Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, A Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy, Varon - B

    She was born in Richmond in 1818 to a conventional family that both owned slaves and hoped for abolition. She was well-educated, refined, and sympathetic to the plight of the enslaved she saw all around her. She believed in the Union and was heartbroken when Virginia seceded. She considered it “madness,” and the whole secession crisis “radicalized” her. “For the next four years, Van Lew would make a series of public displays intended to divert Confederate suspicion while she prayed, hoped, and worked for the Union.”

   She convinced Confederate authorities, in the spirit of Christianity, to let her minister to ill Union prisoners. She also assisted the Confederate wounded. She stayed in touch with Richmond’s Unionists, who had begun to help Union prisoners escape, and her home became a safe house for those fugitives. She then began running a modern intelligence network on behalf of the hated Union Gen. Benjamin Butler. Her couriers—black and white, free and enslaved—risked their lives to carry messages. As Grant advanced south in 1864, Van Lew received inquiries from the Union army, sent her agents to gather information, and passed it back to the Grand Army. In late 1864, Confederate authorities investigated her activities. The idea that a “frail spinster lady” from a wealthy family could act treasonably was a leap no one was willing to make.

    Richmond fell on April 3, 1865. She was thanked by many in the victorious army, including Grant, who visited her home “because she had rendered valuable service to the Union.” The joy of Richmond’s Unionists was short-lived, however, as they saw secessionists return to local offices and new constraints imposed on the formerly enslaved. When Grant became president, he rewarded Van Lew by appointing her postmaster general in Richmond. By then her espionage activities were known, and her appointment outraged the city’s establishment. She proved successful in the role and earned the admiration of the northern suffragette movement. Her skills as an administrator secured her a second term after Grant’s reelection, but her open support for, and hiring of, Black employees enraged the white establishment. With few friends in the Hayes administration, she lost both her position and her primary source of income in 1877. A decade later she briefly served, unhappily, in a civil service job in Washington before returning to Richmond.

   Her final years were marked by isolation and humiliation as the Lost Cause myth overwhelmed her Republican ideals and belief in Reconstruction. She died in 1900. Throughout much of the 20th century, she was ridiculed as “Crazy Bet,” an aberration among her people. In recent decades, however, she has been honored by women’s and civil rights groups.  Thank you, Wendell, for the recommendation.