Lola Sánchez (Confederate spy)

Lola Sánchez (1844–1895) was one of three sisters who became spies for the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. Sánchez became upset when their father was falsely accused of being a Confederate spy by the members of the Union Army and imprisoned. Officers of the Union Army then occupied the Sánchez residence in Palatka, Florida. On one occasion Sánchez overheard various officers’ planning a raid and decided to alert the Confederate forces. She informed Captain John Jackson Dickison, commander of the local Confederate forces, of the plan. The result of her actions was that the Confederate forces surprised the Union troops in an ambush and captured the USS Columbine, a Union warship, on the day of the supposed raid in the "Battle of Horse Landing". This was one of the few instances in which a Union warship was captured by land-based Confederate forces during the Civil War.