Henson was born in Blount Springs, Alabama. At an early age he would accompany his father, a Federal Indian Agent, on his travels to Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. Upon his father's death in 1839, Henson, at twelve years of age, left home to work as a mail carrier for U.S. Government contractor Daniel Seavers, a herder for Edwards and Cornelius, and an overseer for Thomas Turnbow in order to help support his widowed mother and siblings. He would not return home until 1859 after leading a settlement expedition to the Mesilla Valley where he earned the rank of Captain which was conferred upon him by the grateful company of settlers. On the eve of the American Civil War, Henson was working as a storekeeper and living with his wife Celestine Rachel in Corinth, Mississippi. Just as he was about to have to work once again as an overseer for planter Moore McCauley in order that he'd be exempt from serving in the Confederate army, Alabama Governor A.B. Moore and Montgomery Mayor A.J. Noble appointed him Captain of the State's Militia and the Confederacy's Postmaster General, John Henninger Reagan selected him for the position of Field Supervisor in the Confederate Post Office Department. As a result, he resumed traveling throughout the Southwest. During the course of his travels he revisited former Texas Governor Houston, who'd been removed from office upon his refusal to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy. Houston presented Henson with a life changing proposition: become a scout and spy for the Union. He was sent by Houston to Illinois to meet with U.S. Congressman Washburne and a little known Union Colonel named Grant who was "killing time" drilling and recruiting Illinois Volunteers. Henson swore an oath of loyalty to the Union, because, as he'd attest to whenever asked about it, "I believed in it". Thus began a twenty five-year relationship between the two men that would see them move together from Civil War battlefields to the White House.
Henson's career as a Union scout and spy commenced in earnest when he had a fateful meeting with Confederate General Leonidas Polk, who was known as "The Fighting Bishop" due to the fact that before the war Polk was the Episcopalian Bishop of Louisiana. Polk informed Henson that Confederate Generals Gideon Johnson Pillow and John Buchanan Floyd were in command of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, respectively. Henson in turn advised Grant of Polk's admission that two "political" Generals were in charge of defending the two key forts. Shortly thereafter, Grant would earn his nickname "Unconditional Surrender" when he recorded the first two victories of the war for the Union as a result of his taking advantage of the inferior skill sets of both Pillow and Floyd to win the Battles of Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862. Unfortunately for both Henson and Grant, the war made its way to Corinth which prevented Henson from warning Grant in advance about the "surprise attack" Confederate Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard planned for him at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. The resulting bloodbath would become known as the Battle of Shiloh, and Grant would find himself with an unwanted nickname, "The Butcher". It was after Shiloh, when Grant, Generals William Tecumseh Sherman, Grenville Mellen Dodge, and Colonel John Aaron Rawlins finally arrived in a by then evacuated Corinth, during a meeting with Henson in attendance, that the subject of a scorched earth policy and the topic of total war was first discussed. Also, at this time, Henson in response to requests from Andrew Jackson Hamilton and Charles Christopher Sheats would introduce the Southern Unionists known as "The Mossbacks of Nickajack" to Grant, resulting in the enlistment of over 2,000 loyal Alabamans in the legendary 1st Alabama Cavalry US Volunteers. Later on during the war, they'd be accorded the honor by General Sherman of serving as his escort during his March to the Sea. The following year Henson made his way to Vicksburg, Mississippi to gather information on the Confederate forces in the city. Much to Grant's good fortune he managed to convince Confederate General John C. Pemberton to take him into his confidence. Henson gave Pemberton misinformation in regards to the purported inhumane treatment Confederate prisoners of war were supposedly receiving from their Union captors. Pemberton then had him share his story with the troops within Vicksburg in the hope of "stirring the Southern soul" which in turn gave him free run of the entire city. The information he garnered, including details about the city's canals, was ultimately utilized by Grant in the successful siege and subsequent surrender of Vicksburg in 1863 which would further Grant's celebrity as the "thinking man's General". A year later in 1864, Henson had the misfortune of being brought to the attention of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest too many times for his own good. Forrest arrested and imprisoned him for over six months until Henson finally managed to escape and return to Union lines prior to the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee to Grant at Appomattox. It was then that his "handler" General Dodge was quoted as having said to Henson "Well, Phil, the damn rope has not been made yet to hang you". Dodge referred to Henson as his "most colorful spy". Afterwards, when Forrest was asked about his not having "hung him until dead", he uttered that Henson was "The most dangerous spy operating within the Confederacy". However, it wouldn't be until much later that Henson in an interview with one of Joseph Pulitzer's Fighting EditorsGeorge Sibley Johns in September 1887 would himself say about his efforts on behalf and to the benefit of his beloved country; "I don't know how, but I believe that God was with me and preserved me for what I had to do. I never felt a fear of death. When I was ordered to be shot once, I told my wife that I did not believe that I would be shot, but if I should be I was ready to die for the cause, as my work would be finished". For his contributions to the war effort Henson would receive brevets for the rank of Major.
Career as ''Special'' Secret Service Agent and death
For Henson, especially taking into consideration his skills and talents as a master of disguise and dialects, impersonator, horseman, marksman, sharpshooter and cryptographer, his career as a Special Secret Service Agent was a natural progression for him. In the aftermath of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, General Grant asked him to conduct a "confidential and discrete" investigation to discover any and all details of Lincoln's death. It was a task that continued during Grant's Presidency and resulted in brevets for the rank of Lieutenant Colonel being bestowed upon him. Ultimately, it took over twenty years to complete. According to Henson's sons, he told them Grant had died without giving permission to release the findings, but that "Damn thing of it was to track the trail of blood, bodies and bucks 'til it got me there". Denied a pension by the government after the war, he took to giving lectures about his spying activities to make a living, showing off his beard, which he let grow to over 6 feet long, to promote his appearances. Henson died in Paris, Texas at the home of his eldest son, Phillip Edgar, a well-known cotton dealer, at 10:15 P.M. on Tuesday evening the 10th day of January, 1911. The younger son Captain William O'Dell resided in San Antonio, Texas at the time. Philip Henson and his wife, Celestine, who had died approximately ten years before him, are interred side by side in the Henry Cemetery in Corinth, Mississippi. According to his sons his last words were "Reckon you never ever know until you get there".
