Elizabeth Van Lew
Pro-Union Civil War Spy Mistress
1818 – 1900 A.D.
In the world of wartime espionage, the number of women who have been involved may be limited, but it could be said that those few have the advantage of their gender. After all, particularly in the past, who would suspect that a person decreed by society to be timid and unassertive could have anything to do with the sordid world of spies? However, there was one woman who during the Civil War was ostensibly a lady of quality from an old Richmond, Virginia family who actually opposed slavery and who operated a network of spies. Her name was Elizabeth Van Lew.
Born in October, 1818 in Richmond, Elizabeth had a prestigious heritage, since her grandfather was one time mayor of Philadelphia. Her father was a prosperous Richmond businessman, owning several slaves. Her attendance at a Philadelphia based Quaker school probably influenced her to develop her opposition to slavery.
When her father died in 1843, Elizabeth and her mother stayed in the family’s Richmond home, where they defied the father’s will, which specified that none of their slaves could be freed. Instead of following his order, they not only paid wages but even manumitted their servants. Personally, Elizabeth believed that slavery would one day end, when the Southerners realized that it was evil.
As the Civil War started Elizabeth and her mother began assisting the Union cause by caring for injured soldiers, and then continued by bringing food, clothes and other items to the Union prisoners at the newly opened Libby Prison. This facility was known for its brutal conditions where guards and housed had many diseased and starving men. As Elizabeth and others in her employ provided for the inmates, they learned about military details, that the men either knew first hand or that they’d heard from the Confederates. Also, with the help of a pro-Union prison clerk named Erasmus Ross, she helped many of the men escape. He would threaten the inmates with a knife, take them into his office and then they’d disappear—presumably they’d been killed. Ross gave the men Confederate uniforms, and then smuggled out of prison and Richmond and other Van Lew agents guided them back to Union lines. However, to prevent any suspicion of her involvement in espionage Elizabeth had a Confederate prison warden as a resident in her own home.
About a year before the war ended, a group of Union officers who had escaped with her help, arranged for her to begin receiving assignments directly from Union Army commanders. During the war, Elizabeth’s operatives consisted of sympathetic Confederate War department clerks, along with free and enslaved Blacks—one of whom was Mary Richards Bowser. Mary had been a Van Lew family servant before the war, and as Elizabeth recognized her intelligence, she freed her and arranged for her to be educated in the north. When Mary returned to Richmond and joined the Van Lew operation, she obtained a position as an enslaved servant in the home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. In this position, she was able to overhear plans and discussions among the visiting officials, and then pass the information along to Elizabeth. She also used her photographic memory, to absorb information on documents she found in Davis’ office, and this too was passed along. After the war she worked as a teacher of former enslaved Blacks in Virginia and other states.
In June 1864 as Grant’s forces advanced toward Richmond, Van Lew’s network came under the direct command of the Bureau of Military Intelligence, and their agents worked with Van Lew’s people, sometimes even meeting directly with Elizabeth at her home. Some of the Van Lew reports covered Union Army movements Grant was not aware of, as well as information about the activities of other Union generals, in different parts of the country.
It seems that the Van Lew spy network was so competent, and her means of communication with Union officials so secure, that a few times she actually provided General Grant with flowers from her own garden as well as Richmond newspapers. She was also thought to have developed a system to secrete messages out of Richmond in hollow eggs. Her assistance was so valuable, that high ranking army officials urged the government, to reimburse Elizabeth for her expenses in employing spies.
One time, in 1864 Miss Van Lew took a great risk to her spy network, when she arranged for the proper burial of a Union officer who was killed while trying to liberate Union prisoners.
When Union soldiers entered Richmond in April, 1865 Elizabeth was the first to raise the U.S. Flag.
When General U.S. Grant became president in 1869, he appointed her postmaster for Richmond, which was a prestigious and lucrative position for a woman at the time. In the job, she modernized the postal department; she also employed Blacks, at the same benefits and salary as white workers. She served till 1877, then returned to be a postal worker herself.
Continuing to live in Richmond after the war was not easy for Elizabeth since many of her neighbors refused to associate with her. She later wrote, “No one will walk with us on the street, no one will go with us anywhere; and it grows worse and worse as the years roll on.” Another result of her wartime work, was that her family fortune was depleted as she supported former servants, and she failed to secure a government reimbursement pension. Still, she did receive support from associates of the Union officers, that she had assisted during the war.
Elizabeth Van Lew died in September, 1900 at age 81 in poverty. Her tombstone, provided by the sympathetic supporters among the Union veterans, read partially, “She risked everything that is dear to man – friends – fortune – comfort – health life itself – that slavery might be abolished and the Union preserved.”
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Anne Adams is a retired church staffer. She lives in East Texas and has an historical column for a local newspaper. She has published in Christian and secular publications for more than 40 years.
References:
Wikipedia
Intelligence.gov
