![]() Butler wanted a spy in Richmond, and he sent one of the officers back with instructions to recruit Elizabeth as an official Union spy who would send information to him for military use.Īt the end of January 1864, Elizabeth sent her first official message to General Butler and in the following months continued to send information for attempted raids to free the prisoners in Richmond. They told General Benjamin Butler about the underground communications and network Elizabeth Van Lew had established in the Confederate capital. Late in 1863, two Union officers escaped and headed north. She also built a secret, underground network and started helping prisoners escape from Libby Prison, sometimes sheltering them in her own home. What they didn’t know: Elizabeth passed notes and communications in and out of Libby Prison, using her food dishes and books to carry the messages in hidden code or compartments. This angel of mercy ignored society’s frowns and sent food, books, and medicine. ![]() Society was still suspicious, but Elizabeth played her role well. However, Van Lew quietly continued her mission, outwardly maintained her supposed support of the Confederacy and trying to explain her actions to observers by reasoning that perhaps God wouldn’t bless a cause whose people weren’t merciful to prisoners. Men pointed at her in the streets and hurled insults. Richmond was outraged and printed the news in the papers. Using flattery, she persuaded the commanders to let her send relief supplies to the Union men. It didn’t take long for infected injuries, illness, and the prison conditions to take their toll on the Union men.Įlizabeth Van Lew heard about their suffering. Unprepared for these prisoners, the authorities stashed them in an old tobacco warehouse which got the name Libby Prison. She didn’t have to wait long to find her duty.įollowing the first battle of the war (First Bull Run or Manassas), captured Union soldiers arrived in Richmond. Instead, the forty-three-year-old started wondering what she could do for the war effort. Settled and established in their city home, Elizabeth didn’t leave the state or city when Virginia seceded, but she wholeheartedly opposed secession. They were accepted into society, but the clannish Richmonders still sometimes held the family at arm’s length because of their Northern origins.Įlizabeth’s father had died prior to 1861, and she was the unmarried daughter left to care for her widowed mother. The family lived in a three story home in a “fashionable district” of Virginia’s capital. It made sense, after-all her father was a wealthy merchant who’d established a successful business in Richmond, Virginia, but the family ties were north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Born in 1818, Elizabeth Van Lew was educated in the North.
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