Hattie Lawton

Hattie Lawton, also known as Hattie H. Lawton, Hattie Lewis Lawton was an American detective. She may have been born around 1837, although most details of her life before and after the 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."

Civil War
Lawton continued to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency during the Civil War. She was part of the team that participated in the detection of the alleged 1861 Baltimore assassination plot against President-elect Abraham Lincoln and, according to Pinkerton's account, in the early part of 1861 Hattie was stationed in Perrymansville, Maryland with Timothy Webster, another Pinkerton agent.

After Pinkerton began his “Secret Service” for Gen. George B. McClellan, Lawton and Webster were added to the payroll of the Pinkerton’s service in Washington on August 8, 1861. Lawton again posing as Timothy Webster’s wife appeared in Richmond, Virginia in the early part of 1862. The two were sent by Pinkerton to Richmond to gather intelligence about Confederate army movements.

Arrest and Imprisonment
Lawton tended to Webster when he fell ill at the Monument Hotel in Richmond, Virginia and this prevented reports back to 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.

Pinkerton sent two agents, Pryce Lewis and John Scully, to Richmond 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.

Webster was sentenced to death and executed on April 29, 1862. Lawton was sentenced to one year in Castle Thunder prison in Richmond, Virginia. Hattie, carried on records as "Mrs. Timothy Webster", was one of a party of four Federals exchanged for Belle Boyd on December 13, 1862.

During her imprisonment, Richmond's most accomplished Union spy, Elizabeth Van Lew, visited Lawton but it is not clear whether Van Lew was aware of the real identity of Mrs Timothy Webster. After her release from prison, nothing is known about Lawton.