Black Dispatches - Riverboat Spy

Riverboat Spy

While Scobell was roaming behind enemy lines between Washington and Richmond, another black American, W. H. Ringgold, was working 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 back 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 March 1862; it was also the basis for much of his strategic planning for the opening of that campaign.