Elizabeth van Lew

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Elizabeth van Lew

Elizabeth van Lew (born October 17, 1818 in Richmond , Virginia ; † September 25, 1900 there ) was an American abolitionist and spy . A native of the southern states , she spied for the northern states during the American Civil War and founded the Union's first spy ring, the Richmond Underground . One of her most famous acts was the smuggling of her African American servant Mary Bowser into the household of Jefferson Davis , President of the Confederate States . Due to the hostility of her compatriots after the war, she is often incorrectly referred to as Crazy Bet to this day .

Life

Origin and first years

Elizabeth's father, John Van Lew, came from an originally Dutch family from Long Island who came to Richmond at the age of 26 and made a fortune there as a household goods dealer. Her mother, Elizabeth Baker, was the daughter of Hilary Baker, who was mayor of Philadelphia from 1796 to 1797 . The couple lived in a stately home on Church Hill, across from the famous St. John's Episcopal Church, and had three children in total. Elizabeth was described as the most delicate of them, but also the strongest of will. The Richmond family were well respected and entertained celebrities at their home including singer Jenny Lind and writer Edgar Allan Poe .

Despite their high social position in the south, the van Lews still cultivated their connections in the north and sent Elizabeth to school in Philadelphia. From there she returned as a staunch abolitionist. In doing so, she saw herself in Virginia's ancient tradition of rebelling against human bondage. When she was twenty-five years old, her father died. While her brother John was taking over the business, Elizabeth convinced her mother in the 1850s to release her slaves, including the young Mary Bowser , who even sent her to school in Philadelphia. In addition, she bought relatives and children of her former slaves and released them as well. Yet most of them stayed with her as servants, both during the war and into their later years.

After John Brown's execution in 1859, the conflict between the slave-owning states and the free states within the Union intensified. Describing the conditions in Richmond as "a permanent state of war," Elizabeth watched with growing anxiety as her compatriots pushed for Virginia's secession . Despite her birth in the southern states, she herself was a staunch supporter of the Union and viewed the efforts of the slave-owning states to break away as a betrayal of the United States. As a result, she began writing letters to generals and the Washington, DC government about what was happening on the ground.

espionage

On April 17, 1861, Virginia broke away from the United States and Elizabeth quickly realized that she could use her privileged position in Richmond Society for the Northern States. While the southern states had sympathizers like Rose O'Neal Greenhow in strategically important places in the Union from the beginning , there were no established structures and ministries in the confederation that could be specifically spied on. At the beginning of the war neither the military leaders nor where the government of the southern states would be located were known. The northern states were therefore dependent on individuals to provide them with information. Elizabeth van Lew therefore founded the Richmond Underground , the first known spy ring for the Union. Her spies were mostly long-established, respected citizens of the city, including Martin M. Lipscomb, who was running for mayor's office.

Although Elizabeth had never received any espionage training, she was extremely professional. So she independently organized five safe stations on the route from Richmond north, manned them with their freed slaves and in this way forwarded messages to the Union area, occasionally hidden in hollowed-out eggs or the soles of their servants' shoes. In doing so, she made sure to always send a message in several encrypted parts and via different couriers. On top of that, the messages were written in invisible ink that could only be read on contact with milk. So that her servants could leave the city unobtrusively, Elizabeth got them military passports from the authorities, ostensibly to look after the van Lews farm outside Richmond.

The Libby Prison in April 1865.

Since Elizabeth had permission to visit the prisoners of war in Libby Prison , she quickly came into contact with Union soldiers, who she provided medical care and whose information she passed on, and others. a. to Benjamin Franklin Butler , Commandant of Fort Monroe . She secured the benevolence of Warden David H. Todd, a half-brother of the first lady, Mary Lincoln , with gifts of buttermilk and gingerbread. Union intelligence later reported: "Thanks to her charming manners and generous use of money, she quickly gained control of the rebel prison." Needles prick military information. In February 1864, when over a hundred of them escaped from prison, she hid several of them in secret rooms in her home, including Colonel Paul Revere. Despite all the searches, neither the rooms nor Elizabeth's charges were ever found.

With her help for the captured Union soldiers, Elizabeth made enemies among the population. The Richmond Enquirer newspaper publicly branded her and her mother in an article as aiding and abetting the "villains who invaded our holy land." The van Lews then faced hostility and death threats. The Richmond Dispatch newspaper openly threatened to expose and treat them as "foreign enemies of the country." Despite all the hostility and informers that were directed against her, she always managed to avoid difficulties with the authorities. When the new jailer moved to Richmond unable to find a place to live, she let him and his wife live in their house, which secured their visits to the jail and the disgruntled citizens of Richmond left them alone.

However, it has suffered failures over the years. So in the spring of 1864 she leaked information to the north about a large-scale prisoner transfer in Richmond, suggesting that the city would be an easy target. It culminated in an attack by Union forces under Hugh Judson Kilpatrick and Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, in which the Union suffered heavy losses. Kilpatrick had to withdraw, Dahlgren fell. His body was mutilated, displayed, and secretly buried anonymously at night among other Union soldiers on the orders of Jefferson Davis. However, one of Elizabeth's black acquaintances had seen the burial and marked the grave. Her helpers dug up the coffin at night, smuggled it out of Richmond under a load of peach trees, and buried it on a farm outside of town.

Ulysses S. Grant , 1864

A major achievement was the smuggling of her servant Mary Bowser into the Confederate White House. Mary, pretending to be illiterate, worked for Jefferson Davis and his wife Varina as a waitress. This enabled her to read abandoned papers and even go in and out of Confederate Senate meetings. What she learned she passed on to Elizabeth, who passed it on to the Union. Elizabeth reported on Mary:

"When I open my eyes in the morning I ask the maid, 'What's new, Mary?' and my informant never fails! Most of the time we get the most reliable information from the blacks, and they show wisdom, discretion and prudence, which is wonderful. "

Once Ulysses S. Grant was given supreme command of the Union Forces in March 1864, Elizabeth spied on behalf of his intelligence officer, General George H. Sharpe, head of the Bureau of Military Information . Among other things, she worked with the telegraph JO Kerbey, who was stationed at a railway station where the telegraph cables to Richmond lay. So he could eavesdrop on all telegraph traffic to the Confederation capital. Her network was so effective that during his confrontation with Robert Edward Lee at Richmond , she was able to provide Grant with fresh flowers daily, not just with messages. Sharpe wrote of her: "For a long, long time she embodied all that remained of the power of the United States government in the city of Richmond." As if to confirm his words, she hoisted a few hours in April 1865 despite an angry mob Entry of Union troops into Richmond a huge Union flag on the roof of their house. Grant thanked her during a personal visit with the words: "You have sent me the most precious news that we received from Richmond during the war."

Last years

Although she was under Grant's personal protection because of her services to the Union, the post-war period was very difficult for Elizabeth. Her mother and brother had since died and only her niece Lizzie was still living with her. Having paid for her espionage and aid to Union prisoners of war out of her own pocket, she was practically impoverished when the family's business had to close after her brother's death. In addition, there was the anger of the people of Richmond on them. In 1866, for reasons of self-protection, she asked the War Ministry to hand over all documents relating to her, which she then destroyed. She described her situation in Richmond with the words:

“I live here in complete isolation. Nobody walks with us on the street, nobody accompanies us anywhere and it gets worse and worse as the years go by and those I love go to their long rest. "

As late as the 1870s, children like Ellen Glasgow were taught to think of Elizabeth as a witch. Maybe emerged during this hostility is the first time the nickname Crazy Bet (dt. Crazy bet ) because soon rumors, Elizabeth faked during the war madness to remain unmolested in their activities. Although this moniker is also used in modern publications, there is no contemporary evidence of Elizabeth's approach to this.

Finally, under Grant's presidency, Elizabeth was appointed and retained the post of Richmond Postmaster throughout his tenure. She was instrumental in modernizing the postal system and also hired African American workers. For them she sponsored an African American library that opened in Richmond in 1876. She lost her post under Rutherford B. Hayes and instead became a post office clerk. Grant tried several times in vain to regain her old post or at least to give her a gift of money from the government in recognition of her service in the war. Instead, Elizabeth ultimately relied on donations from her exempt servants and grateful Union soldiers. She spent her final years campaigning for women's rights. Among other things, she refused to pay taxes because as a woman she was not eligible to vote.

Elizabeth van Lews' grave in Shockoe Hill Cemetery

She died in Richmond on September 25, 1900. Only on her deathbed did she announce the existence of her diary and bequeath it to John P. Reynolds, a nephew of Paul Revere, whom she had hidden in her house. Only her servants and relatives of a Union soldier attended her funeral at Shockoe Hill Cemetery. Paul Revere's descendants donated a tombstone to her along with a bronze plate with the inscription:

"She risked everything that is dear to man - friends, wealth, comfort, health, life itself, everything for the one desire of her heart - to abolish slavery and to preserve the Union."

For her services to the Union, Elizabeth van Lew was inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in 1993.

In books and films

Elizabeth van Lew is the protagonist of the novels Elizabeth Van Lew: Civil War Spy by Heidi Schoof, Only Call Us Faithful: A Novel of the Union Underground by Marie Jakober and The Spymistress by Jennifer Chiaverini.

In 1987 the film A Special Friendship was released , which fictionally tells of Elizabeth's friendship with Mary Bowser. In 1990, Mary Kay Place played Elizabeth van Lew in the film Traitor in my House .

literature

  • Elizabeth R. Varon: Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy. Oxford University Press 2003, ISBN 0-19-517989-7
  • Donald E. Markle: Spies and spymasters of the Civil War . Barnes and Nobles 1995, ISBN 1-56-619976-X

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Harnett Thomas Kane: Spies for the Blue and Gray . 1st edition, Ace Books 1954, p. 166
  2. ↑ a b c d Jean V. Berlin: Van Lew, Elizabeth L. In: American National Biography Online . Oxford University Press 2000, Online Edition . Accessed August 3, 2016
  3. ↑ Harnett Thomas Kane: Spies for the Blue and Gray . 1st edition, Ace Books 1954, p. 168
  4. ↑ Donald E. Markle: Spies and spymasters of the Civil War . Barnes and Nobles 1995, p. 183
  5. ^ A b Harnett Thomas Kane: Spies for the Blue and Gray . 1st edition, Ace Books 1954, p. 170
  6. ↑ Donald E. Markle: Spies and spymasters of the Civil War . Barnes and Nobles 1995, p. 182
  7. ↑ Harnett Thomas Kane: Spies for the Blue and Gray . 1st edition, Ace Books 1954, p. 169
  8. ↑ a b c d Cate Lineberry: Elizabeth Van Lew: An Unlikely Union Spy . Smithsonian.com, May 4, 2011. Accessed April 11, 2018
  9. ↑ Harnett Thomas Kane: Spies for the Blue and Gray . 1st edition, Ace Books 1954, p. 171
  10. ↑ Harnett Thomas Kane: Spies for the Blue and Gray . 1st edition, Ace Books 1954, p. 177
  11. ↑ Mary Richards Bowser (fl. 1846-1867) . Encyclopedia Virginia, January 27, 2014. Accessed September 9, 2016.
  12. ↑ Lois Leveen: A Black Spy in the Confederate White House . The New York Times, June 21, 2012: “When I open my eyes in the morning, I say to the servant, 'What news, Mary?' and my caterer never fails! Most generally our reliable news is gathered from negroes, and they certainly show wisdom, discretion and prudence which is wonderful. " Accessed September 8, 2016.
  13. ↑ Donald E. Markle: Spies and spymasters of the Civil War . Barnes and Nobles 1995, p. 19
  14. ↑ Donald E. Markle: Spies and spymasters of the Civil War . Barnes and Nobles 1995, p. 185
  15. ^ A b Michael DeMarco: Elizabeth Van Lew (1818–1900) . Encyclopedia Virginia, March 6, 2018. Accessed April 11, 2018
  16. ↑ Donald E. Markle: Spies and spymasters of the Civil War . Barnes and Nobles 1995, p. 186
  17. ↑ Elizabeth Van Lew . National Park Service. Accessed April 11, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Van Lew, Elizabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American abolitionist and spy
DATE OF BIRTH October 17, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH Richmond , Virginia
DATE OF DEATH September 25, 1900
Place of death Richmond , Virginia