"Crazy Bet"
A Biographical Sketch of:
Elizabeth Van Lew
written by Molly Nash
(all rights reserved)
* * * * *
On a tombstone for Elizabeth Van Lew in Richmond's Shockoe Cemetery,
the inscription reads:
"She risked everything that is dear to man
-- friends, fortune, comfort, health, life itself , all for the one absorbing
desire of her heart -- that slavery might be abolished and the Union preserved." |
|
| Born October
12, 1818, in Richmond, the daughter of a New York businessman, John Van
Lew, and granddaughter of Hilary Baker, a mayor of Philadelphia. The Van
Lews settled in Richmond after a business failure in New York. The hardware
store he built in Richmond was quite successful and the Van Lews became
part of the city's society and merchant class. Elizabeth, who was educated
in Philadelphia, expressed her contempt for slavery, "Slave power is arrogant,
is jealous and intrusive, is cruel, is despotic. John Van Lew owned a dozen
slaves who were freed upon his death shortly before the war began. Those
slaves, honorably treated, remained loyal to the Van Lew women and several
of them were part of the successful espionage operation in Richmond throughout
the war.
At the outset of the war, Bet remembered an old family story about her
father's Aunt Letitia who was then resident in New York City during the
Revolutionary War. When the British occupied that city and Continental
soldiers were being brought into prisons, Letitia asked for and was granted
permission to care for the wounded men of Washington's army. Bet and her
mother determined to care for the Union soldiers now being brought to Richmond
after the Battle of Big Bethel in June 1861. Bet applied to Colonel Henry
Winder for permission to visit and provide food and medicines. Not only
did she bring baskets of food, medicine and books to the Union prisoners,
she left with valuable information on Confederate troop strengths, dispositions
and camp gossip. Tapping this source, she managed to cloak her visits as
charitable in part because she was already known around Richmond as extremely
eccentric, hence the nickname "Crazy Bet." When a Union sergeant gave her
facts and figures she, incredibly, sent that first information to General
Sharpe by regular mail!
After she was warned about the dangers of the mail, she organized a
network of agents and devised a code. Aware that she was watched with suspicion
by her neighbors, she affected a bizarre behavior that encouraged others
to truly think her crazy. She kept gossips busy discussing the fact that
she was preparing her guest room for General George McClellan for his successful
capture of the city.
Among the most audacious acts was her recruitment of Mary Elizabeth
Bowser, one of the Van Lew freed Negroes who had moved to Philadelphia.
Bet implored Bowser to return to Richmond and seek employment at the Confederate
White House. With Bowser within the President's residence and a cadre of
couriers, the Richmond Underground was very successful; Bet managed her
spy ring with such efficiency, we do not know the names of most of her
agents. We know that her couriers frequently transported coded messages
inside emptied egg shells and within vegetables and fruits carried into
and out of Richmond by her family servants.
Grateful for her services during the war, U. S. Grant appointed Bet
as Postmistress of Richmond for eight years. She died at the age of 81
on September 25, 1900. Her sentimental tombstone was the gift of the people
of Massachusetts.
The Van Lew residence in Richmond, Va.
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