For Love of Freedom

As the Civil War splits the country, Allan Pinkerton devised a plan to flood the South with highly trained Negro spies. Their resulting intelligence provides Union Forces the information they need to win the war. Lincoln refused to allow the country to stay divided. To assist him, he recruited Allan Pinkerton to form the Secret Service. Pinkerton, a staunch abolitionist, whose home in Chicago was on the Underground Railroad, developed a plan to invade the south with Negro spies. He recruited escaped slaves, trained them how to spy and arranged for them to collect and send back information about Rebel military plans and troop strengths. They posed as servants, slaves and craftsmen. The most famous of these spies was John Scobell. John and his spies were in constant danger. If caught; torture, beatings and a quick death was guaranteed. Some died. But many were able to hide in plain sight beneath the dismissive nature and contempt held by Southerners toward Negroes. The Spies developed their own intelligent network around contacts in the Underground Railroad and turned that escape route into a two-way street never mentioned in history books. Fleeing slaves escaped north while highly trained Negro spies entered the South. John Scobell, with his wife Annie, survived the war as a spy. They were in Richmond to see Lincoln’s first United States Colored Troop, Regiment XXV, enter Richmond as an occupying force. The war was finally over. Freedom and a better America, a fair and safe one for all, loomed on the horizon. But as so many times happens, the devil is in the details. Fifty years later, John Scobell finds himself no longer facing the whip of the slave master but the whip of racism. Freedoms fought for have not been realized. A division in the country still exist, not in geography, but as a pungent stain of prejudice, bigotry and discrimination on our Country’s soul. If there is one thing American’s hate, it’s being lied to by government. If it is taught that a person or people are insignificant and trivial, those people become irrelevant. Our Civil War history is more than white Generals, there were many African American men and women, people of color, who were also heroes. To see their bravery and courage deliberately ignored by historians of the winning side is an outrage. Oppressed people being systematically subjugated by a dominating power exist all over the world. America needs to see how African Americans loved this country and risked their lives during our Civil War for freedom, freedom for all. We need to fight against this historical racism and shine a light of truth on their exploits. Our hope is to help end oppression here.