page_title: Hattie Lawton
section_title: Arrest and imprisonment
hierarchical_section_title: Hattie Lawton / American Civil War / Arrest and imprisonment
caption_attribution_description: Richmond, Va. Castle Thunder, Cary Street
context_page_description: Hattie Lawton, also known as Hattie H. Lawton, Hattie Lewis, and Hattie Lewis Lawton was an American detective, who worked for Allan Pinkerton, of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Lawton may have been born around 1837, although most details of her life, before and after the American Civil War, are unknown. "[Hattie] Lawton was part of Pinkerton's Female Detective Bureau, formed in 1860 to 'worm out secrets' by means unavailable to male detectives."
context_section_description: Hattie Lawton tended to Timothy Webster when he fell ill at the Monument Hotel in Richmond, which prevented intelligence reports from being sent back to Allan Pinkerton. John Scobell, an African American Union spy, worked with the "twenty-five-year-old beauty", Hattie Lawton, during this time, posing as her servant.
  Allan Pinkerton sent two agents, Pryce Lewis and John Scully, to Richmond, Virginia, to find out what happened to Webster and Lawton. They found Webster and Lawton, but Lewis and Scully were recognized as Pinkerton agents, arrested and later released as part of a prisoner exchange on March 18, 1863. Various sources indicate that one or both of the men, either to save their own lives or after being tricked, revealed the identity of Webster.  Webster and Lawton were arrested and after a quick trial both were found guilty. 
  Timothy Webster was sentenced to death and executed, on April 29, 1862.  Lawton was sentenced to one year in Castle Thunder prison in Richmond, Virginia. In Confederate records, Lawton was described as "Mrs. Timothy Webster", one of a party of four Federals, exchanged for Confederate spy Belle Boyd, on December 13, 1862.
  During her imprisonment, Richmond's most accomplished Union spy, Elizabeth Van Lew, visited Hattie Lawton, but it is unclear whether Van Lew was aware of the real identity of "Mrs. Timothy Webster".
caption: Castle Thunder Prison, Richmond, Virginia, 1865.
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