International Women's History Month: Elizabeth H. Baker

As part of National Women’s History Month, we are celebrating the vital role Lady Pinks, or Pinkerton's women operatives, played in American history. Next on our list is experienced Pinkerton detective Elizabeth H. Baker.

In late 1861, Baker operated out of Pinkerton’s Chicago office and was asked to go to Virginia to gather information about the Confederate Navy.

Described as a “genteel woman agent” and conversant with the culture and customs of Virginia, she willingly used her knowledge, skill, and contacts to garner an invitation into the home of old friends, a Confederate naval officer, and his socialite wife who lived in Richmond.

While living with them and under the guise of a Southern sympathizer, she also garnered an invitation to a demonstration of an unnamed, torpedoed-equipped submarine designed to battle against the Union blockade of the shipping lanes.

The day after the demonstration, Baker was taken on a tour of Tredegar Iron Works, which supplied half of the South’s domestically produced artillery. Baker witnessed the sheer volume and diversity of artillery and the production of two more submarines, iron plating for the ironclad warships, and steam engines.

Late that night, Baker sketched all she had seen on scraps of paper and included details about how the submarines operated, the number of Confederate troops in Richmond, and the city’s fortifications.

Two days later, Baker procured a travel pass, bade her hosts farewell, and returned to the North, informing Pinkerton that unless something was done and quickly, untold disaster would befall the Union cause. Pinkerton relayed the urgent message to the Union Navy.

While the newspapers stated that the discovery of a peculiar machine “by a mere accident” saved the Federal fleet off the James River from destruction, Pinkerton said that the real credit was due to Baker, who performed a “great service to the nation.”

If it weren’t for the work of Elizabeth Baker and Pinkerton’s other female spies, the outcome of the Civil War might have been vastly different.

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