July 13, 2011 • 19 mins
After her father died, Elizabeth Van Lew freed the family slaves, including a girl named Mary. When the Civil War began, sources say Mary became an agent in Van Lew's "Richmond Ring." Join Sarah and Deblina to learn more about Civil War spies.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm to blame a chalk reboarding, and we are taking
another look in this episode at what is apparently my
new favorite topic, spies. I set you an article last
(00:24):
week and you were pretty thrilled about it. Yeah, I was.
I'm sorry, Sarah, I'm afraid you think I might be
obsessed with this. You are a spy. I wish I
were a spy, but really, I'm not obsessed with this topic.
I just think it's really fascinating and there's so many
different facets to it that you can look at. And
we're going to get off of it soon or at
least move on to something else civil War related, but
(00:46):
we couldn't do that without at least taking a look
at this last or one other facet I should say,
of the of Civil War espionage, which is African American spies.
And it appears as though many Black Americans took an
active role in Union espionage during the war, although, as
we'll see a little later on, in most cases there
aren't a lot of records around now to tell us
(01:08):
exactly what their individual accomplishments were Yeah, and there are
a few reasons for that. It's due in part to
racial prejudice, but also because Union spy masters would often
destroy any record of their contributions after the war to
protect the African American spies. And then most didn't want
their identities to become known in the first place, even
after the war, because they feared repercussions if Confederate sympathizers
(01:32):
ever found out about it. They had taken a big
risk spying in the first place and didn't want to
get caught after the fact. Yeah, the penalty was death,
so it would be really bad if you were found out.
But according to the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence,
intelligence on the Confederates provided by African Americans, which was
known as Black dispatches, was the quote most prolific and
(01:54):
productive category of intelligence obtained and acted on by Union
forces throughout the Civil War. So former slaves and free
blacks alike participated in this, and Harriet Tubman is probably
the most well known name in this category of spies,
although she's probably better known for her work with the
Underground Railroad. That's how most people know her, I think,
But existing records and books written by other self proclaimed spies.
(02:18):
In other words, white spies give us information to substantiate
about eight to ten more, including the person we're going
to talk about in this episode, Mary Elizabeth Bowser. And
we don't know that much about Bowser, including whether that
was even her real name. Some people still question her
very existence, but she was eventually inducted into the U. S.
(02:38):
Army Intelligence Hall of Fame, so clearly some people believe
in her contribution. Yeah, you can't tell her story though,
without talking about someone whose existence is definitely known, that
of her union spy master Elizabeth van lu who started
a ring of spies in Richmond. And with the help
of Van lou story, we learned the generally accepted version
(02:59):
of a concerning Bowser too, and can explore the mystery
surrounding her. Who was she really? All right? So, Mary
Elizabeth Bowser was born into slavery in about eighteen thirty nine,
and there's some questions surrounding her exact name, as we mentioned,
but it's likely that in those days she was known
just as Mary or even Van Louse Mary, because she
(03:21):
was the slave of John van Leu, who was a
wealthy hardware merchant in Richmond, Virginia, and the Van Lews
were a very prominent family. They were well connected, they
were well respected. They had this huge mansion on the
highest hill in Richmond. Things started to change though for
the family after John van Leu died, and sources differ
as to when that was eighteen forty three or eighteen
(03:43):
fifty one, But it wasn't the wealth that changed. The
family definitely inherited all of that. It was some of
their social conventions and beliefs that started to change. Right. So,
after his death, the eldest Van Lou daughter, Elizabeth van Leu,
convinced her mother to free all nine of the family
slaves Mary included, and she also supposedly bought the relatives
(04:05):
of those slaves and freed them too. So why did
she free these slaves? Well, Elizabeth had always had a
sympathy for slaves, but she had also been educated by
school in Philadelphia that opposed slavery, so that just reinforced
her beliefs and kind of solidified them. Several slaves chose
to stay on as paid servants in the Van lou household,
and Mary was one of them. Elizabeth foe after being
(04:26):
around Mary for a wild did recognize her intelligence and
ended up sending her up to school up north in
the late eighteen fifties. We're not sure where exactly it was,
but may have been a Quaker school in Philadelphia. Mary
did return to Richmond though, before the war started, and
according to a two thousand six article in American History,
public record does show that she married a free black
(04:46):
man named William or perhaps Wilson Bowser in eighteen sixty
one in Saint John's Church, and that's where her last
name of Bowser comes from. But she seems to have
immediately taken up with the Van lou household again, this
time though it was to do a very different kind
of work. Yeah, because after the war started, Elizabeth van
Leu really didn't waste any time contributing to the Union effort.
(05:09):
She got permission to nerves wounded Union soldiers in Libby Prison,
and conditions there were really pretty bad. She would visit
regularly and assist the soldiers, you know, bringing them items
like books and stationary and food. And she in this
way started her spy efforts too, because she would carry
letters and messages in and out of the prison, and
(05:32):
the way she did this was pretty clever, she'd hid
them in books or in the bottom of a food pan,
and then relay those messages to union officers. Sometimes she
would just talk to the new prisoners and they would
tell her what they'd seen, and other times, uh they'd
tell her what they had overheard from doctors or nurses
or guards who were talking in the prison. So she
(05:52):
had a lot of different means of communication going on
within the prison, but also some cool ways to code
or messages. Yeah, some of was the book she carried out,
for example, would have faintly underlined letters and numbers that
formed a message when you put them together and read
them altogether, a little smarter than Bell Boyd's tactic of
signing bell at the end of her aspect or early
(06:14):
tactic at least, or the pages of the books would
have tiny pin pricks on them that meant something, so
the books were used in that way. But another tactic
of Elizabeth says that she would write letters that had
coded messages written in invisible ink between the lines, and
the ink would turn black if you applied milk to it.
And Sarah loves this one because she used to be
(06:35):
quite the connoisseur of invisible ink. I was kind of
the treehouse spy in my day, and I did have
some invisible ink which which I used a great effect.
But Elizabeth would carry the CIPHERD code for all of
these messages in the back of her watch, which I
thought that was really interesting too, because who's going to
take apart this Richmond socialites watch when she's leaving the
(06:59):
prison out a real clever final detail for all of this. Yeah,
and it said that years later when she died, they
actually found that code in the same place. So she
kept it all those years, even after the war. Right,
So when it became dangerous to send this information through
the mail or through the post, Elizabeth set up an
elaborate network with five courier relay points between her home
(07:22):
and Union Army officers. And sometimes she would um tear
a message into pieces and have each piece delivered by
a different agent to keep it hidden. Yeah. Again, pretty
amazing tactics. So, of course others in Richmond noticed that
this woman had clear Union sympathies, she was visiting the
prison and all of that, and they didn't improve. So
(07:43):
too offset suspicion, she started up an act. She pretended
to be crazy. She wore dirty torn clothing, she left
her hair uncombed, it got all matted. She would hum,
she would jerk her head back and forth and carry
on conversations with herself while she walked down the street.
People even started calling her crazy bet, so nobody paid
(08:05):
that much heed to what she was doing. Yeah, and
again to compare her to Bell Boyd, I mean, in
that episode we talked about how Bell used her feminine
wiles to carry off her spine draw out information from
from union men. Yeah, exactly, And Elizabeth has had to
pretend to be crazy and you know, use all these
(08:25):
secret codes, all these kind of involved tactics. Because she
was in her forties when she started spying and was
a spinster, not necessarily considered that attractive, so she took
a different approach. She did um and it was a
fairly effective one. Another thing that she did that was
different from Bell too, though, is that she didn't work alone.
And probably the best known for is establishing this extensive
(08:48):
network of spies in Richmond that the Federals dubbed the
Richmond Ring, and it consisted of hundreds of spies that
managed to work their way into pretty much every arm
of the Confederate. Established Libby Prison, the war, Navy departments,
Richmond businesses, and with the help of Mary Bowser, into
the Confederate Executive Mansion itself. All right, so we've got
(09:11):
to explain the background behind that. It said that Elizabeth,
perhaps through the recommendation of society connections, got Mary a
job as a servant in none other than Jefferson Davis's
household under the name Ellen Bond. And Mary, of course
was said to be intelligent. She had gone to school,
but she also put on an act, just like Elizabeth
(09:34):
in a way. She didn't let others know how smart
she really was. She pretended to be kind of dim witted,
a little bit loopy, so no one in the Executive
Mansion would think anything of saying important things in front
of her. Yeah, up to that point, slaves in general
were underestimated, though that's started to change a little bit
(09:54):
as the war went on. That was one of the
things that really blew me away about this this podcast too,
that that you would have to go through that transformation
of feeling that people would be so confident to speak
in front of their slaves at the beginning of the
war at least, Yeah, it's hard for us to imagine nowadays.
But in eighteen sixty three, General Robert E. Lee made
(10:14):
a statement that I think was kind of a revelation
at the time. His quote was, the chief source of
information to the enemy is through our negroes. I mean,
people didn't even realize that their servants would be listening
or would be taking in and interpreting the information that
they were so freely giving out. Yeah, so apparently Mary's
(10:34):
tactic worked. You know, she made herself blend into the background,
just kind of a spacey young woman who was working
in the house. And meanwhile though she was listening to
everything she heard while she was serving meals in the
presidential dining room, she saved scraps from Davis's waiste basket
while she cleaned up his study. She would memorize messages
(10:55):
that she read on his desk while she was dusting.
And man Thomas McNiven, who was a Scottish baker in
Richmond at the time and also a union spy and
the one who gave us the only documented reference to
Mary as a union spy, said that she had a
photographic memory, so she could remember every word of the
messages that she saw. Yeah, and the info that she
(11:18):
got included things like true movements, military strategies, treasury reports,
and from time to time Mary would meet up with
Elizabeth near the Van Loom mansion to give her reports
of what she learned, and then Elizabeth would come dressed
as a countrywoman so that she wouldn't be recognized, basically,
And it said that McNiven, for his part, would sometimes
serve as a courier for Mary too. When his bakery
(11:41):
wagon came around to the Executive mansion, she had passed
information along to him, and nobody thought anything of it
because it was just the baker coming backer and the
servant picking up the goods. So Mary pulled off this
act from about eighteen sixty three to eighteen sixty five,
and Elizabeth reported everything she found out back to Ulysses
as grant, and it said at one point General Lee
(12:02):
complained that the enemy received his directives before they even
reached his own lieutenant. So clearly there was a pretty
sophisticated spying system going on in Richmond. Yeah, and it's
also said that Davis suspected that there was a leak
in his house, but he never managed to really figure
out who it was. But Mary must have felt the
(12:22):
heat of suspicion, because in eighteen sixty five she just disappeared.
She fled the capital, and some even say that she
may have tried to burn down the house on her
way out the door. We're not sure if that's actually
kind of call attention to your own play, but nonetheless,
no one knows what happened to her. So after the war,
(12:43):
Van Loo and the federal government destroyed all the records
of the Richmond Ring to protect the lives of everybody
who was involved. But again that's why so many details
of Mary's life are still very sketchy. So we mentioned
McNiven and how he gave us our only documented source
of Mary's spying, but some people even feel that his
account can't be trusted because he had this tendency to exaggerate. Nevertheless,
(13:06):
stories about Mary did start showing up as earliest nineteen
hundred in Richmond newspapers, and Ben los Niece even revealed
her name in an interview in nineteen ten, so clearly
some people knew who this was, and they were talking
about her well after the fact. Bowser maybe even left
a diary behind, and it had reportedly been seen by
(13:26):
the wife of her great great grand nephew as late
as in nineteen fifty two and would have been a
gold mine of information about her life potentially, but it
was thrown away. And we mentioned at the beginning that
we weren't even exactly sure about what Mary's real name
was because more recent research by scholar Elizabeth Varren, who
wrote a book on Van lu suggests that Mary's name
(13:49):
was actually Mary Jane Richards, and Mary Jane Richards was
a Van Lou slave who was sent to be educated
in New Jersey as a child, and after the war,
Richard's married this guy with the last named Garvin and
went on to become an educator and a couple of
times in an interview and in a letter, she did
admit to working in the Secret Service during the war
(14:11):
as a detective, even though parts of her story contradict
some other accounts of Bowser's life. So it's it's hard
to say. Maybe this is the same woman, maybe maybe
it's different. Yeah, maybe it does lend some validity to
Bowser's story, though the story that a person like her
existed after the war. Verena Davis Jefferson, Davis's wife, was
(14:31):
asked about the espionage work of her former maid, Mary Bowser,
and she denied that any of her Richmond servants could
have been spies, and in nineteen o five letters she
even said quote, I had no educated Negro in my
household and really just flatly denied having hired anyone from
Van Lou. So her response is considered kind of questionable though,
(14:51):
because she reportedly had a few servants on staff who
were very well known and widely known around the area
to be educated. So she may have have said this
because she didn't want to admit that she had been
duped by someone working in her household. Yeah, or maybe
she wasn't even aware of what was going on in
her household, didn't realize her own servants were educated, especially
since we know Mary was putting on an act. Presumably
(15:14):
others could have been too, and that's a good point.
But as for Van Lou, Grant praised her after the
war for her contributions. He said quote, you have sent
me the most valuable information received from Richmond during the war,
so very high praise. And when he became president, he
appointed her Richmond postmaster, a position that paid four thousand
dollars a year, but after he left office, she lost
(15:35):
that gig. She went on to work in the Washington
Post Office, but eventually had to leave that too, and
then couldn't get work. Yeah, and by the time she
died on September dred at the age of eighty two,
she was very poor. She was lonely. She had spent
all her money, all her inheritance on her spy efforts
during the war and helping former slaves after that. And
(15:57):
in the end, the family of a man she had
helped libby prison came through for her. They gave her
some income, but she still had no friends locally because
of that controversial stance she had taken during the war.
So kind of a sad ending to the story of
a master spy, but interesting. Nonetheless, she's certainly stuck to
(16:17):
her principles. We can can say that for her. Yeah,
she really did stick to her principle. She stuck to
her guns, and she really remained who she was. And
I think that's a good spot now to move on
to a listener mail. We have a email here from
Krista and she writes, Hello, ladies. I've been a fan
of your podcast for a while, but until now I
(16:39):
haven't had a reason beyond thanks and praise to write
in I feel that you missed one major factor in
explaining Australia's collective obsession with Ned Kelly. While most of
us are recent immigrants with no convict heritage, we still
appreciate a good, honest criminal. The reasons for this go
beyond the robin Hood syndrome that you mentioned. Ingrained in
our culture is a contempt for authority. We love seeing
(17:01):
someone stick it to the law, We love a joke
at the expense of the rich and powerful, and we
tend to cheer on the underdog. Perhaps to an American
this irreverence isn't immediately obvious, but understanding this larricani ism
is a vital part of explaining why we pick such
bizarre folk heroes and are generally uncomfortable with overt patriotism.
I don't quite know how to explain the concept, but
(17:22):
the Larrikin is a strange figure who rears his sardonic
head all through Australian cultural history, from murderous bush rangers
to soldiers in World War One who refused to obey
nonsensical orders from British command. Consider the song Waltze and Matilda,
said to be something of an informal national anthem. It
is a fairly ridiculous song about stealing sheep or a
(17:43):
sheer strike. It's worth checking out simply for an explanation
of the old assie slang. I really liked this letter
because I had never heard of alarican before, so I
immediately when looked it up. And it's a kind of
cool concept I think to have as kind of just
a national idea. It adds some to my understanding of
ned Kelly too, for sure. The other main email we
(18:03):
got about the ned Kelly podcast was telling us about
all of the movie, so we should have a viewing
party one of these days. With the Heath Ledger movie,
there's a Mick Jagger one which has generally been hands
and by most of our listeners. So yeah, we could
just have a ned Kelly marathon it themes. Yeah, we
(18:25):
should do that. So thanks for the movie suggestions, and
thank you for the vocabulary lesson. It was awesome to
kind of learn that new concept. Um, if you have
any other movie suggestions for us, episodes, suggestions, any more
spies you want us to focus on, even though Sarah
may kill me, if we keep along the spy route
much longer, although you've enjoyed enjoy she has enjoyed it,
(18:47):
So send us more spies. If you want to work
history podcast at how stuff Works dot com, or you
can look us up on Twitter at myston History or
on Facebook. Yeah, bonus point if you write a suggestion
in invisible ink. But I guess we have to have
the decoder too, so yeah, we might never get messy.
What's this blank sheet of paper? We were Steve deblina Um. Anyway,
(19:07):
please send us your suggestions invisible or not. And if
you want to learn a little bit more about the
underground Railroad, we have a great article on it called
how the Underground Railroad Worked, and you can find it
by searching for Underground Railroad on our homepage at www
dot house stuff works dot com. Be sure to check
(19:30):
out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join
how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising
and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House Stuff Works iPhone
up has a ride. Download it today on iTunes
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm to blame a chalk reboarding, and we are taking
another look in this episode at what is apparently my
new favorite topic, spies. I set you an article last
(00:24):
week and you were pretty thrilled about it. Yeah, I was.
I'm sorry, Sarah, I'm afraid you think I might be
obsessed with this. You are a spy. I wish I
were a spy, but really, I'm not obsessed with this topic.
I just think it's really fascinating and there's so many
different facets to it that you can look at. And
we're going to get off of it soon or at
least move on to something else civil War related, but
(00:46):
we couldn't do that without at least taking a look
at this last or one other facet I should say,
of the of Civil War espionage, which is African American spies.
And it appears as though many Black Americans took an
active role in Union espionage during the war, although, as
we'll see a little later on, in most cases there
aren't a lot of records around now to tell us
(01:08):
exactly what their individual accomplishments were Yeah, and there are
a few reasons for that. It's due in part to
racial prejudice, but also because Union spy masters would often
destroy any record of their contributions after the war to
protect the African American spies. And then most didn't want
their identities to become known in the first place, even
after the war, because they feared repercussions if Confederate sympathizers
(01:32):
ever found out about it. They had taken a big
risk spying in the first place and didn't want to
get caught after the fact. Yeah, the penalty was death,
so it would be really bad if you were found out.
But according to the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence,
intelligence on the Confederates provided by African Americans, which was
known as Black dispatches, was the quote most prolific and
(01:54):
productive category of intelligence obtained and acted on by Union
forces throughout the Civil War. So former slaves and free
blacks alike participated in this, and Harriet Tubman is probably
the most well known name in this category of spies,
although she's probably better known for her work with the
Underground Railroad. That's how most people know her, I think,
But existing records and books written by other self proclaimed spies.
(02:18):
In other words, white spies give us information to substantiate
about eight to ten more, including the person we're going
to talk about in this episode, Mary Elizabeth Bowser. And
we don't know that much about Bowser, including whether that
was even her real name. Some people still question her
very existence, but she was eventually inducted into the U. S.
(02:38):
Army Intelligence Hall of Fame, so clearly some people believe
in her contribution. Yeah, you can't tell her story though,
without talking about someone whose existence is definitely known, that
of her union spy master Elizabeth van lu who started
a ring of spies in Richmond. And with the help
of Van lou story, we learned the generally accepted version
(02:59):
of a concerning Bowser too, and can explore the mystery
surrounding her. Who was she really? All right? So, Mary
Elizabeth Bowser was born into slavery in about eighteen thirty nine,
and there's some questions surrounding her exact name, as we mentioned,
but it's likely that in those days she was known
just as Mary or even Van Louse Mary, because she
(03:21):
was the slave of John van Leu, who was a
wealthy hardware merchant in Richmond, Virginia, and the Van Lews
were a very prominent family. They were well connected, they
were well respected. They had this huge mansion on the
highest hill in Richmond. Things started to change though for
the family after John van Leu died, and sources differ
as to when that was eighteen forty three or eighteen
(03:43):
fifty one, But it wasn't the wealth that changed. The
family definitely inherited all of that. It was some of
their social conventions and beliefs that started to change. Right. So,
after his death, the eldest Van Lou daughter, Elizabeth van Leu,
convinced her mother to free all nine of the family
slaves Mary included, and she also supposedly bought the relatives
(04:05):
of those slaves and freed them too. So why did
she free these slaves? Well, Elizabeth had always had a
sympathy for slaves, but she had also been educated by
school in Philadelphia that opposed slavery, so that just reinforced
her beliefs and kind of solidified them. Several slaves chose
to stay on as paid servants in the Van lou household,
and Mary was one of them. Elizabeth foe after being
(04:26):
around Mary for a wild did recognize her intelligence and
ended up sending her up to school up north in
the late eighteen fifties. We're not sure where exactly it was,
but may have been a Quaker school in Philadelphia. Mary
did return to Richmond though, before the war started, and
according to a two thousand six article in American History,
public record does show that she married a free black
(04:46):
man named William or perhaps Wilson Bowser in eighteen sixty
one in Saint John's Church, and that's where her last
name of Bowser comes from. But she seems to have
immediately taken up with the Van lou household again, this
time though it was to do a very different kind
of work. Yeah, because after the war started, Elizabeth van
Leu really didn't waste any time contributing to the Union effort.
(05:09):
She got permission to nerves wounded Union soldiers in Libby Prison,
and conditions there were really pretty bad. She would visit
regularly and assist the soldiers, you know, bringing them items
like books and stationary and food. And she in this
way started her spy efforts too, because she would carry
letters and messages in and out of the prison, and
(05:32):
the way she did this was pretty clever, she'd hid
them in books or in the bottom of a food pan,
and then relay those messages to union officers. Sometimes she
would just talk to the new prisoners and they would
tell her what they'd seen, and other times, uh they'd
tell her what they had overheard from doctors or nurses
or guards who were talking in the prison. So she
(05:52):
had a lot of different means of communication going on
within the prison, but also some cool ways to code
or messages. Yeah, some of was the book she carried out,
for example, would have faintly underlined letters and numbers that
formed a message when you put them together and read
them altogether, a little smarter than Bell Boyd's tactic of
signing bell at the end of her aspect or early
(06:14):
tactic at least, or the pages of the books would
have tiny pin pricks on them that meant something, so
the books were used in that way. But another tactic
of Elizabeth says that she would write letters that had
coded messages written in invisible ink between the lines, and
the ink would turn black if you applied milk to it.
And Sarah loves this one because she used to be
(06:35):
quite the connoisseur of invisible ink. I was kind of
the treehouse spy in my day, and I did have
some invisible ink which which I used a great effect.
But Elizabeth would carry the CIPHERD code for all of
these messages in the back of her watch, which I
thought that was really interesting too, because who's going to
take apart this Richmond socialites watch when she's leaving the
(06:59):
prison out a real clever final detail for all of this. Yeah,
and it said that years later when she died, they
actually found that code in the same place. So she
kept it all those years, even after the war. Right,
So when it became dangerous to send this information through
the mail or through the post, Elizabeth set up an
elaborate network with five courier relay points between her home
(07:22):
and Union Army officers. And sometimes she would um tear
a message into pieces and have each piece delivered by
a different agent to keep it hidden. Yeah. Again, pretty
amazing tactics. So, of course others in Richmond noticed that
this woman had clear Union sympathies, she was visiting the
prison and all of that, and they didn't improve. So
(07:43):
too offset suspicion, she started up an act. She pretended
to be crazy. She wore dirty torn clothing, she left
her hair uncombed, it got all matted. She would hum,
she would jerk her head back and forth and carry
on conversations with herself while she walked down the street.
People even started calling her crazy bet, so nobody paid
(08:05):
that much heed to what she was doing. Yeah, and
again to compare her to Bell Boyd, I mean, in
that episode we talked about how Bell used her feminine
wiles to carry off her spine draw out information from
from union men. Yeah, exactly, And Elizabeth has had to
pretend to be crazy and you know, use all these
(08:25):
secret codes, all these kind of involved tactics. Because she
was in her forties when she started spying and was
a spinster, not necessarily considered that attractive, so she took
a different approach. She did um and it was a
fairly effective one. Another thing that she did that was
different from Bell too, though, is that she didn't work alone.
And probably the best known for is establishing this extensive
(08:48):
network of spies in Richmond that the Federals dubbed the
Richmond Ring, and it consisted of hundreds of spies that
managed to work their way into pretty much every arm
of the Confederate. Established Libby Prison, the war, Navy departments,
Richmond businesses, and with the help of Mary Bowser, into
the Confederate Executive Mansion itself. All right, so we've got
(09:11):
to explain the background behind that. It said that Elizabeth,
perhaps through the recommendation of society connections, got Mary a
job as a servant in none other than Jefferson Davis's
household under the name Ellen Bond. And Mary, of course
was said to be intelligent. She had gone to school,
but she also put on an act, just like Elizabeth
(09:34):
in a way. She didn't let others know how smart
she really was. She pretended to be kind of dim witted,
a little bit loopy, so no one in the Executive
Mansion would think anything of saying important things in front
of her. Yeah, up to that point, slaves in general
were underestimated, though that's started to change a little bit
(09:54):
as the war went on. That was one of the
things that really blew me away about this this podcast too,
that that you would have to go through that transformation
of feeling that people would be so confident to speak
in front of their slaves at the beginning of the
war at least, Yeah, it's hard for us to imagine nowadays.
But in eighteen sixty three, General Robert E. Lee made
(10:14):
a statement that I think was kind of a revelation
at the time. His quote was, the chief source of
information to the enemy is through our negroes. I mean,
people didn't even realize that their servants would be listening
or would be taking in and interpreting the information that
they were so freely giving out. Yeah, so apparently Mary's
(10:34):
tactic worked. You know, she made herself blend into the background,
just kind of a spacey young woman who was working
in the house. And meanwhile though she was listening to
everything she heard while she was serving meals in the
presidential dining room, she saved scraps from Davis's waiste basket
while she cleaned up his study. She would memorize messages
(10:55):
that she read on his desk while she was dusting.
And man Thomas McNiven, who was a Scottish baker in
Richmond at the time and also a union spy and
the one who gave us the only documented reference to
Mary as a union spy, said that she had a
photographic memory, so she could remember every word of the
messages that she saw. Yeah, and the info that she
(11:18):
got included things like true movements, military strategies, treasury reports,
and from time to time Mary would meet up with
Elizabeth near the Van Loom mansion to give her reports
of what she learned, and then Elizabeth would come dressed
as a countrywoman so that she wouldn't be recognized, basically,
And it said that McNiven, for his part, would sometimes
serve as a courier for Mary too. When his bakery
(11:41):
wagon came around to the Executive mansion, she had passed
information along to him, and nobody thought anything of it
because it was just the baker coming backer and the
servant picking up the goods. So Mary pulled off this
act from about eighteen sixty three to eighteen sixty five,
and Elizabeth reported everything she found out back to Ulysses
as grant, and it said at one point General Lee
(12:02):
complained that the enemy received his directives before they even
reached his own lieutenant. So clearly there was a pretty
sophisticated spying system going on in Richmond. Yeah, and it's
also said that Davis suspected that there was a leak
in his house, but he never managed to really figure
out who it was. But Mary must have felt the
(12:22):
heat of suspicion, because in eighteen sixty five she just disappeared.
She fled the capital, and some even say that she
may have tried to burn down the house on her
way out the door. We're not sure if that's actually
kind of call attention to your own play, but nonetheless,
no one knows what happened to her. So after the war,
(12:43):
Van Loo and the federal government destroyed all the records
of the Richmond Ring to protect the lives of everybody
who was involved. But again that's why so many details
of Mary's life are still very sketchy. So we mentioned
McNiven and how he gave us our only documented source
of Mary's spying, but some people even feel that his
account can't be trusted because he had this tendency to exaggerate. Nevertheless,
(13:06):
stories about Mary did start showing up as earliest nineteen
hundred in Richmond newspapers, and Ben los Niece even revealed
her name in an interview in nineteen ten, so clearly
some people knew who this was, and they were talking
about her well after the fact. Bowser maybe even left
a diary behind, and it had reportedly been seen by
(13:26):
the wife of her great great grand nephew as late
as in nineteen fifty two and would have been a
gold mine of information about her life potentially, but it
was thrown away. And we mentioned at the beginning that
we weren't even exactly sure about what Mary's real name
was because more recent research by scholar Elizabeth Varren, who
wrote a book on Van lu suggests that Mary's name
(13:49):
was actually Mary Jane Richards, and Mary Jane Richards was
a Van Lou slave who was sent to be educated
in New Jersey as a child, and after the war,
Richard's married this guy with the last named Garvin and
went on to become an educator and a couple of
times in an interview and in a letter, she did
admit to working in the Secret Service during the war
(14:11):
as a detective, even though parts of her story contradict
some other accounts of Bowser's life. So it's it's hard
to say. Maybe this is the same woman, maybe maybe
it's different. Yeah, maybe it does lend some validity to
Bowser's story, though the story that a person like her
existed after the war. Verena Davis Jefferson, Davis's wife, was
(14:31):
asked about the espionage work of her former maid, Mary Bowser,
and she denied that any of her Richmond servants could
have been spies, and in nineteen o five letters she
even said quote, I had no educated Negro in my
household and really just flatly denied having hired anyone from
Van Lou. So her response is considered kind of questionable though,
(14:51):
because she reportedly had a few servants on staff who
were very well known and widely known around the area
to be educated. So she may have have said this
because she didn't want to admit that she had been
duped by someone working in her household. Yeah, or maybe
she wasn't even aware of what was going on in
her household, didn't realize her own servants were educated, especially
since we know Mary was putting on an act. Presumably
(15:14):
others could have been too, and that's a good point.
But as for Van Lou, Grant praised her after the
war for her contributions. He said quote, you have sent
me the most valuable information received from Richmond during the war,
so very high praise. And when he became president, he
appointed her Richmond postmaster, a position that paid four thousand
dollars a year, but after he left office, she lost
(15:35):
that gig. She went on to work in the Washington
Post Office, but eventually had to leave that too, and
then couldn't get work. Yeah, and by the time she
died on September dred at the age of eighty two,
she was very poor. She was lonely. She had spent
all her money, all her inheritance on her spy efforts
during the war and helping former slaves after that. And
(15:57):
in the end, the family of a man she had
helped libby prison came through for her. They gave her
some income, but she still had no friends locally because
of that controversial stance she had taken during the war.
So kind of a sad ending to the story of
a master spy, but interesting. Nonetheless, she's certainly stuck to
(16:17):
her principles. We can can say that for her. Yeah,
she really did stick to her principle. She stuck to
her guns, and she really remained who she was. And
I think that's a good spot now to move on
to a listener mail. We have a email here from
Krista and she writes, Hello, ladies. I've been a fan
of your podcast for a while, but until now I
(16:39):
haven't had a reason beyond thanks and praise to write
in I feel that you missed one major factor in
explaining Australia's collective obsession with Ned Kelly. While most of
us are recent immigrants with no convict heritage, we still
appreciate a good, honest criminal. The reasons for this go
beyond the robin Hood syndrome that you mentioned. Ingrained in
our culture is a contempt for authority. We love seeing
(17:01):
someone stick it to the law, We love a joke
at the expense of the rich and powerful, and we
tend to cheer on the underdog. Perhaps to an American
this irreverence isn't immediately obvious, but understanding this larricani ism
is a vital part of explaining why we pick such
bizarre folk heroes and are generally uncomfortable with overt patriotism.
I don't quite know how to explain the concept, but
(17:22):
the Larrikin is a strange figure who rears his sardonic
head all through Australian cultural history, from murderous bush rangers
to soldiers in World War One who refused to obey
nonsensical orders from British command. Consider the song Waltze and Matilda,
said to be something of an informal national anthem. It
is a fairly ridiculous song about stealing sheep or a
(17:43):
sheer strike. It's worth checking out simply for an explanation
of the old assie slang. I really liked this letter
because I had never heard of alarican before, so I
immediately when looked it up. And it's a kind of
cool concept I think to have as kind of just
a national idea. It adds some to my understanding of
ned Kelly too, for sure. The other main email we
(18:03):
got about the ned Kelly podcast was telling us about
all of the movie, so we should have a viewing
party one of these days. With the Heath Ledger movie,
there's a Mick Jagger one which has generally been hands
and by most of our listeners. So yeah, we could
just have a ned Kelly marathon it themes. Yeah, we
(18:25):
should do that. So thanks for the movie suggestions, and
thank you for the vocabulary lesson. It was awesome to
kind of learn that new concept. Um, if you have
any other movie suggestions for us, episodes, suggestions, any more
spies you want us to focus on, even though Sarah
may kill me, if we keep along the spy route
much longer, although you've enjoyed enjoy she has enjoyed it,
(18:47):
So send us more spies. If you want to work
history podcast at how stuff Works dot com, or you
can look us up on Twitter at myston History or
on Facebook. Yeah, bonus point if you write a suggestion
in invisible ink. But I guess we have to have
the decoder too, so yeah, we might never get messy.
What's this blank sheet of paper? We were Steve deblina Um. Anyway,
(19:07):
please send us your suggestions invisible or not. And if
you want to learn a little bit more about the
underground Railroad, we have a great article on it called
how the Underground Railroad Worked, and you can find it
by searching for Underground Railroad on our homepage at www
dot house stuff works dot com. Be sure to check
(19:30):
out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join
how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising
and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House Stuff Works iPhone
up has a ride. Download it today on iTunes
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