Originally aired on September 15, 1995 - In part 55 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson profiles the Union espionage agent known as Crazy Betsy.
#55 – Confederate Spy
Nestled comfortably in the storehouse of folklore about the Civil War are many tales of achievement by espionage agents on both side. Some are true; most are not. Among the handful of figures whose spy activities not only existed but took a variety of forms was Elizabeth Van Lew.
Born in 1818, “Lizzie” Van Lew was the daughter of a hardware merchant who came from the North and prospered in Richmond. The daughter attended school in Philadelphia. When the father died, he left everything to his wife and “Lizzie”. The two women settled into a quiet existence on the edge of Richmond society.
When civil war came, Van Lew was in her mid-forties: a small, doughty Virginia spinster who loved her mother and detested the institution of slavery. Van Lew was also a staunch Unionist who had no intention of cooperating with the Confederacy. When government officials proclaimed “Fast Day” on behalf of conserving food and giving thanks, the Van Lews openly dined in lavish style.
Methodically through the early part of the war, Lizzie converted the large old mansion she occupied in the Church Hill section of the capital into a veritable castle. The doors were triple locked; secret passageways and hidden rooms laced every floor of the mansion. Tunnels supposedly led to the James River.
The strong-minded Van Lew was small in stature, with darting blue eyes, dark hair in ringlets about her face, a seemingly nervous disposition and superior intelligence. She sought out and organized Richmond citizens with sympathies akin to her own. Among her agents was Elizabeth Bowser, a black woman on the Confederate White House staff. Bowser gathered a vast amount of useful information for Van Lew while doing such chores as serving meals and acting as a maid to the children of President Jefferson Davis.
By flattering local officials, Van Lew got permission to visit captured Federal officers in Libby Prison. There she went almost daily, taking in food and bringing out information that prisoners had overheard. Van Lew dispatched much news through the lines to Union army headquarters. Meanwhile, an indeterminate number of escaping Federal prisoners took shelter in her home.
In public, Van Lew adopted a dress and manner to give the impression of being at least demented and at most insane. Richmond inhabitants shied away from her and dismissed her as “Crazy Betsy”. Scared little boys, at a distance, called her “witch”. All of this, of course, helped mask her espionage activities because people left her along. Suspicious Confederate officials watched her constantly, but they could never catch “Crazy Betsy” in any subversive action.
Union forces in April, 1865, occupied Richmond, and General U. S. Grant placed a strong guard around the Van Lew home to protect it from looters. Lizzie hosted a number of receptions for Union dignitaries. Only then did astounded townspeople learn that a Yankee spy had dwelled in their midst for the entire war. General Grant left no doubt over the matter when he commended Van Lew for sending what he termed “the most valuable information received from Richmond during the war”.
In 1869 then-President Grant added insult to injury by appointing Van Lew as postmistress of Richmond. She served in that position for the eight years of Grant’s administration. Van Lew went to Washington and worked for a time there in the post office department. Her Richmond home, meanwhile, had been confiscated and turned into a private sanitarium for the insane.
In time, Van Lew returned to Richmond, where she spent the remainder of her life with a niece and forty cats. The spinster died in September, 1900. Few people attended the funeral service in Richmond’s Shockoe Cemetery. Yet an elaborate gravestone soon adorned Van Lew’s burial site.
Some thought the marker a testimonial that Richmonders had forgiving and forgotten. They had not. The stone was a gift from appreciative citizens in Massachusetts.
