Uncommon Valor or
Virginia Traitor?
Mary Bowser, American Slave & Spy for the Union
Cheryl Metz, NBCT
Freedom Project, 2013
Virginia Slave Laws
…all children born in this country shall be held bond or
free only according to the condition of the mother (1662)
…moderate corporal punishment inflicted by master or
magistrate upon a runaway servant shall not deprive the
master of the satisfaction allowed by the law (1668)
…if any slave resists his master (or other by his master’s
order correcting him) and by the extremity of the
correction should chance to die, that his death shall not be
accounted a felony (1669)
Virginia Slave Laws
…all negro, mulatto, and Indian slaves, in all courts of
judicature, and other places, within this dominion, shall be
held, taken, and adjudged, to be real estate (1705)
Any white person assembling with slaves or free Negroes
for purpose of instructing them to read or write, or
associating with them in any unlawful assembly, shall be
confined in jail not exceeding six months and fined not
exceeding $100.00. (1848)
Black Contributions to
Civil War
"Black Dispatches" was a common term used among Union military
men for intelligence on Confederate forces provided by Negroes.
This source of information represented the single most prolific and
productive category of intelligence obtained and acted on by Union
forces throughout the Civil War.
Rose, 2007
"The chief source of information to the enemy is through our
Negroes.”
Robert E. Lee, 1863
U. S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington, DC: Government
Printing Office; 1880-1901, Vol. 25, Part 2, p. 826 (Lee to Critcher, 22 May 1863)
Black Contributions to
Civil War
The true history of this war will show that the loyal army found
no friends at the South so faithful, active, and daring in their
efforts to sustain the government as the Negroes-. Negroes have
repeatedly threaded their way through the lines of the rebels
exposing themselves to bullets to convey important information to
the loyal army of the Potomac.
Frederick Douglass, 1862
Markle, Donald E. Spies and Spymasters of the Civil War. New
York: Hippocrene Books, 1995; pp. 64-65
The Van Lew Family
John Van Lew, a wealthy hardware merchant in Richmond,
Virginia, owned a number of slaves.
Van Lew's daughter, Elizabeth, freed all her father's slaves after
he died after convincing her mother it was the right thing to
do.
Miss Van Lew, or “Crazy Bett” as some called her, became a spy
for the Union Forces and was instrumental in fighting for the
abolition of slavery, even though she didn’t consider herself an
abolitionist.
The Van Lew Family
"You have sent me the most
valuable information
received from Richmond
during the war.”
Ulysses H. Grant
Content from letter sent to Elizabeth
“I was never an abolitionist. Abolitionists are
fanatics who will stop at nothing to achieve their
goals. I have always spoke out against slavery, for
which I paid dearly in the loss of many friends.
But I was never a fanatic.”
The Van Lew Family
HEADQUARTERS EIGHTEENTH ARMY CORPS FORTRESS
MONROE, February 5, 1864
HONORABLE E.M. STANTON, Secretary of War,
Sir, I send enclosed for your perusal the information I have acquired
of the enemy’s forces and disposition about Richmond. The letter
commencing “Dear Sir,” on the first page, is a cipher letter to me from
a lady in Richmond with whom I am in correspondence. The bearer
of the letter brought me a private token showing that he was to be
trusted. . . You will see that the prisoners are to be sent away to
Georgia. Now or never is the time to strike . . . I have marked this
“Private and immediate,” so that it shall at once come into your
hands.
Respectfully your obedient servant,
BUTLER,
BENJ. P.
Maj.-Gen. Comanding
The Van Lew Family
Dear Sir,
It is intended to remove to Georgia all the Federal prisoners’
butchers and bakers to go at once. They are already known this
to be true. Are building batteries on the Danville road. This
from Quaker: Beware of new and rash council! Beware! This I
send you by direction of all your friends. No attempt should be
made with less than 30,000 cavalry, from 10,000 to 15,000 to
support them, amounting in all to 40,000 or 45,000 troops. Do
not underrate their strength and desperation. Forces could
probably be called into action in from five to ten days’ 25,000,
mostly artillery. Hoke’s and Kemper’s brigades gone to North
Carolina: Pickett’s in or about Petersburg. Three regiments of
cavalry disbanded by General Lee for want of horses. Morgan is
applying for 1,000 choice men for a raid.
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.
[Series I; Vol. XXXIII, Part I, page 520]
The Van Lew Family
Mary Bowser, born into slavery in Virginia sometime
around 1840, was born to a slave in the Van Lew
household.
“On May 17, 1846, ‘Mary Jane [Richards], a colored child
belonging to Mrs. Van Lew,’ was baptized in St. John’s, the
stately Episcopal church for which the elegant Church Hill
neighborhood of Richmond is named, and in which
Patrick Henry delivered his 1775 ‘give me liberty or give me
death’ speech.”
NY Times June 21, 2012
Mary Elizabeth Richards
Van Lew Bowser
She was sent north to attend school in
Philadelphia at the Quaker School for
Negroes, paid by the Van Lew family.
In 1855, Bett arranged for the girl, then
using the name Mary Jane Richards, to join
a missionary community in Liberia. She was
miserable there and returned after 1 year.
She went back to work in the Van Lew
household, and married Wilson Bowser in
April 1861.
With the formal education she received,
Mary was a fine writer and reader, which
when combined with a photographic
memory, made her perfect for helping Bett
gather information for the Union.
Mary Bowser
Van Lew credited her family’s former slave as her best
source, writing in the private diary she kept during the war,
“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.”
NY Times, 2012
Mary Bowser
Elizabeth used her connections to get Mary Bowser a servant
job in President Jefferson Davis' Confederate White House.
…1900, when Van Lew was dying, a Richmond newspaper’s
account of her life included a description of an unnamed
“maid, of more than usual intelligence” who was educated in
Philadelphia and then placed in the Confederate White
House as part of Van Lew’s spy ring.
NY Times, 2012
Mary Bowser
LECTURE BY A COLORED LADY. -- Miss
RICHMONIA RICHARDS, recently from Richmond,
where she has been engaged in organizing schools for the
freedmen, and has also been connected with the secret
service of our government, will give a description of her
adventures, on Monday evening, at the Abyssinian Baptist
Church, Waverley-place, near Sixth-avenue.
NY Times September 10, 1865
Mary Bowser
…in 1867, when she met Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Rev.
Charles Beecher and the Rev. Crammond Kennedy of the
Freedmen’s Bureau. The trio was traveling through St.
Mary’s, Ga., when they encountered “a most interesting
school taught by a colored girl — quite a character,” who at
that time went by the name Mary J. R. Richards.
Harriet Beecher’s diary
Mary Bowser
She left a diary, a diary that McEva Bowser may have found
in 1952 when her husband's mother died. McEva
Bowser: "I was cleaning her room and... I ran across a diary
but I never had a diary and I didn't even realize what it
was... And I did keep coming across (references to) Mr.
Davis. And the only Davis I could think of was the
contractor who had been doing some work at the house.
And the first time I came across it I threw it aside and said
I would read it again. Then I started to talk to my husband
about it but I felt it would depress him. So the next time I
came across it I just pitched it in the trash can."
NPR, 2002
Mary Bowser
“I felt that I had the advantage over the majority of my race both
in Blood and Intelligence, and that it was my duty if possible to
work where I am most needed.”
1867 correspondence with the superintendent of education for Georgia’s Freedmen’s Bureau
I wish there was some law here, or some protection. I know the
southerners pretty well … having been in the service so long as a
detective that I still find myself scrutinizing them closely. There
is … that sinister expression about the eye, and the quiet but
bitterly expressed feeling that I know portends evil … with a little
whiskey in them, they dare do anything … Do not think I am
frightened and laugh at my letter. Anyone that has spent 4
months in Richmond prison does not be so easily frightened.
Writing prior to leaving school for Georgia Freeman’s Society
Mary Bowser
In 1995, the U.S. Military inducted Bowser into the U.S.
Army Military Intelligence Corps. Hall of Fame with a
statement that read:
“Mrs. Bowser certainly succeeded in highly dangerous missions to
the great benefit of the Union effort. She was one of the highestplaced and most productive espionage agents of the Civil War.”
Which source is
more reliable? Why?
Photo provided by James A. Chambers
U.S. Army Deputy, Office of the Chief, Military Intelligence
CIA Art for Black Dispatches
How difficult was Mary’s work?
Read and study the
letter at left for 30
seconds.
Then see how much of
it you can remember
to write down as Mary
would have at a later
time.
References
Rose, P.K.. Studies in Intelligence. “Black Dispatches: Black American Contributions to Union
Intelligence During the Civil War.”https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-ofintelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/black-dispatches/ Accessed on June 2, 2013
Virginia History Archives. http://listlva.lib.va.us/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0108&L=va-hist&P=2926.
Accessed on June 2, 2013.
Leveen, Lois. “A Black Spy in the Confederate White House” NYTimes June 21, 2012.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/a-black-spy-in-the-confederate-white-house/
Accessed on June 2, 2013
Liberty Letters. http://www.libertyletters.com/resources/civil-war/elizabeth-van-lew-dispatch-tounion.php Accessed on June 2, 2013
NPR. Morning Edition.“The Spy Who Served Me.” April 19, 2002.
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/apr/served/ Accessed on June 2, 2013
References
NY Times. September 10, 1865. http://www.nytimes.com/1865/09/10/news/general-city-news.html
Accessed on June 2, 2013
Library of Congress. Dr. John Brockenbrough House (Confederate White House), 1201 East Clay
Street, Richmond, Independent City, VA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.va0517/photos.314334p
CIA. Intelligence in the Civil War. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/additionalpublications/civil-war/Intel_in_the_CW1.pdf Accessed on June 13, 2013
African American National Biography: a joint project of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African
and African American Research at Harvard University and Oxford University Press
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~aanb/SHTML/DOWNLOADS/Sample%20entries%20for%20Web%
20site.pdf
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-andmonographs/black-dispatches/boswer.jpg