Thomas Henry Hines (October 8, 1838 – January 23, 1898) was a Confederate cavalryman who was known for his espionage activities during the last two years of the American Civil War.

He was then granted secret authorisation, following the Dahlgren Affair, by Jefferson Davis and his cabinet to unleash total war behind Union lines.

From a secret base at Toronto in Upper Canada, Hines oversaw Confederate Secret Service covert operations with Copperhead Democrat leaders Harrison H. Dodd and Clement Vallandigham for arson, state terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and pro-Confederate regime change uprisings by the paramilitary Order of the Sons of Liberty against pro-Union governors throughout the Old Northwest.

At one point, he concealed himself in a mattress that was being used at the time; on another occasion, he was confused for the actor and assassin John Wilkes Booth, a dangerous case of mistaken identity that forced him to flee Detroit in April 1865 by holding a ferry captain at gunpoint.

Union agents viewed Hines as the man they most needed to apprehend, but apart from the time he served at the Ohio Penitentiary in late 1863, he was never captured.

He started practicing law, which led him to serve on the Kentucky Court of Appeals, eventually becoming its chief justice.

Later, he practiced law in Frankfort, Kentucky, until he died in 1898, keeping many of the secrets of Confederate espionage from public knowledge.

With his slender build, Hines was described as rather benign in appearance, and a friend observed that he had a voice resembling a "refined woman".

Traveling through Kentucky for eight days to obtain supplies for their mission, they crossed the Ohio River to enter Indiana, near the village of Derby, on June 18, 1863.

Hines visited the local Copperhead leader, Dr. William A. Bowles, in French Lick, and learned that there would be no formal support for Morgan's Raid.

[7] It was due to Hines that the riverboats Alice Dean and the John T. McCombs were captured to transport Morgan's 2000+ men force across the Ohio River.

[9] Hines noticed how dry the lower prison cells felt and how they were lacking in mold, even though sunlight never shined there.

The day was chosen as a new Union military commander was coming to Columbus, and Morgan knew the prison cells would be inspected then.

Aided by the fact that the prison sentries sought shelter from the raging storm occurring at the time, the Confederate officers climbed the 25-foot-tall (7.6 m) wall effortlessly, using metal hooks to effect their escape.

Two of the officers who escaped with Hines and Morgan, Ralph Sheldon and Samuel Taylor, were captured four days later in Louisville, Kentucky.

They continued to evade capture in Cincinnati, staying for one night at the Ben Johnson House in Bardstown, Kentucky.

In Tennessee, Hines diverted the Union troops' attention away from Morgan and was himself recaptured and sentenced to death by hanging.

He convinced Confederate President Jefferson Davis of a plan to instill mass panic in the northern states by freeing prisoners and systematic arson in the larger U.S. cities.

It was hoped that Hines and his men would be able to free the Confederate prisoners held at Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois.

A second attempt to free the Camp Douglas Confederate prisoners occurred during the United States Presidential Election of 1864, but that plan was also foiled.

On his last day in Chicago, Hines had to avoid discovery by U.S. soldiers inspecting the home he was hiding in by crawling into a mattress upon which the homeowner's wife lay ill with delirium.

This time, with the help of friends whose home he hid in, Hines concealed himself in an old closet obscured by mortar and red bricks, where he avoided detection by the troops who inspected the house.

On November 10, 1864, at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Covington, Kentucky, they were married, despite her father's wishes to wait until the war was over due to Hines' wartime activities.

[16] Two days after Lincoln's assassination, on April 16, 1865, Hines was in Detroit, Michigan, when he was mistaken for John Wilkes Booth, who was then the subject of a massive search.

Once U.S. President Andrew Johnson declared a pardon for most former Confederates, Hines returned to Detroit to sign a loyalty oath to the United States on July 20, 1865.

[18] After sending his wife to Kentucky, where their first child was born, Hines began living in Memphis, Tennessee, passing the bar exam on June 12, 1866, with high honors.

In 1886, Hines began writing four articles discussing the Northwest Conspiracy for Basil W. Duke's Southern Bivouac magazine.