a Scotsman who subsequently freed him. He was quick-witted and an accomplished role player, which permitted him to function in several different identities on various missions, including food vendor, cook, or laborer. He often worked with other Pinkerton agents, sometimes playing the role of their servant while in the South. He worked with Timothy Webster, perhaps Pinkerton's best agent, on missions into Virginia and also with Mrs. Hattie Lawton, Pinkerton's best female operative. Scobell is credited with providing valuable intelligence on Confederate order of battle, status of supplies, and troop morale and movements. Frequently, while the white Pinkerton agents elicited information from Confederate officials and officers, Scobell would seek out leaders in the black community and collect their information on local conditions, fortifications, and troop dispositions. Scobell often used his membership in the "Legal League," a clandestine Negro organization in the South supporting freedom for slaves, to acquire local information. League members sometimes supported Scobell's collection activities by acting as couriers to carry his information to Union lines. On at least one occasion, as described by Pinkerton, Scobell protected the escape of Mrs. Lawton from pursuing Confederate agents. He worked for Pinkerton from late 1861 until the intelligence chief closed down his operations in November 1862, when McClellan was replaced by Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside. According to Corey Recko, historians have not been able to discover proof that slave/spy John Scobell existed. He may have been a fictional character created by Allan Pinkerton for his book The Spy of the Rebellion. Riverboat spy W. H. Ringgold was a free person of color who worked on a riverboat on the York River in Virginia. He had been "impressed" (coerced) into service as a result of having been in Fredericksburg at the time Virginia seceded from the Union. Ringgold spent six months on the river, helping move troops and supplies on the Virginia peninsula. When his ship was damaged by a storm, he and the other crewmen were permitted to travel to the North by way of Maryland's Eastern Shore. On reaching Baltimore, he sought out Union officials, who immediately sent him to Pinkerton in Washington. In December 1861, Ringgold provided Pinkerton with detailed intelligence on Confederate defenses on the peninsula. This included locations of fortifications and artillery batteries, troop concentrations, and defenses on the York River. His information was the best McClellan received before the start of his Peninsula Campaign in