Pinkerton Honoring the Central Role of African Americans in U.S. history
Culture
As part of Black History Month honoring the central role of African Americans in U.S. history, we want to honor the legacy of some notable Pinkertons.
Today, we honor John Scobell. While serving as the head of the Union Intelligence Service in the Civil War, Allan Pinkerton diligently debriefed runaway and freed slaves, some of whom he personally recruited to go back into the South as secret service agents. One such agent was John Scobell of Mississippi, who had been educated and freed by his owner. Pinkerton said that Scobell was remarkably gifted and favorably impressed him.
In 1861, after several short-term assignments, Scobell was sent on a long-term assignment behind enemy lines with two other Pinkerton agents, Timothy Webster and Carrie Lawton in Richmond, Virginia, where he assumed the cover of an illiterate servant. Ever cool-headed and vigilant, Scobell acted ignorant to the Civil War. Confederate officers dismissed Scobell simply as a butler, often leaving important documents in view and freely discussing war strategy in front of him.
The trio’s assignment was cut short in 1862 when Webster, Lawton and Schobell were betrayed, arrested, and tried as spies. Webster was sentenced to death. Lawton was sentenced to one year in prison. Scobell was released because the Confederates could not believe a servant could be a spy for the North.
Later in the war, Scobell often traveled deep into the South where he recruited black couriers from an underground organization known as the Legal League or the Loyal League. Scobell ran a sort of sub-secret service agency to dispatch intelligence to Pinkerton and the Union, and it was through Scobell and his operatives that the Union obtained the most prolific intelligence throughout the Civil War.
