Talk:Black Dispatches

Untitled
I found this article while contributing to "American Civil War spies." I will link to it from that article, but it needs better citations. Also, Carrie Lawton may be a mistake or typo for Hattie Lawton.S. Frantz 19:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Did John Scobell not exist?
It seems like it might already be a known fact among historians that Allan Pinkerton made up the John Scobell character for his book The Spy of the Rebellion and that Scobell never in fact existed. Historians such as James D. Horan, who have written extensive histories of the agency make no mention of Scobell (which is odd if he was important as claimed); Pinkerton's (latest?) biographer, James MacKay, makes no mention of Scobell in his book Allan Pinkerton: The First Private Eye; Edwin Fishel lists the operatives that went south for Pinkerton, and makes no mention of Scobell, and Webster's biographer explicitly states (with evidence) that Scobell did not exist in A Spy for the Union: The Life and Execution of Timothy Webster. Shootseven (talk) 04:10, 27 December 2013 (UTC)shootseven