Photo By Lori Stewart | Miss Van Lew seated outside her mansion in Richmond, where she hid many Union...... read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
MISS VAN LEW PASSES INFORMATION TO GEN. BUTLER
On Jan. 30, 1864, Miss Elizabeth Van Lew, a loyal Unionist in Confederate territory, dispatched her first report to Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler. Van Lew’s residency in Richmond, Virginia, and her selfless courage spurred her to provide military information from the Confederate capitol to both Butler and later Gen. Ulysses S. Grant through the end of the war.
A prominent and wealthy Richmond citizen, the 43-year-old Van Lew had been a staunch abolitionist before the secession of the Southern states. Once a state of war existed between North and South, she reluctantly dampened her outward Unionist support but found other ways to help the Northern cause. In the early years of the war, she focused on easing the plight of captured Union soldiers in Richmond’s prisons, supplying food and clothing and often aiding in their escape and flight back to Union territory. To support these efforts, she developed an underground organization of local farmers, machinists, carpenters, a railroad superintendent, and her own servants, former slaves she freed after her father died.
Early in December 1863, her underground helped two captured Union soldiers return to Washington D.C. The two reported to Fort Monroe, Virginia, where Butler commanded the Department of Virginia and North Carolina. After hearing of their escape, Butler contacted his friend, Charles Boutelle, a topographic engineer in the U.S. Coast Survey Office, asking if he could safely enlist the help of Van Lew, “a true union woman as true as steel,” to supply him with information from Richmond. Presumably receiving a favorable reply from Boutelle, Butler sent a scout to connect with Van Lew, who immediately agreed to the opportunity to support the Union cause. The scout directed her to write all her information within innocuous letters to her “uncle” James Ap. Jones using a supplied invisible ink solution and a cipher.
On Jan. 30, 1864, Van Lew sent her first communique to Butler, alerting him that Union prisoners in Richmond were to be transported to the Andersonville prison in Georgia. She provided further details about Confederate troop strength and locations, and the messenger who delivered the letter to Butler verbally added her recommendations for a rescue effort before the prisoners could be transferred. Receiving approval from the secretary of war, Butler launched his unsuccessful raid on Feb. 6, unaware the Confederates already knew of his plans.
Although their first venture failed, Van Lew continued to answer Butler’s pointed questions about Confederate intentions and fortifications and supplied information about a potential attack on Norfolk. Butler even sent her $50,000 of Confederate money to recruit more agents. In late spring 1864, after General Ulysses S. Grant was appointed general-in-chief of all the Union armies, the new commander launched a multi-prong attack to bring the war to an end. Van Lew sent what may have been her final letter to Butler. In it, she confided Richmond was left lightly garrisoned when most troops left the city to reinforce Confederate forces elsewhere. Based partly on Van Lew’s information, Butler marched his army up the James River toward Richmond. Unfortunately, he was blocked by a Confederate counterattack and forced to withdraw to the south.
Thereafter, Van Lew supplied information directly to Grant’s Bureau of Military Information (BMI) until the end of the war. Brig. Gen. George Sharpe, chief of the BMI, recalled his boss was well acquainted with “the regular information obtained … from Richmond, the greater proportion of which in its collection, and in good measure in its transmission we owed to the intelligence and devotion of Miss E. L. Van Lew.”
After the war, Butler personally wrote Van Lew to praise “his secret correspondent.” Grant showed his appreciation of her efforts by appointing her postmistress of Richmond for the duration of his presidency. Elizabeth Van Lew died in September 1900 and was inducted posthumously into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in 1993.
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| Date Taken: | 01.24.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 01.24.2025 14:19 |
| Story ID: | 489631 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 35 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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