William Norris (December 6, 1820 – December 29, 1896) was the Chief Signal Officer of the

Confederate States Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...

and Chief of the Signal Bureau in

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

. He is often confused with Dr. William S. Morris, president of the wartime Southern Telegraph Company. He is often referred to as Major, but he attained the rank of Colonel in the closing days of the war.

Early life

William Norris was born December 6, 1820, in Baltimore County, Maryland. He graduated from

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

in 1840 at the age of nineteen and went to New Orleans to practice law. He headed to California during the 1849 Gold Rush. After his arrival he was appointed Judge Advocate to the United States Pacific Squadron.Tidwell, W. A., Hall, J. O., & Gaddy, D. W. (1988). Come retribution. He sailed to

Valparaíso Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

in 1851 and on March 13, 1851, he married Ellen Lyles Hobson of Baltimore, a daughter of a former United States consul. After the wedding, Norris returned with his bride to the family estate, Brookland, near Reisterstown, northwest of Baltimore. He and his wife had a son, named Richard, in 1852. In 1858, he became the president of the Baltimore Mechanical Bakery, an ultramodern establishment on South Howard near Pratt Street.

Civil War

In the winter of 1860-61 pro-Confederate sentiment was strong in Baltimore. On the 18th and 19 April 1861, the Pratt Street Riot took place in Baltimore. Norris made no secret of his southern sympathies and with the outbreak of war he and his family left for Virginia. There he volunteered as a civilian aide on the staff of Brigadier General John Bankhead Magruder. After Magruder sent Norris to learn signals in Norfolk under Captain Milligan, Milligan gave Norris a book of his system of signals and On July 18. 1861, Magruder gave Norris authority to establish a system of signals on the Peninsula and across the James River. Norris set up a network which employed flags and colored balls raised on poles. Due to his efforts on the signal system Norris was commissioned as a captain. Norris also commanded the

Secret Service A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For ...

Bureau, a unit within the Signal Corps. The Secret Service Bureau oversaw a communications network whose missions included the running of agents to and from Union territory and the forwarding of messages from Confederate officials in Richmond to contacts in Canada and Europe.United States(2005)Intelligence in the Civil War. William Norris finally achieved the rank of colonel on April 26, 1865, and became the Commissioner of Exchange (of prisoners of war) replacing Colonel Robert Ould. Within a week Norris was in Union hands. Norris was held in detention in Richmond but eventually cleared of charge. On June 30, 1865, Norris swore allegiance to the United States.

After the war

Norris and his family returned to Brookline near Reisterstown. After the war Norris considered going to Chile to set up a signal corps for the military there. In 1866 Norris wrote a letter to the lawyer defending John H. Surratt from complicity in the

Lincoln assassination On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, while attending the play ''Our American Cousin'' at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the hea ...

. Norris absolved Surratt of any involvement and offered to testify in his behalf. In 1874 his eyewitness account of the USS Monitor and

CSS Virginia CSS ''Virginia'' was the first steam-powered ironclad warship built by the Confederate States Navy during the first year of the American Civil War; she was constructed as a casemate ironclad using the razéed (cut down) original lower hull ...

battle was published in the Southern Magazine.

Death

Norris died of a stroke on December 29, 1896, and is buried in the All Saints’ Cemetery in

Reisterstown, Maryland Reisterstown is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 25,968. Founded by German immigrant John Reister in 1758, Reisterstown is located ...

References

*Tidwell, W. A., Hall, J. O., & Gaddy, D. W. (1988). Come retribution the Confederate secret service and the assassination of Lincoln. Jackson, University Press of Mississippi. *Tidwell, W. A. (1995). April '65 Confederate covert action in the American Civil War. Kent, Ohio, Kent State University Press.
Historical Society Papers. The Signal Corps in the Confederate States Army.. Vol. XVI. Richmond, Va., January–December. 1888.
Accessed October 11, 2007.
Colonel William Morris Historic Marker in Reisterstown, Maryland.
Accessed October 11, 2007. *Norris, W. (1879). The story of the Confederate States' ship "Virginia" (once Merrimac) her victory over the Monitor : born March 7, died May 10, 1862. Baltimore, John B. Piet. *United States. (2005). Intelligence in the Civil War. Washington, D.C., Central Intelligence Agency

{{DEFAULTSORT:Norris, William 1820 births 1896 deaths People from Baltimore County, Maryland American Civil War spies People of Maryland in the American Civil War Confederate States Army officers Yale College alumni