The search turned up nothing, as the Mortons had known it would all along. From the start they had had nothing to hide, other than the shame visited on them by their father. Pryce Lewis had no idea of the family estrangement, but he must have found it odd that when the Mortons were eventually allowed to leave Washington, escorted to the station by John Scully, they announced their intention to head not to Florida but to Richmond.
By the beginning of February 1862 Lewis had just about reached the end of his tether. The previous month he had been reduced to a glorified chaperone, escorting an army doctor, Lieutenant Garradieu, to Baltimore, where he was to be exchanged for a Union prisoner. He’d felt emasculated in the soldiers’ presence, a shirker among fighters, and decided it was time to confront Pinkerton and inform him that if he wasn’t put to better use as a spy he would “take a musket, join the army and go to the front.”
When Lewis arrived in the capital he found a message instructing him to attend a private interview with Pinkerton. The brevity of the order indicated it was something out of the ordinary. Upon entering Pinkerton’s office, Lewis was told to take a seat and then asked if he had any objections to going to Richmond. Lewis replied that he did, so Pinkerton asked to hear them. “It would be folly for me to go to Richmond under any circumstances,” Lewis told him and reminded his boss that with all the people he had arrested who had subsequently gone through the lines, “I believe I am better known in Richmond as a detective—though I have never been there—than I am in Washington.”
Pinkerton disagreed, so Lewis listed some of the people now living in the South who knew his real identity; they included “Mrs. Phillips and Mrs. Levy … Mrs. Morton and her family, and Lieutenant Dr. Garradieu, who has only just gone through.”
Don’t worry about them, said Pinkerton, with a casual flick of his hand, explaining that “Mrs. Phillips and Mrs. Levy were in New Orleans, that Mrs. Morton and family had gone to Florida, and that Lieutenant Dr. Garradieu had gone to Charleston [South Carolina].”
Lewis wasn’t convinced, but Pinkerton tetchily asked his operative to trust him for, after all, “it would be folly for me to ask you to go to Richmond if there were people there who would know you.” Lewis asked what it was in Richmond that was of such pressing importance, and Pinkerton replied that he wanted to find out what had happened to Timothy Webster. He believed him to be lying sick in Richmond, but perhaps, just perhaps, he had been arrested.
The name Webster changed everything for Lewis. Not only did he know him to be “the most important spy in our service,” but he was also, by all accounts, a decent fellow.
Lewis told Pinkerton he needed time to think. He was given until the following Sunday, February 16, to reach a decision.
When Lewis arrived on that date at the agency’s headquarters on 288 I Street, he was shown into the parlor, where he found George Bangs, Pinkerton’s deputy, and young John Scully sitting at a table on which “was a large map and a heap of gold coins.” Pinkerton was pacing the room. He looked at Lewis and asked for his decision. Lewis told him he would go to Richmond. Pinkerton and Lewis joined the other two men at the table, and Lewis was handed a letter in an unsealed envelope.
Pinkerton told Lewis that it was to be delivered to Webster. Lewis opened the letter and read it while Pinkerton informed him that “the letter is a mere blind and purports to be written by a good rebel, a citizen of Baltimore [named Scott] warning Tim Webster that, if he ever comes North again, not to come by way of Leonardtown because the United States authorities have got wind of him and were on the lookout to catch him.”
Lewis said nothing but gestured at a second letter now in Pinkerton’s hand. The Scot said that it was an introduction to James A. Cowardin, editor of the Richmond Dispatch, written by a rebel friend in Washington. Pinkerton explained that Webster usually stayed at the Spottswood Hotel in Richmond, but if for any reason he wasn’t there, Lewis should enlist the help of Cowardin to help find him. The letter was, of course, a forgery, said Pinkerton, but a very good forgery.
Lewis asked for a cover story; after all, he couldn’t just waltz into Richmond in search of Timothy Webster. Pinkerton replied that he was to say he was an English businessman with Southern sympathies, on his way to Chattanooga to discuss a cotton transaction, but taking time to first perform a service to the Confederacy. All Lewis’s doubts resurfaced. It was altogether too flimsy, too unfeasible. Pinkerton sensed Lewis’s anxieties and implored him to go south, reminding his operative that General McClellan was on the brink of an offensive and that Webster might possess information crucial to any such military action.
Lewis was surprised that Pinkerton talked with such candor in front of John Scully. Then it suddenly dawned on him: Scully was going too. When Pinkerton confirmed the fact, Lewis refused to accept the mission; Sam Bridgeman’s drunken exploits had nearly blown their cover in Charleston, and if that had taught Lewis one thing, it was that a mission deep inside enemy territory was best conducted independently and not as part of a team. “One man can tell a story and stick to it,” said Lewis, “but two will be sure to differ.”
Lewis turned to Scully, a tall, fair-headed Irishman, and assured him it was nothing personal, that in the previous occasions they had worked together he had struck him as an “honest and zealous” operative. But he preferred to go alone.
Pinkerton understood Lewis’s concerns but insisted he would need an accomplice, explaining to the Englishman that Scully was “to come back at once with the information Webster will give you, while you go on further South, working your way to Chattanooga.” Pinkerton added that Webster would give Scully directions how to get back promptly. And me, asked Lewis, how will I get back? That will be up to you, replied Pinkerton.
A sardonic smile spread across Lewis’s face. Much of the mission appeared half-baked, but at least it promised adventure, of the kind he’d craved for the past six months. There was another reason, too, why he agreed to ignore his misgivings about taking Scully. If the truth be known, Lewis “felt rather proud” that he had been asked “to go in order to relieve McClellan’s anxiety and permit a move forward.”
Neither Pinkerton nor George Bangs could conceal their relief at Lewis’s decision. In planning for the trip to Richmond, they had already suffered one setback when Charles Rosch, a skilled and experienced detective, “refused to undertake so dangerous a mission unless Pinkerton would first, by legal settlement, make provision for his family in case he was captured.” Pinkerton had declined Rosch’s request and selected in his place a man less assertive and more malleable: John Scully. The Irishman also had a family, but he was young and eager to impress, and accepted the assignment without a moment’s hesitation.
Lewis and Scully spent Monday, February 17, preparing for their trip south. They “purchased a new suit of clothing apiece, ready made to travel in, we packed our best clothes in large valises [and] each of us carried a six-shooter in the outside pocket of our valises.”
Pinkerton gave Lewis a third letter, this one addressed to General Joseph Hooker, in which he asked the Union commander to ensure his two operatives a safe passage through Maryland.
At noon on Tuesday Lewis and Scully rendezvoused at Pinkerton’s headquarters. It was a cold, gray day, and the cheerless skies reflected Lewis’s mood as he listened once more to Pinkerton’s instructions. The waiting was the worst part; that was when he had time to think of all the “what ifs.” Now he just wanted to get going.
At last they were on their way, accompanied by fellow Pinkerton man William Scott, whose rebel contacts in Maryland should prove useful on the initial leg of the journey. They trundled out of the capital in an old covered wagon driven by a taciturn man named Watts.
They stopped for the night in a small hotel at Port Tobacco, thirty miles south of Washington. Watts returned with the wagon, and Lewis and Scully discreetly disappeared upstairs to their room. Scott brought them their supper, and the next morning, just after dawn, he reappeared with breakfast. Before any o
ther guests had risen they were en route to Newport, a small village six miles above the mouth of the Wicomico River.
Scott booked Lewis and Scully into an inn owned by a rebel sympathizer. He told the landlord the two men were Confederate spies and on no account was he to mention their presence to any of his guests or staff. Scott then went off “to negotiate with a man named Sherborne, who kept a store in the place, for a boat and guides.” Sherborne was another of Scott’s contacts, a secessionist who believed he was assisting two bold rebels reach Virginia. He told Scott he could get a boat and a guide, but it would take time. Why? asked Scott. Sherborne replied that the area was crawling with Union soldiers on the lookout for rebel spies and contraband traders; he wasn’t going to take any unnecessary risks.
Lewis and Scully remained in their room, restless, fretful, irritable. Scott brought them food and books and newspapers, as if they were hospital patients, and in the evening they played cards and warmed themselves with a whiskey or two. Scott insisted that the pair spend part of each day rehearsing the story each should tell in case they fell into enemy hands.
On Saturday morning Sherborne came to the hotel and informed Scott that everything was arranged; they would set off down the Wicomico at first light on Sunday and then cross the Potomac that night. Two slaves belonging to a Maryland planter named Herbert would row them to Virginia. And the cost? asked Scott. One hundred dollars in gold, replied Sherborne. The two men shook hands, and Scott went upstairs to relay the good news.
On Saturday evening Lewis and Scully said good-bye to Scott and were taken by Sherborne to Herbert’s plantation. Lewis found Herbert to be a planter of the old school, courteous and cultured, and an excellent host. He asked no questions but made it plain he held Tim Webster, a man who had passed through this way on previous occasions, in high regard.
There was another guest at the Herbert plantation, a young Confederate officer named James McChesney, who was on his way south having paid a risky visit to his family in Maryland.
At dawn the next day, Sunday, February 23, the three men embarked down the Wicomico in a small boat rowed by the two slaves. The pace was leisurely, and it wasn’t until “about an hour before sunset, at a place called Cobb Neck, [that] we were in sight of the Potomac.” They drew into the bank and concealed themselves among some trees as the night drew in. Union gunboats passed close by, whistling as they went, and Lewis whispered to McChesney that only the Yankees would be so stupid to patrol during the day and lay up at night, when “an army might have crossed without discovery.”
Soon the gunboats were gone, and for a time “everything was still as death.” Then the wind began to rise, and they heard the drum of rain. Lewis dug out a stone from the bank and with it weighed down the letter addressed to General Hooker. As they pushed off toward Virginia Lewis dropped the stone in the water, destroying the last piece of material evidence that linked him and Scully to the Union.
It was a cold, wet, moonless night, but the men felt secure wrapped in the blanket of darkness. They landed at the foot of a bluff, and while McChesney and Scully scrambled up its steep sides, Lewis gave the two slaves five dollars apiece and told them to hurry home before the storm broke. The three men endured a miserable night in the woods. The wind increased, and when the storm broke, the rain cascaded through the trees.
February 24 dawned bright and clear, and they emerged from the woods to find a muddy track scarred by a recent set of wagon wheels. They followed the tracks, which led to a rough, stony lane on the border of a plantation. The men stopped and scanned the land around; there wasn’t a soul to be seen. McChesney found it disquieting and wondered out loud if they weren’t still in Virginia. Perhaps the slaves had become disorientated in the darkness.
The planter’s house was visible in the weak winter sunshine, so they moved toward it. As they approached, the door opened and “suddenly a pack of hounds came baying toward us.” An old man appeared and shouted at the dogs to quit their racket. Then he glared at the men, “noticed McChesney’s faded gray uniform, and began to denounce the Yankees in passionate terms.” Over breakfast the man and his wife explained that they were in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and the plantation belonged to Richard Beale, a former Democratic congressman who was now an officer in the Confederate army based at nearby Hague. Lewis told the man they “wanted to go to Richmond by the most direct route and he amiably volunteered to show us in person the way to the nearest crossroads a mile or so away.” At the crossroads they would be able to hire a conveyance from the postmaster to take them to Leedstown, from where they would take a boat west to Fredericksburg and then a train for the remaining sixty miles south to Richmond.
At the postmaster’s house they encountered their first obstacle. The postmaster explained that he was willing to take them to Leedstown, but the first boat didn’t depart until the next day, Tuesday, 25 February. He suggested they stay the night at the post office, which was also a guesthouse; then he would drive them to Leedstown the following morning. The three agreed and went upstairs to rest. Later they had some lunch, and the postmaster suggested that they might like “to see the spot where Washington was born, about a mile and a half away.”
A few minutes later, as they were preparing to leave on their excursion, they heard the approach of horsemen. Lewis looked out of the window and saw a dozen Confederate soldiers “in dingy, ill-fitting uniforms … nearly all of them were middle-aged or oldish men.”
Three of the soldiers dismounted and entered the post office, nodding at the postmaster and scrutinizing the strangers before them. When their leader spoke it was to confirm that they knew the trio had crossed the Potomac the previous evening. That’s correct, replied McChesney. In that case, said the soldier, they would be escorted to a military camp at Westmoreland Courthouse and interrogated.
They rode the ten miles to the courthouse in the postmaster’s buggy, the cavalrymen forming in front and rear of their conveyance. It was midafternoon when they arrived in Westmoreland, and the court had just adjourned for the day. A small crowd of people watched as the buggy passed, and Lewis heard a man ask one of the soldiers, “Where did you capture the Yankees?”
At the camp they were ordered out of the buggy and into a barracks full of Confederate soldiers. A hush fell on the room as the three men entered. Suddenly there were cries of “McChesney,” and several soldiers sprang forward. As McChesney shook the hands of old comrades, he turned and “introduced [the] two gentlemen who had helped him to escape out of the Yankee lines.” One of the soldiers started to sing “Maryland! My Maryland!” and soon the room reverberated to the sound of happy brothers.
The soldiers’ commanding officer was Captain Saunders, “a small man with pleasant manners,” who wanted to know where McChesney’s friends were headed. Lewis opened his valise, explaining as he did that his duty was to deliver a letter to Timothy Webster in Richmond. He handed the sealed letter to the captain and invited him to open it. Saunders shook his head and replied that he was well acquainted with “Captain Webster” and knew him to be a loyal Confederate.
It wasn’t until the evening of Tuesday, February 25, that Lewis and Scully finally boarded a boat at Leedstown for Fredericksburg. The vessel was full of rebel soldiers still raging at the news that Fort Donelson was now in Yankee hands. At six thirty on Wednesday morning they headed south from Fredericksburg on a train belonging to the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad company. There were few soldiers on the train, and Lewis and Scully congratulated each other on their success so far. Lewis confessed to his companion that his “anxiety to reach Richmond had been very great.” Now all they had to do was locate Webster and then get the hell out of the city.
*Captain John Elwood was arrested and imprisoned in the Old Capitol Prison. Denied a trial and interrogated relentlessly, Elwood sank into depression and cut his throat with a penknife on December 3, 1862.
C H A P T E R F I F T E E N
“He Is a Noble Fellow, a Most Valuable Man
to Us”
TO PROVINCIAL OFFICERS such as Captain Saunders, Timothy Webster was still the brave rebel mail carrier who relayed letters between Richmond and the North. Saunders’s acquaintance with Webster was fleeting, and he had no reason to doubt he wasn’t who he said he was. Yet in Richmond, General John Winder and his military police had started to harbor doubts about Webster.
So many of Webster’s fellow secessionists in Baltimore had been arrested and imprisoned, yet he continued to move freely without molestation. Despite Webster’s claims to be a gentleman of leisure, a few discreet inquiries had failed to unearth anyone who knew him prior to 1861.
Then the unmasking in Washington of James Howard, the clerk in Provost Marshal Porter’s office, seemed to lead inextricably back to Captain Tim Webster. The woman who had smuggled the map of the capital’s Federal defenses arrived in Richmond distraught at its loss, and her misery deepened when she learned it had fallen into Union hands. The Confederates retraced her movements to discover the likely mole.
She and her children had departed in a wagon from Washington with the map carefully concealed about her person. At Leonardtown she had spent the night in the hotel before continuing on to Cobb Neck and then the voyage across the Potomac when Webster had been a passenger. She recounted how she and her children had arrived cold and wet on the other side, and they and the other passengers had gone to the Virginian safehouse, where she’d removed her damp clothes and helped the children out of theirs. She must have lost the packet then, and someone else must have picked it up soon after. Webster was the most likely suspect.
If Webster was a double agent the damage he’d inflicted on the Confederacy was immense. He’d sat in the bar of the Spottswood Hotel drinking whiskey with the city’s military police; he’d been shown around military camps; he’d even delivered letters on behalf of Judah Benjamin, the secretary of war.
Double Death Page 15
