel on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11235,11236,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digital-storytelling","category-discussion","category-primary-sources"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/civilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}