Elizabeth Van Lew:
A Spy in Plain Sight

Elizabeth Van Lew was among the most productive Union spies, operating a sophisticated espionage ring in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.

camera icon - click to for more details about the image

From top: A scene from Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia; Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia; Erasmus W. Ross, a clerk at Libby Prison during the Civil War

Elizabeth Van Lew was among the most productive Union spies, operating a sophisticated espionage ring in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.

Educated in Pennsylvania, Van Lew was unabashedly pro-Union, and her espionage began when she visited captured Union soldiers at the infamous Libby Prison in Richmond. Known for its harsh conditions and brutal guards, the prison held hundreds of starving, diseased men. Van Lew and her agents often brought food and clothing to the prisoners, who then passed valuable intelligence collected from their Confederates captors as well as from their own observations. She facilitated the escape of many of these men with the assistance of Erasmus Ross, a prison clerk who was a Northern sympathizer and Van Lew associate. Ross regularly threatened prisoners with a large knife, summoning them to his office from where they never returned and were presumed to have been killed. In reality, Ross provided the men with Confederate uniforms and aided their escape from the prison, after which they were smuggled out of Richmond and guided to Union lines by Van Lew’s operatives. To dispel any suspicions that she was aiding Union prisoners, Van Lew allowed a Confederate prison warden to live in her house.

In early 1864, after a group of captured Union officers she had helped escape from Richmond vouched for her credibility, Van Lew began receiving intelligence requirements directly from Major General Benjamin F. Butler, commander of the Union Army’s Departments of Virginia and North Carolina. With several dozen operatives working inside the Confederate government, Van Lew’s network supplied timely information about Confederate troop strength and movements, defenses in and around Richmond, and local economic conditions.

Educated in Pennsylvania, Van Lew was unabashedly pro-Union, and her espionage began when she visited captured Union soldiers at the infamous Libby Prison in Richmond. Known for its harsh conditions and brutal guards, the prison held hundreds of starving, diseased men. Van Lew and her agents often brought food and clothing to the prisoners, who then passed valuable intelligence collected from their Confederates captors as well as from their own observations. She facilitated the escape of many of these men with the assistance of Erasmus Ross, a prison clerk who was a Northern sympathizer and Van Lew associate. Ross regularly threatened prisoners with a large knife, summoning them to his office from where they never returned and were presumed to have been killed. In reality, Ross provided the men with Confederate uniforms and aided their escape from the prison, after which they were smuggled out of Richmond and guided to Union lines by Van Lew’s operatives. To dispel any suspicions that she was aiding Union prisoners, Van Lew allowed a Confederate prison warden to live in her house.

camera icon - click to for more details about the image

From left: Richmond fortifications; Major General Benjamin Butler; Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital

In early 1864, after a group of captured Union officers she had helped escape from Richmond vouched for her credibility, Van Lew began receiving intelligence requirements directly from Major General Benjamin F. Butler, commander of the Union Army’s Departments of Virginia and North Carolina. With several dozen operatives working inside the Confederate government, Van Lew’s network supplied timely information about Confederate troop strength and movements, defenses in and around Richmond, and local economic conditions.

camera icon - click to for more details about the image

From left: The Confederate White House in Richmond, Virginia; The Freedmen's Union Industrial School, 1866

Mary Jane Richards aka MARY BOWSER A Spy in the Confederate White House

One of Van Lew’s operatives was Mary Jane Richards, also known as Mary Bowser. Richards had been enslaved by the Van Lew family but was freed by Elizabeth Van Lew, a devoted abolitionist. Van Lew recognized Richard’s remarkable intelligence and potential and sent her north to be educated. When Richards returned, she worked with Van Lew and others caring for Union soldiers held in local Confederate prisons. With the assistance of Van Lew, Richards obtained a position in the Confederate White House, posed as enslaved, and was able to eavesdrop on numerous discussions between Confederate President Jefferson Davis and various government officials and military commanders. Richards also had a photographic memory and memorized the contents of sensitive documents in Davis’s office, sharing everything she learned with Van Lew. After the war, Richards worked for the Freedmen’s Bureau, teaching formerly enslaved African Americans in Virginia, Florida, and Georgia. In 1995, her achievements were recognized by the United States Army, which inducted her into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

camera icon - click to for more details about the image

Union spy Elizabeth Van Lew

In June 1864, as Grant’s forces moved south towards Richmond, Colonel George Sharpe and the Bureau of Military Intelligence took charge of Van Lew’s network. BMI scouts became couriers for Van Lew’s operatives, even meeting directly with the spymaster at her house. Her reports often awaited Grant at his breakfast table, as did the Richmond newspapers she passed, which often included details of Union Army movements Grant was unaware of, such as details of General William T. Sherman’s progress in his March to the Sea across Georgia.

She risked everything that was dear to her – friends, fortune, comfort, health, even life itself – all for one absorbing desire of her heart – that slavery might be abolished and the Union preserved.
—Tribute on Van Lew’s tombstone from the Massachusetts Admirers of Union Sympathizers
camera icon - click to for more details about the image

Union spy Elizabeth Van Lew

Van Lew was ostracized by Richmond society both during and after the war for her Union sympathies. Shortly after his inauguration in 1869, President Grant appointed Van Lew to be the Postmaster of Richmond, one of the most lucrative and prestigious jobs available to women at the time. In her later years, she spent most of her funds on her family’s former enslaved people, dying penniless in 1900.