General Stuart’s death was a great blow to the Confederacy, bringing a feverish anxiety upon the people at a time when nature, indifferent to their suffering, was at its loveliest. While cannon rumbled and long lines of wounded soldiers straggled into the city, green leaves unfurled overheard, songbirds twittered, and flowers bloomed, though their perfume could not mask the stench of death. Nor could it divert the people from a newly stirring sense of apprehension as they weighed rumors and reports from the battlefield. Although some of the battles had proven tactically inconclusive, they revealed something significant about General Grant each time he failed to destroy General Lee’s army: In circumstances where his predecessors had always chosen to retreat, General Grant invariably regrouped and moved his army forward, again and again, keeping General Lee on the defensive and inching ever closer to the Confederate capital. The citizens of Richmond realized then that General Grant possessed a very different military mind from what they had yet witnessed from any Yankee leader.
Mary Jane sent word from the Gray House that President Davis and General Lee were determined to destroy the Army of the Potomac before it could reach the James River. If they failed, General Grant could lay siege to Petersburg, the most important supply base and railway depot for the entire region. General Lee requested reinforcements, but when General Beauregard scathingly refused to provide one of his divisions, General Lee had appealed to President Davis, who immediately ordered the transfer. Lizzie prayed that the generals’ squabbling would buy the Union precious time to prepare.
When the forces finally met at Cold Harbor, everywhere there was a sense that this would be the final struggle. On June 1, General Lee’s forces halted a Union attack that had nearly turned the Confederate flank. The next day the armies positioned themselves on opposite sides of a six-mile-long front stretching from the northwest to the southeast, and early in the morning on June 3, General Grant drove his forces into General Lee’s well-entrenched divisions. The attack failed utterly. Shortly after midday, as thousands of Union troops lay dead or wounded between the lines, General Grant broke off the assault.
In mid-June, in the last major battle of the bloody campaign, General Grant surprised General Lee—and everyone else, for that matter—by directing his engineers to construct a pontoon bridge twenty-one hundred feet across the James, and then stealthily crossing the river and threatening Petersburg, a mere twenty-five miles south of the Confederate capital. If General Grant could capture Petersburg, Richmond would inevitably fall.
The Union troops settled in for the siege.
Shortly after the Battle of Cold Harbor, General Winder was ordered to report to Americus, Georgia, to assume command of the forces in the city and the prison post at Andersonville. It was a prestigious post, for Andersonville had become known as the “grand depot” of all the prisoners taken in the war. Just as she had when Captain Gibbs replaced Lieutenant Todd, Lizzie felt a curious mixture of triumph that she had outlasted his reign and trepidation that she would have to learn the ways of a new adversary. She considered delivering General Winder a farewell ginger cake for old time’s sake, but by the time she learned of his transfer, he had already gone.
Later in June, Lizzie received word from her Northern contacts that Colonel George H. Sharpe, the intelligence chief for the Army of the Potomac, would be taking over for General Butler as the primary patron of her network. Soon thereafter, she was overjoyed to receive, tucked carefully in with one of the colonel’s dispatches, a letter from John.
Shortly after the Battle of Cold Harbor, her brother had managed to slip into Union lines, where he presented himself at General Grant’s headquarters. “They tried to recruit me as a scout,” John wrote, “but I demurred, and explained that I was en route to Philadelphia. I did reassure them that you are in a position to furnish them with valuable information, a claim they can verify with General Butler.” He sent his love to Mother, Annie, and Eliza, and promised to kiss Anna for them.
It took several weeks for word of John’s desertion to reach the Richmond press, but when it did, the response was withering:
GONE TO THE YANKEES.
—J. Newton Van Lew, for many years a hardware merchant of this city, has gone to the Yankees, and is said to have been taken by Beast Butler as a special detective. Van Lew, notwithstanding an incurable disease, which rendered him unfit for anything, we should think, being conscribed about the time Grant made his flank movement to the Southside, one evening rode out in his buggy in the direction of Malvern Hill, and has not been seen since. If he displays any brains in his new character of detective, it will be for the first time in his life.
Lizzie would have expected nothing less than an ad hominem attack from the Whig, but John’s many friends would not let it stand. They promptly wrote to the editor protesting that John had not deserted at all but had been captured by a Yankee raiding party. The editor grudgingly printed several of their letters, but could not resist adding a remark from the chief of the Confederate police, who flatly stated, “Van Lew rode out with a colored man in a buggy. The man and the buggy came back, but Van Lew didn’t. It is d—d strange if the Yankee raiders took Van Lew that they didn’t take the colored man and buggy, too.”
Lizzie was immeasurably relieved and elated that John was safe in the North, but she wished that somehow his desertion could have escaped the notice of the press. Their contemptuous remarks would bring more unwanted attention to the family at the very moment when, as Mary Jane had warned, Unionists needed to be at their most circumspect.
But when the next arrest came, the knock sounded not upon her door but Mr. Rowley’s.
In a frenzy of alarm, Lizzie scrambled to gather information and to retain a lawyer for her dear, loyal, courageous friend. As best she could determine, his neighbors had reported him to the authorities, accusing him of being a Union man who was shirking out of the Confederate service. He was arrested and taken to Castle Thunder, where, after giving him a few days to consider his position, the authorities forced him to join an ambulance crew. Several hot, miserable, frightening weeks later, Mr. Rowley finally was allowed to make his case that as a Dunkard, he was a conscientious objector, and so they released him—after he paid the five-hundred-dollar exemption fee.
The Richmond underground was shaken by Mr. Rowley’s arrest, but rather than cease, they intensified their activities. They helped the valiant Robert Ford, who had finally recovered from his terrible beating but would probably suffer from its effects for the rest of his life, escape from Libby Prison and away to the North. Throughout the summer and the fall, they provided a wealth of crucial information to the Army of the Potomac via Colonel Sharpe, not the least of which concerned Richmond’s defenses—the locations of picket posts, the strength of the fortifications that encircled the city. They provided insight into the condition of the rebel troops—how they had protested when their coffee and sugar rations were eliminated, how the fire brigade had been sent through the city to round up able-bodied men, how the conscripts had been examined so quickly and carelessly that a blind man had been sent to the front. They reported on severe shortages of soft iron for the manufacture of ammunition, and raw iron for making nails and spikes. Most significantly, they kept General Grant well informed on the location and status of General Jubal A. Early’s Army of the Valley, taking careful note of the shifting of reinforcements between General Early’s army and General Lee’s, and evaluating the rumors circulating in the capital about General Early’s plans.
In September, thanks to Mary Jane, Lizzie had also been able to convey what had transpired at a council of general officers at the Gray House. All the prominent generals in Richmond and from General Lee’s army had attended, unaware that the colored woman serving them would remember every detail—General Early’s insistence that he could not hold the Shenandoah Valley without more men, General Lee’s assertion that without reinforcements he would be unable to ho
ld his lines, the officers’ acknowledgment that their lines were stretched so thin that in some places it amounted to nothing more that a skeleton force.
Lizzie’s network of informants never failed to alert General Grant when the time had come to strike.
One morning in late September, an unexpected visitor called at the Van Lew mansion, a childhood friend whom Lizzie had not seen in years, though they lived scarcely a mile from each other. “Why, Miss King,” Lizzie cried, embracing her. “What a delightful surprise! What brings you back to Church Hill?”
“Dreadful news, I’m afraid,” she said shakily, taking Lizzie’s hand. “Is there somewhere we can talk alone?”
“Of course.” Lizzie called for tea to be brought to the library, where she settled Miss King into a chair. “Please tell me what’s wrong, and I will do everything in my power to help you.”
“I come not to ask for help but, I hope, to give it.” Two deep creases of worry appeared between Miss King’s brows as she took a letter from her pocket and held it out to Lizzie. “This came for me yesterday afternoon.”
With some trepidation, Lizzie unfolded the letter and read it. A Detective W. W. New had written to Miss King to inform her that Assistant Provost Marshal T. W. Doswell requested her presence at Commissioner John H. Sands’s office to give testimony against Mrs. Eliza Van Lew. “You need not see anyone but Commissioner Sands, if you feel a delicacy in going,” the detective had assured her. “They wish to have your testimony to conclude the case and would like to have you come as soon as you can. You will not see Mrs. Van Lew, nor will your name be mentioned to her.”
“Give testimony against my mother?” Lizzie exclaimed, appalled.
“I don’t understand it either,” said Miss King. “We haven’t been neighbors in ages. I can’t imagine why they would want to question me, unless they’re questioning everyone your mother has ever known.”
“But why Mother?” said Lizzie, sinking into a chair, reading the letter a second time. “My mother is the very embodiment of goodness and honesty. Why would they investigate her—” Instead of me, she almost added, but she stopped herself just in time.
“I cannot imagine why, unless you have a secret enemy bent on revenge. A disgruntled servant, perhaps. A jealous neighbor who envies your mother’s touch in the garden. Anyone can inform on anyone else these days and make trouble for everyone they dislike.” Miss King cradled her teacup in her hands and shivered. “Of course there’s no grounds for it, but they must investigate, and I thought you should know.”
Lizzie thanked her profusely and begged her to tell no one lest rumors heighten the detective’s suspicions. “I won’t breathe a word,” Miss King promised. “As for what I shall say when I give testimony, I will tell them the absolute truth: Your mother is the epitome of goodness and piety, and I have absolutely no reason to suspect her of any ill will or wrongdoing.”
Lizzie thanked her again, tears springing into her eyes. Miss King would defend Mother staunchly, but what of others, less scrupulous and faithful than she?
The very next day, the reverend Philip B. Price, a longtime family friend, called on the Van Lews to warn them that he too had been summoned by Provost Marshal Doswell to offer evidence against Mother. “When I told them I could think of nothing to betray the mistress of the house, they told me to ‘refresh my memory,’” he said indignantly. “How they can badger a mature woman whose character and standing in the community are absolutely unimpeachable, I cannot understand.”
Mother thanked him for defending her so courageously, and he declared he could do no less, for every word he had spoken was true, and she could count on him to defend her before the highest court in any land if need be. “I am greatly comforted to know that I have such a friend as you,” Mother told him, but she looked pale and frightened.
Lizzie was furious. There were but two reasons the authorities would fix their sights on the irreproachable mother rather than the eccentric spinster daughter: Either some enemy had specifically named Mother, which was highly unlikely because she was beloved by all who knew her, or the rebel government wanted an excuse to confiscate her property. The house and all that was in it, the outbuildings, the farm, the livestock—and those of their servants whom the rebel government considered slaves—all were in Mother’s name. If Lizzie was convicted of treason, they would claim only her personal wealth, of which only a sad, small fraction remained due to her wartime expenditures. If Mother were found guilty, the rebels could commandeer a fortune.
But the worst shock was yet to come.
In October, one of her paid informants in the adjutant general’s office smuggled out a sheaf of hastily scribbled copies of documents relating to the investigation. The first startling disclosure was a memo between Provost Marshal Isaac Carrington and Charles M. Blackford of the adjutant general’s office that revealed that the focus of the investigation had shifted from her mother to herself.
The second revelation came as such a shock, such a terrible, profound betrayal, that she felt its force like a staggering blow, and she stumbled back, dizzy, and let the pages slip through her fingers and drift to the library floor.
Mary Carter West Van Lew, John’s estranged wife, had condemned her before the provost marshal.
Chapter Twenty-one
* * *
OCTOBER 1864-MARCH 1865
M
ary’s accusations went on and on.
The clerk had copied the official deposition so hurriedly that his handwriting was difficult to decipher, but it was clear that Mary’s indictments were condemning. She had sworn before Commissioner Sands that she was well acquainted with Mrs. Eliza L. Van Lew and Miss Elizabeth L. Van Lew because she had resided with them from 1854 to 1857 and again from before secession until recently. She swore that she had frequently visited them since the war commenced and that she often heard them express ardent desire for the success of federal arms and the failure of the Confederate States of America to establish its independence. She swore that they were strongly abolitionist and offered as evidence that, years before, they had freed one of their Negro slaves and had sent her North to be educated. She swore that John Newton Van Lew, her own husband, had absconded to the North on account of his preference for that government, and that if Miss Van Lew and her mother were exiled to the North she did not want her children to accompany them. She concluded by emphasizing that she had no interest whatsoever in their estate.
Lizzie felt anger and remorse wash over her in equal measure. How she wished she had never spoken a word against the Confederacy in Mary’s presence—but how much more fervently she regretted every mocking smile, every arch retort, every unkind word she had offered her sister-in-law. If Lizzie had been kinder, more tolerant, as gentle and forgiving as Mother, Mary would not have been so maliciously eager to denounce her.
“Perhaps if you made peace with Mary, she’d renounce her testimony,” Mother said, struggling to keep her composure. “There must be something we can do.”
Lizzie had considered that before, and she was about to agree when a flash of insight struck. Mary had disavowed any interest in the Van Lew estate too emphatically for someone who truly did not care. Instead her words were a message to the Confederate government, letting them know that if they wished to claim the Van Lews’ wealth, she would not interfere, as long as they exiled Lizzie and her mother to the North with her traitorous husband—and restored her children to her custody.
That was the impetus for her betrayal. She wanted Lizzie punished, and she wanted her daughters.
“I would crawl to her on my knees and beg forgiveness if I thought it would make any difference,” said Lizzie, going to the library window and gazing outside at the garden. Its autumnal colors glowed with an unearthly vividness, lit by the last shafts of sunlight that had followed a day of rain. “It won’t. Even if she agreed to retract her testimony, the provost marshal would stil
l believe every word of it. And why not? It’s true. Everything she accuses me of, I’ve done.”
Mother placed her hands on Lizzie’s shoulders and turned her around. “Lizzie, my darling, you cannot wait here for them to come and arrest you. You must follow John into the North.”
Lizzie was so astonished she laughed, but it came out as a sob. “I can’t, Mother. I’m needed. I’ve never been more necessary to anyone or anything in my life. If it means spending the rest of my years languishing in Castle Thunder, I won’t run. I’ll gather information and send dispatches to the Union until the rebels come for me. Then I will stop. Then and not a moment before.”
Her mother trembled. “It may not end in Castle Thunder for you,” she choked out, her eyes overflowing with tears. “It may end at Camp Lee, upon the gibbet.”
Wordlessly, Lizzie embraced her. She knew that too, but she would not run.
When Mother prevailed upon her, Lizzie agreed to go to Mary and apologize, even though she doubted it would make any difference. Reluctant to face her sister-in-law alone—not because she was afraid, but because she wanted a witness to the exchange, as well as a friend who could silently warn her if her tone became sardonic or insulting—she asked Eliza to accompany her. Just as they were getting ready to set out in the carriage, a young messenger furtively came to the kitchen door bearing new messages from Lizzie’s informant in the provost marshal’s office. “I’m afraid to read them at the moment,” Lizzie confessed to Eliza, smiling halfheartedly at her foolishness. “What if the news they contain robs me of my courage? I can’t face Mary without it.”
The Spymistress Page 33
