Category Archives: Secession

Elizabeth Van Lew – A Union Spymaster in Richmond

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Southerner Elizabeth Van Lew Supported the Union

Elizabeth Van Lew

Elizabeth Van Lew

Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, had a crafty Union spy operating within it to subvert its secessionist rebel efforts. The spy was a woman named Elizabeth Van Lew.

Van Lew’s parents were from the North and her father John came to Richmond with his wife Eliza to become a hardware merchant. Their daughter Elizabeth was born in Richmond in 1818. John Van Lew’s hardware business prospered and the family lived in the upscale Church Hill neighborhood of Richmond. The family attended the historic Saint John’s Episcopal Church and the Van Lews became part of Southern society. They owned many slaves, despite mother Eliza and daughter Elizabeth believing slavery was evil and wanting it to end.

When the Southern states began seceding from the Union after Abraham Lincoln’s election as president in November 1860, young Elizabeth thought secession was a bad policy. Van Lew supported the Union, the Republican Party, and the abolition of slavery. She thought the opposite of what most all Southerners thought. When the Civil War began, Elizabeth had the means and opportunity to move North and be with other family members. Instead, Elizabeth chose to stay in Richmond, the seat of the Confederacy. She had plans.

She Gave Aid and Help to Libby Union Prisoners of War

Richmond’s Libby Prison held Union officer prisoners of war under difficult and overcrowded conditions. The prisoners suffered from disease and malnutrition, and the prison had a high death rate. Elizabeth Van Lew visited the prison pretending to be a loyal Southern lady living up to her Christian faith and womanly concern for others. She provided help and aid to the suffering and needy Yankee prisoners. Elizabeth used her family’s wealth to bribe guards and officials to gain favors and assistance for the prisoners. What she sneakily did, with her philanthropist and caring cover of helping the prisoners by giving them food and medicine, was to also help them escape.

Van Lew gathered information from the prisoners and passed it over to Union forces. In March 1862, President Jefferson Davis clamped down on Richmond with an iron fist of martial law. Many people thought to be Union supporters in the Confederate capital were arrested. Elizabeth Van Lew could no longer visit Libby Prison and give aid to the prisoners. This did not stop her clandestine pro-Union efforts in Richmond. She changed her tactics.

Learn Civil War History Podcast: Elizabeth Van Lew – A Union Spymaster in Richmond

Listen and learn about Elizabeth Van Lew.

 

 

The Richmond Underground

With Van Lew’s leadership, the Richmond Underground was organized as a Union spy ring. The Richmond Underground was a secret spy network made-up of whites and African-Americans. It helped Union prisoners escape from imprisonment and helped pro-Union Southerners flee to the North. Van Lew and other workers of the Richmond Underground arranged for escapees to have shelter in safe houses and provided them with disguises. The Van Lew family home was used as a safe house. Some members of the Richmond Underground helped escapees by accompanying and guiding them to safety within Union lines.

Her Spy In the Confederate White House

Mary Elizabeth Bowser

Mary Elizabeth Bowser

When Elizabeth Van Lew passed away in 1900, it was rumored that she’d had an African-American servant planted and working as a spy in the Confederate White House during the Civil War. This proved to be true. Mary Jane Richards Denham was an African-American lady whom the wealthy Van Lews had sent North for her education, and then on to Liberia. The Van Lews had Mary Jane return to Richmond shortly before the Civil War began. On her return to the South, with help from the Van Lews, Denham devised an identity as Mary Elizabeth Bowser to avoid detection and capture by Confederate authorities.

Mary Jane Richards Denham/Mary Elizabeth Bowser became an active spy in the Confederate White House. Those in the Confederate White House assumed she was a slave and illiterate. Conversations were not hidden from her. Mary would listen attentively and read what papers she could to gather information. After the Civil War, using the name “Richmonia Richards,” she gave a speech that was written up in a newspaper article. In her speech, she told of going, “into President Davis’s house while he was absent, seeking for washing” and then finding her way to an office where she, “opened the drawers of a cabinet and scrutinized the papers.”

Federal Service and Military Recognition

Ben Butler

Ben Butler

Major General Benjamin F. Butler recruited Elizabeth Van Lew and other Southern Unionists into Federal service. Van Lew’s spy efforts reached their peak. The Van Lew family home in Richmond became the heart and center of the Richmond Underground spy network. Van Lew was known as a spymaster. Her group of spies used code words and invisible ink in messages hidden in their clothing and shoes. These messages contained valuable intelligence for Union officers. As General Grant fought against the trench lines stretching from Petersburg to Richmond, the Richmond Underground provided him with information. This information included important news about the Confederate movement of men and matériel going back and forth in the east and the Shenandoah Valley.

After the Civil War, George H. Sharpe, the chief of military intelligence for the Army of the Potomac, wrote about contributions that spymaster Elizabeth Van Lew made to the Union. Sharpe wrote, “for a long, long time, she represented all that was left of the power of the U. S. Government in the city of Richmond.”

 

Belle Boyd, the “La Belle Rebelle” – A Confederate Spy

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Isabella Maria Boyd

Belle Boyd

Belle Boyd

Isabella Maria Boyd ran a hotel for her father in Front Royal, Virginia. Front Royal is located at the northern end of the Civil War-strategic Shenandoah Valley. Belle Boyd was a Confederate spy. Most often she was called Belle, but she had other names too. She was called; the “Siren of the Shenandoah,” the “La Belle Rebelle,” the “Rebel Joan of Arc,” the “Amazon of Secessia,” and the “Cleopatra of the Secession.” She shrewdly used her feminine charm and appeal to gather information from unwitting Union officers and troops staying at her father’s hotel.

Belle was described as, “without being beautiful, she is very attractive…quite tall…a superb figure…and dressed with much taste.” She was not unattractive, but she wasn’t a raving or natural beauty. Union officers and soldiers were vulnerable to Belle’s playful toying with them. Their loose lips would tell Confederate Belle information she should not know.

She was born on May 4, 1844, to a wealthy family in Martinsburg, Virginia. Martinsburg would later become part of West Virginia. When Yankee troops came to Martinsburg in early July 1861, a Billy Yank who’d had too much booze allegedly insulted Belle’s mother. Belle shot and killed him. After the Civil War, Belle wrote of this incident in her memoirs. She wrote the Yankee had, “addressed my mother and myself in language as offensive as it is possible to conceive. I could stand it no longer…we ladies were obliged to go armed in order to protect ourselves as best we might from insult and outrage.” It should be noted that in her memoirs Belle sometimes had a tendency to exaggerate. The commanding officer of the dead Billy Yank made an investigation into the matter and decided that Belle had, “‘done perfectly right.” Belle was not punished for killing the Yankee.

A Spy For Stonewall Jackson

Seventeen-year-old Belle soon became a Confederate spy. Having lived in western Virginia and in Front Royal, Belle had a good knowledge of the area and its geography. This was valuable knowledge to the Confederates. As a spy, Belle was a courier for Union troops and had access to Union camps. She always had her eyes and ears open for information that would help the Confederates.

Belle claimed in her memoirs that while visiting relatives at their home in Front Royal she spied through a closet’s peephole on a Yankee Council of War meeting. She learned that Union Major General Nathaniel Banks’ troops would be advancing east to Front Royal.

Stonewall Jackson

Stonewall Jackson

Belle rode fifteen miles in the night to the Shenandoah Valley to convey that information to General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson who was on his 1862 Valley Campaign.

A few weeks later, Belle once again provided Stonewall Jackson with timely information. This time it was about Union troop positions before Stonewall made his attack on Front Royal. On this occasion, “La Belle Rebelle” risked her life crossing over the battlefield through Union lines. She wrote of the experience, “the Federal pickets…immediately fired upon me…my escape was most providential…rifle-balls flew thick and fast about me…so near my feet as to throw dust in my eyes…numerous bullets whistled by my ears, several actually pierced different parts of my clothing.” Belle Boyd was a brave young woman.

Stonewall Jackson won at Front Royal and in a personal letter to Belle, he commended her for her spying help and courage. Stonewall made Belle Boyd an honorary captain in an aide-de-camp position, and she was awarded the Southern Cross of Honor.

Jail, England, Capture, Canada, Marriage, Memoir

Although Belle was arrested several times she avoided jail until July 29, 1862. On the order of United States Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Belle was jailed at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington after a lover blew the whistle on her. Belle’s jail time was short when a prisoner exchange got her out of jail within a month. She was arrested and sent to jail for a second time in July 1863. This time she spent a longer time in jail and was not released until the following December. Belle was banished to the South. At the time she was suffering from typhoid fever.

To recover her health and to continue her spying service to the Confederacy, Belle sailed for Europe on May 8, 1864. On this voyage, she carried letters from Confederate President Jefferson Davis that she was to deliver to foreign dignitaries. A Union warship intercepted the blockade runner Belle was aboard and she was captured. Her shrewdness and beguiling feminine ways pay off again for her as she charms the blockade runner’s crew and officers. Apparently one officer, in particular, fell under Belle’s spell and fortuitously for her, she is left in Canada. Again, the “La Belle Rebelle” is not punished. Belle then successfully continues her journey to England.

In England, Belle marries Samuel Hardinge, Jr. on May 25, 1864. Isn’t it an interesting coincidence that Samuel just happened to be the Union naval officer who seized the blockade runner Belle was a passenger on? Imagine that! The reader is free to hazard a guess, to imagine, and to read between the lines about Samuel Hardinge, Jr. and the charming Belle. Consider too, how Belle was set free in Canada after her capture.

Samuel returns to the United States and is imprisoned under suspicion of treason. After all, he had captured Belle Boyd, a known Confederate spy heading for England who was caught carrying letters from Jefferson Davis, but he sets her free safely in Canada. Then, he marries her. Nevertheless, in the United States Samuel Hardinge, Jr. is set free from prison, then he soon dies.

Back in England, “La Belle Rebelle” is expecting a child and Samuel is the father. Perhaps Belle and Samuel’s story is clearer now. She gives birth to a daughter. With help from an established English journalist, she writes a book, a two-volume memoir titled Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison. In her memoir, Belle tells of her Civil War spying exploits and adventures.

Actress and More Marriages

Belle becomes an actress in 1866 and then returns to the United States in 1867 where she continues her acting career. In March 1869, Belle marries John Swainston Hammond, an Englishman who fought for the Union in the Civil War. Belle and John have two sons and two daughters. Their union did not last, they divorce in November 1884. Belle is not single for very long. The following January Belle marries actor Nathaniel Rue High, a young Ohioan. It seems that Belle got around. Belle now begins a new career touring the country speaking and lecturing about her Civil War adventures as a Confederate spy.

Death

Belle Boyd's Grave

Belle Boyd’s Grave

Isabella Maria Boyd dies of a heart attack in Wisconsin on June 11, 1900. She rests in peace at Kilbourn (now Spring Grove) Cemetery in Wisconsin. The Confederate spy, the “Siren of the Shenandoah,” the “La Belle Rebelle,” the “Rebel Joan of Arc,” the “Amazon of Secessia,” or the “Cleopatra of the Secession,” is buried in Yankee soil.

 

Learn Civil War History Podcast: Belle Boyd, the “La Belle Rebelle” – A Confederate Spy

Isabella Maria Boyd ran her father’s hotel in Front Royal, Virginia. Front Royal is at the northern end of the Civil War-strategic Shenandoah Valley. Belle Boyd was a Confederate spy. Most often she was called Belle, but she had other names too. She was called; the “Siren of the Shenandoah,” the “La Belle Rebelle,” the “Rebel Joan of Arc,” the “Amazon of Secessia,” and the “Cleopatra of the Secession.” Belle was described as, “without being beautiful, she is very attractive…quite tall…a superb figure…and dressed with much taste.” She was not unattractive, but she wasn’t a raving beauty. She shrewdly used her feminine charm and appeal to gather information from unwitting Union officers and troops staying at her father’s hotel. Union officers and soldiers were vulnerable to Belle’s playful toying with them. Their loose lips would tell the Confederate spy Belle information she ought not know. Having lived in western Virginia and in Front Royal, seventeen-year-old Belle had a good knowledge of the area and its geography. This was valuable knowledge to the Confederates and Belle became a Confederate spy. Belle was a courier for Union troops and had access to Union camps. As a spy, she always had her eyes and ears open for information that would help the Confederates.