In the winter of 1861, Allan Pinkerton’s best agent—Timothy Webster—provided the famous detective with information that helped thwart a plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln in Baltimore. A year later, Webster had ingratiated himself with the highest circles in the Confederacy and was feeding detailed information to Pinkerton in Washington. A cold February night found him on his way back to Richmond with secret correspondence.
“Pickets!”
Timothy Webster hissed the word in a loud whisper as he huddled down in the shadowy bulkhead of an oyster boat.
Darkness had fallen upon the Potomac like a funeral pall, broken only by the cold radiance of the moon. Covered with a rime of frost, the woods and wetlands along the isthmus lay silent and still—as though held in suspended animation in the eye of a storm—the winds of war percolating in all directions.
From the outbreak of the conflict, the Union Navy had attempted to blockade the entire Eastern seaboard, including much of the Chesapeake Bay as well as the Gulf of Mexico, until small ports such as Leonardtown, Md., must have felt like claustrophobic archipelagos. Southerners stranded in such hamlets murmured constantly of insurrection and escape. After nearly a year of civil war, paranoia reigned. People did not readily know who to trust.
“PICKETS!” Webster called again, vexed by the lack of response from the Confederate troops stationed along the southern banks of the river. His dinghy floated at a dead stop. The other passengers waited in the chill wind. In the moonlight, across the black mirror of the Potomac, Webster could see the lanterns and fortifications of the Rebel guards, who knew his voice well but were not responding. Why? Why weren’t they giving the all-clear?
The oyster boatman looked on nervously. Something was wrong.
Next to the boatman sat Hattie Lawton, the slender, olive-skinned, faithful companion, clad in her masculine garb, stoic if not quite sanguine. Lawton trusted Webster implicitly, trusted him with her life, trusted him in any situation that might arise. Proving herself the bravest and most resourceful of all the operatives in Allan J. Pinkerton’s Female Detective Bureau, Hattie Lawton had spent months in Baltimore posing as Timothy Webster’s wife. It is likely— regardless of whether Lawton and Webster had ever consummated their close working relationship—she had come to esteem Webster beyond simple professional admiration.
Webster called out for the pickets a few more times and got no reply. The lanterns winked out. In the ensuing darkness, Webster ordered the boatman to land downstream a few hundred yards.
The boatman complied, and moments later the dinghy struck ground.
They off-loaded their provisions, and Webster bade the boatman a farewell. With his oar the boatman pushed himself off the shore and vanished into the darkness. Webster and Lawton turned and crept through the dense shadows of the forest, carrying their packs, trying to get their bearings and figure out why the Confederate soldiers had behaved so strangely.
Around midnight they came to a farmhouse. A sudden eruption of dogs barking heralded their arrival. Webster would have been shivering, the cold and the stress touching off his rheumatism. A farmer, roused by the noise of the animals, came to the door and demanded to know the reason for such an intrusion at this ungodly hour.
Webster calmly explained the situation, and the farmer, a Rebel sympathizer, became instantly accommodating and invited them inside. But they had no sooner shed their overcoats, and had started warming their numb fingers at the fire, when a loud knock rang out.
Webster and Lawton hid in the shadows, while the farmer answered the door and found a Confederate guard standing outside, demanding to know the identity of the newcomers. “I’ve been ordered to bring them immediately before the captain of the guard,” the guard informed the farmer.
“Why didn’t you tell them that when they called out to you before?” the farmer wanted to know.
“We didn’t know who they were, and we didn’t think it was safe.”
“Ah…so you were afraid of them, were you? So afraid you ran away?”
At this point, Webster came out of hiding and confronted the guard. In short temper Webster looked the guard in the eye and said, “Tell your commander that I will not stir from this house until morning! My name is Timothy Webster. I am in the employ of the Confederacy, and if you had answered my call, there would have been no difficulty.”
After a tense moment, the guard decided not to press the issue and went away.
Webster breathed a sigh of relief. But the mood inside the genial warmth of the farmhouse had shifted. All present that night would have felt it. In the wake of the rising tide of bloodshed in the war, as well as the frantic efforts to catch traitors, trust was in short supply.
After a night of restless, feverish dozing, Webster awoke the next morning in a spasm of pain. Every joint in his body stabbed with the sharpness of broken glass. He struggled through breakfast, and then, thanking the farmer, set out with Lawton for the Rebel encampment two miles away.
He arrived at the picket line and asked to see a Major Beale, the officer in command. Webster was told that Beale was stationed 20 miles away. But upon telegraphing the man, a terse, succinct reply came back to the troops: “Let Webster go where he pleases.”
Rheumatic fever lies in wait in a sufferer’s body. Playing a cat and mouse game with the immune system, it can flare up at a moment’s notice, or it can sneak up with the agonizing slowness of a low-grade fever inching up the thermometer.
En route to Richmond, Webster’s condition deteriorated. Hattie Lawton would have known the situation without asking. Webster’s complexion had become wan and ashen, and his movements lethargic and labored. The pain etched itself on his face.
By the time they reached the Monument Hotel in the heart of the Confederate capital—which thrummed with the beat of troops on the move—Webster had a hard time standing in place without falling over. It could not have been a worse time to be in a compromised condition in the Rebel stronghold.
On the Western front, Nashville was under siege by Union forces, and a former dry-goods clerk named Ulysses Grant was leading a Federal force up the Tennessee River and establishing camp at Shiloh Church. Robert E. Lee’s main army was about to fall back from Manassas to the Rappahannock River, and security in Richmond had tightened to unprecedented levels. General John H. Winder, the city’s provost marshal, was starting to listen to his paranoid war clerk, refusing to grant passports for regular couriers.
The scene at the Monument Hotel had grown solemn and tense, and upon his arrival, the normally jovial Webster immediately retired to his room.
By dawn the next morning, he could barely move.
Three weeks passed. In Washington, the pressure to act weighed down on George McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac. For months he had been planning and drilling for a mammoth operation to be known as the Peninsula Campaign— which would culminate in the capture of Richmond—but his careful, solicitous style ate at Lincoln and his Cabinet. Allan Pinkerton watched all this discord with outrage and defensiveness. In his memoir, he writes:
The delay, which General McClellan wisely deemed necessary for the perfect equipment and education of his army, was being used as a pretext by those who envied the young commander, to detract from his reputation, and to impair the confidence, which a united people had reposed in his loyalty and ability. The President was besieged by inopportune cavilers, the burden of whose refrain was the defamation of the hero of West Virginia, and it is not surprising, however much to be regretted, that Mr. Lincoln gradually permitted their clamors to disturb him, and eventually partook of some of the distrust with which they endeavored to impress him.
More immediate problems plagued and distracted Pinkerton at this point. Timothy Webster had dropped off the edge of the earth. Pinkerton had heard nothing from the man in weeks, which was highly irregular. Normally Webster would check in with his boss once a week, or at minimum every two weeks, but it was now late February and no word had come from Richmond.
On February 23, 1862, Pinkerton called an emergency meeting with every agent available who wasn’t in the throes of an active intelligence operation. Of the six operatives who arrived at Pinkerton’s headquarters that day—all friends or admirers of Webster’s—Pinkerton favored two men to go on the dangerous mission into enemy territory to “make inquiries about the missing operative, and come to his rescue, if necessary.”
With the benefit of hindsight, Pryce Lewis seemed a likely candidate. The dapper Brit knew the South intimately and—with the exception of Webster—was probably Pinkerton’s best man. John Scully, a fiery young Irishman with a taste for wine and spirits, would turn out to be a disastrous choice.
Lewis gladly accepted the challenge but was reticent about serving alongside Scully. He took Pinkerton aside and begged the chief not to send the younger man along. The assignment, according to Lewis, was too risky for two men. “One man can remember a story and stick to it,” Lewis explained, “but two will be sure to suffer.”
Pinkerton convinced Lewis that Scully would be used only as a courier to deliver Webster’s mail, if necessary. Once Webster was rescued, Scully would return to Washington, while Lewis would join Webster and move deeper into enemy territory for further orders.
Lewis relented. Scully was in, and now it was time to prepare for the mission.
Pinkerton gave the agents “new clothes, luggage, a Navy Colt pistol apiece, and a bag of gold coins.” He manufactured a fake letter, addressed to Webster, “apparently written by a Rebel spy,” which introduced the two men as friends of the South. Pinkerton also arranged for an escort—an operative by the name of William H. Scott, who was well acquainted with Federal commanders along the battle lines—to see the men across the Potomac.
Despite all the precautions and the well-heeled guide, their journey into Virginia proved arduous. After passing through Union patrols and bidding Scott a grateful farewell, they took a rowboat across the river and encountered a sudden and unexpected squall. The boat ended up swamped in an estuary, and the men had to wade through icy waters—in an eerie reenactment of Webster’s ordeal—to get to land. After reaching the Virginia shore, they buried any incriminating documents or letters in the sandy loam, then wandered the forests until they reached a small village. It was there that they got more bad news: The ferry had been sunk by a Federal gunboat, and another ferry would not be expected until the following day. Dodging Rebel patrols, they bided their time until the next ferry put out for Richmond. They did not reach the Southern capital until late in the afternoon on February 26.
Lewis and Scully had no idea where to find Webster, so they checked into the Exchange Hotel, where they, in Pinkerton’s words, “remained quietly for the night,” planning their movements. The next day they started their search at the offices of the Richmond Enquirer, the proprietors of which had used Webster many times as a courier.
But what Lewis and Scully did not notice as they entered the Enquirer building was that a young woman by the name of Morton happened to be passing the newspaper’s office at almost the same time. This young lady caught a glimpse of the two agents, and the memory of an unpleasant encounter in Washington filled Miss Morton with such repugnance that she decided to report her sighting immediately to the authorities.
The newspapermen at the Enquirer had no clue as to Webster’s whereabouts. But just as Lewis and Scully were about to leave, an office worker took them aside and explained confidentially that he had heard a rumor that Webster was bedridden at the Monument Hotel.
Even in his feverish, weakened state, Timothy Webster found the unexpected visit by his fellow counterspies deeply troubling. He feared that their presence might tip off observant authorities. In a tense, formal, almost coded exchange, Webster strongly urged the two rescuers to make themselves scarce. Lewis and Scully left the hotel after only a few minutes of awkward, hushed conversation.
Later that day, concerned for the well-being of their stricken comrade, they returned to Webster’s room. There they found Webster in the presence of a hard-nosed Rebel officer named Captain John McCubbin. Webster, concealing his alarm, made the introductions.
“Have you gentlemen reported in at General Winder’s office?” the captain asked Lewis and Scully.
“No, sir,” Lewis replied. “We didn’t think it was necessary, having fully reported to Major Beale, and having received his permission to travel.”
“It is necessary.” The captain let out a flinty laugh, which held very little mirth. “And now I’m giving you official notice of that fact.”
“Very well, very well,” Lewis backpedaled. “We’ll do so as early as possible.”
“Any time within a day or two will answer nicely.”
Webster, crestfallen on his bed, immediately saw through the casual facade of the captain—the officer’s cold smile as menacing as a gun barrel—and Webster knew it was too late. The mistake had been made. And now it was only a question of how much damage had been done.
The next day, at the provost marshal’s office, Captain McCubbin casually grilled the two counterspies under the watchful eye of General Winder. Lewis and Scully told the officers that they were fellow couriers of Webster’s, working for the South, that they were natives of England and Ireland, and that Scully had been in America nearly three years, while Lewis had arrived only 18 months ago. Scully spoke of his connection with a dry-goods house in New York City, and Lewis explained that he represented a London publishing firm. They showed them the fake letter and explained past affiliations with secessionist families in Baltimore, for whom they had smuggled goods in and out of the South. “This interview was conducted in a very pleasant manner,” Pinkerton later wrote, “and after they had fully answered all the questions which had been propounded to them, they took their leave, being politely invited by the general to call upon him whenever convenient.”
Feeling smugly confident they had passed the test, Lewis and Scully returned to Webster’s hotel. There they found Webster in worse condition than the night before. Wracked with pain, Webster listened to their account of the interrogation. Before the men had finished, a knock on the door interrupted their tale. Hattie Lawton answered it and found a detective from the provost marshal’s office standing there, looking apologetic. Lawton invited the man into the room.
“Please forgive the intrusion,” the detective said to Lewis. “I’ve been asked to follow up on a small detail from the interview with General Winder.”
“Certainly,” Pryce Lewis said cordially.
“May I ask each of you gentlemen what parts of England and Ireland you hail from originally?”
Lewis and Scully each answered the question, and the detective thanked them and took his leave.
Webster’s feverish eyes burned with urgency. “Get away from Richmond immediately!”
Lewis and Scully stared incredulously at the sick man propped up in bed.
“There’s danger brewing,” Webster went on with fire in his gaze. “You are certainly suspected, and it may go very hard with all of us, unless you leave the city at once!”
“Why do you think so?” Scully looked taken aback. “We certainly can’t be suspected of anything….You’re alarming yourself unnecessarily.”
A spasm of agony rocked Webster, and he stiffened, before managing a hoarse dissent: “I tell you, that man never would have come here with that question unless there was something wrong. You must, indeed, get away…or the consequences will be serious—”
Webster had hardly gotten the words out when another rap on the door gave everyone in the room a start. Lawton answered it and came face to face with two men, one of whom was very familiar to Pryce Lewis.
In the early weeks of the war, Lewis and Scully had conducted a series of searches back in Washington—per Pinkerton’s orders—of the sprawling estate of Jackson Morton, the former U.S. senator from Florida. Upon secession, Morton had become an outspoken representative of the Confederacy, and his home in the capital—still occupied at that time by his wife and daughter—had become a target for Federal investigators. Lewis himself had searched the daughter’s bags on more than one occasion at the train station during her many trips to the South.
Now, at the threshold of Webster’s room, standing beside a high-ranking official with the Richmond provost marshal’s office, was a young Confederate lieutenant named Chase Morton, scion of the Morton fortune and the youngest son of Senator and Mrs. Jackson Morton.
Lewis kept his cool and did not give away his astonishment at the sight of Morton. But Scully nervously avoided the young lieutenant’s burning gaze and hastily tried to excuse himself from the room. He was in such a hurry he left his overcoat behind. Lewis apologized for his companion’s rudeness and followed Scully into the corridor, but just as the two agents were hurtling down the stairs, a voice called out from Webster’s doorway.
“Are your names Lewis and Scully?!”
Lewis paused, turned and bravely faced his inquisitor at the top of the stairs. “Yes, sir.”
“I have orders to convey you to General Winder’s office.”
“Don’t you remember me?”
Lieutenant Chase Morton was livid and did most of the talking that day in the imposing office of General Winder, who was absent at the moment, attending to other matters.
Surrounded by Confederate officers and detectives, Lewis and Scully were being subjected to unrelenting scrutiny. “I do not,” Pryce Lewis calmly replied. “I do not remember ever having seen you at any time before today.”
“You don’t remember coming to my mother’s house in Washington? Searching my sister’s bags?”
“No, sir, I do not.”
“You don’t remember coming there as an agent of the Secret Service of the federal government and making a thorough search of our premises and its contents?”
Scully squirmed.
“You are mistaken, sir,” Pryce Lewis intoned, still with little or no betrayal of emotion. “I know nothing of what you are alluding to.”
Lieutenant Morton lost his temper then, and started shouting, when all at once General Winder entered the room, and all conversation ceased. After a series of salutes and deference paid to the older man, Winder came over to Lewis. With an icy smile, the general shook Lewis’ hand. “How do you do, Mr. Lewis…and how is Mr. Seward?”
Lewis and Scully were placed under arrest and confined to the ramshackle Henrico County Jail. A complex of rotting two-story brick piles surrounded by stockades of ancient timbers, the jail was just south of town, on the edge of the wetlands. For three days the pair languished in a cell with six other detainees. Formal charges had not yet been imposed, and no one from the provost marshal’s office communicated with either operative.
In General Winder’s words, they were “given time to think the matter over.”
Whatever thinking Lewis and Scully did during this period, it is not improbable that their thoughts turned to Webster. With a mixture of shame, regret, panic and anger, they each considered the possibility that their apprehension would result in danger to Webster. They passed the hours bolstering each other’s resolve, agreeing to stick to their original story. They would say nothing beyond the claim that they were Southern couriers falsely accused of counterespionage, and they would abide by the consequences, no matter how grave.
For Pryce Lewis, the proposition of remaining steadfast was never in question. The stubborn insistence that he was unjustly arrested came less from courage or honor and more from his admiration for Webster. John Scully, rattled by the arrest, already showed signs of breaking. Perhaps the Rebels intuited this dichotomy; on the fourth day, early in the morning, they would systematically begin working at this weak spot.
Scully jumped at the sound of bars clanging. An attaché with the provost marshal’s office stood outside the cell, calling Scully’s name.
Evidently Winder had requested an audience with the young man.
Writes Pinkerton: “Scully prepared himself…and taking leave of his companion, followed the officer. He did not return that night, and for days afterwards, Lewis was in ignorance of what had become of him.”
The pressure proved too much for Scully, who eventually betrayed Webster to the Rebels. Webster was arrested April 3, 1862, and subsequently convicted of espionage. He was executed April 28. Scully and Lewis survived the war, but both suffered as a result of Webster’s conviction. Although it appears Scully talked but Lewis didn’t, Lewis was nevertheless accused of having turned on Webster to win his own release—a notion that still persists.
Adapted from Pinkerton’s War by Jay Bonansinga. Copyright 2012 by Jay Bonansinga. Used by permission of The Lyons Press (www.lyonspress.com).
Originally published in the March 2012 issue of America’s Civil War. To subscribe, click here.
