Mary Elizabeth Bowser: A Union Military Spy in the Southern Confederate White House

Mary Elizabeth Bowser

The story of Mary Elizabeth Bowser is one of intrigue and espionage during the U.S. Civil War. She is among a number of Black women who served as spies for the Union. The most well-known Union spy is Harriet Tubman, who worked in South Carolina and Florida.

Like much about Mary, her exact birth and date of death are shrouded in mystery. Many commentaries report that she was likely born in 1839 as Mary Elizabeth Richards into slavery on the plantation of John and Elizabeth Van Lew near Richmond, Virginia. John Van Lew was a wealthy hardware merchant. In 1851, when John Van Lew died, his widow Elizabeth freed Mary and all of the other enslaved Africans on the Van Lew plantation. A staunch abolitionist and Quaker, Elizabeth also purchased many of her former slave's family members owned by others. She would also free them in an effort to bring the families back together.

Recognizing Mary's keen intelligence, Elizabeth sent her north to attend the Quaker School for Negroes in Philadelphia. After Mary graduated she returned to Richmond and married Wilson Bowser, a free Black man on April 16, 1861. This was only a few days before the U.S. Civil War began. The couple settled near Richmond and Mary maintained a close relationship with Elizabeth.

A southern lady, Elizabeth had earned quite a reputation for her sympathies. Dubbed "Crazy Bet", she encouraged this personae to cover the very serious espionage work for the Union when the Civil War began. She organized an intricate spy operation in support of the Union by using her resources and connections in the Confederate capital. It is said that her mansion was outfitted with many secret doors that led to secret rooms that became a safe haven for African fugitives who also supplied Elizabeth with information that she transcribed into cipher codes sent to Union officers, which included General Ulysses S. Grant.

Elizabeth's operation became so sophisticated that she planned to send a spy to the white house of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. Mary Elizabeth Bowser, an able actress like Elizabeth herself, would become "Ellen Bond", a dull-witted, but able servant for the White House of the Confederacy. 

Once settled in Davis's home, Mary played her role well. She pretended to be slow-thinking. No one suspected that she could read, for this would have been illegal within the Confederate states. Mary read warfare dispatches as she cleaned the house. She listened keenly to the conversations of the Confederate men as she served them meals. These military communications would be relayed back to the Van Lew mansion. Elizabeth coded information, which was placed inside of false eggs or printed on dress patterns -- to be passed to her network of Union agents.

Jefferson Davis eventually began to suspect that there was a leak. The Union was learning entirely too much, as the most secret communications of the cabinet were divulged. In the last days of the war, suspicion fell on Mary and she fled from the Davis's house in January 1865. Her last act for the Union was an attempt to burn down the Confederate White House, but this was unsuccessful.

Even after the war, Elizabeth never revealed Mary's espionage work. We know about this information today from others, such as Thomas McNiven, another Union spy in Richmond who was a baker. The Thomas McNiven Papers report that Mary "was working right in the Davis home and had a photographic mind. Everything she saw on the Rebel president's desk, she could repeat word for word. Unlike most colored, she could read and write. She made a point of always coming out to my wagon when I made deliveries at the Davis' home to drop information."

After the Civil War ended, the U.S. federal government destroyed its records related to Southern spies during Reconstruction to protect their lives. There was, however, a journal known to have been written by Bowser herself. It is said to have chronicled her wartime work, but the journal was lost by the Bowser family around 1952. There is no record of Bowser's life after the war. There is no exact date known regarding her death. In 1995, the U.S. government honored the service of Mary Elizabeth Bowser by inducting her in the Military Intelligence Corp Hall of Fame.

Edward Wilmot Blyden on Liberia

Edward Wilmot Blyden (b. 8/3/1832 - d. 2/7/1912)

On August 3,1832, Edward Wilmot Blyden was born in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Island, West Indies. He is considered by many historians as the father of Pan-Africanism. His writings and speeches are amongst the earliest works on the subject of Africans returning to the continent after the impact of the European Trans-Atlantic slave trade, even predating the influence of the late Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr..

Blyden was an educator, writer and diplomat who became very active in the United States and in West Africa. He is noted to be among the first three Africans admitted to Harvard Medical School. He would later become an active political figure in Liberia, the West African nation settled by free and freed Africans primarily from the Americas and West Indies.

When he married Sarah Yates, of the prominent Yates family of Liberia, he would be joining the prominent family of Beverly Page Yates, the Liberian vice-president from 1856-1860. The Blydens had three children. 

While in West Africa, Blyden also taught in Sierra Leone where he became an influential intellectual force. A frequent commentator on the political and historical actions of African nations to their global diaspora, Blyden spoke publicly on Ethiopia's win on November 16, 1875 at the Battle of Gundet against an Egypt led by colonial Arabs. Both Blyden and his contemporary, Martin Robinson Delany, praised the Gundet win as an African victory.

A Pan-African Perspective of the Battle of Gundet, Ethiopia

Below is one of the many public speeches by Edward Wilmot Blyden. Published July 27, 1857, this speech addresses some of the pressing issues facing the new settlers at Liberia -- many of whom were newly freed from the Americas. Blyden addressed the problem that arises when a populace is driven by a desire to be "rich", as seen by the conspicuous consumption patterns Blyden notes in the new inhabitants to Liberia. In this speech, Blyden also brings to the forefront of his listeners the economic perils ofdependence on the foreign aid of the United States.

* * * *

 Liberia as She is; and the Present Duty of her Citizens  

[An Independence Day address given at Monrovia, July 27, 1857     

African Repository, November 1857, pp. 328-32.] 

 What then…are the moral causes of the present evils in Liberia? …    … as a people we have been in too much haste to be rich. Relinquishing the pursuit of those attributes that would fit us for the faithful discharge of our peculiar duties as men, as Liberians, as an infant nation, we have used every possible measure to enhance our pecuniary importance; and in the precipitate efforts at wealth, we have not been careful as to what means we have employed. The desire to be rich, or to appear to be rich, pervades all classes. The love of money…has grown upon us to such a degree that all other avenues of distinction seem but trifling in comparison of those which lead to the acquisition of money.    To be rich seems with many “the chief end of man”.  Hence, no talents, no endowment of the mind, no skill or knowledge, no amount of education, is appreciated only so far as it will pay…. This fact has operated greatly in retarding the literary progress of our youth….  

CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION   

Another cause of our adversity may be seen in the unjustifiable extravagance in which we indulge; in that luxury of expenditure for houses, for dress, for furniture, for food, constantly made the reprehensible remark by thinking foreigners.  We are in dreadful error in regard to our country, if we suppose we are truly prosperous. Our prosperity is not real; it is false; it is fictitious.  The prosperity of a nation is real when the springs of the prosperity are contained within itself, in the hands of its citizens; when it depends for its existence upon its own resources; when it is independent.  But this is not the case in Liberia.  We are, as a nation, upheld by foreigners. We are entirely dependent upon foreigners for our schools, for churches, for preachers, for teachers.  Most of the talent of the country is in the employ and at the control of foreigners.  Those thus employed must ever hold their talents and their efforts subservient, not to what they conceive to be the interests of their country, but to the desires and direction of foreign employers…. What we wish to bring before our minds today is the humiliating fact, that nearly all the talent of Liberia—talent not in ordinary men, but in our principal men—is supported by foreign means and controlled by foreign influence.  And yet, in the face of these humbling realities, we boast of our civilization, of our prosperity, of our independence, and indulge in unjustifiable extravagance…    *     *     *    … the money lavished upon houses, which add nothing to  health and comfort; upon dress, which does not increase the dignity and beauty of personal appearance; the large sums laid out in expensive furniture, … the great amount consumed in the luxuries of the table would go a great way in keeping our streets clear of weeds, in felling the dense forests around us, in reclaiming the wilderness, in cultivating the soil, in civilizing our … brethren.    … Look at the numbers who … in order to advance to, or maintain this [extravagant] style of living, flock to the fostering arms and sheltering wings of these [foreign] societies.  Thus dis- honesty stalks abroad under the semblance of piety; and impiety assumes the appearance of religion for the sake of gain.  And … this extravagant manner of living…are made in the minds of many the standard of respectability…we attach more importance to display than to reality.  There is very little that is substantial about us…    *     *     *    …It is our duty to learn that there are other objects of infinitely greater importance than wealth in our rising country…A higher destiny is ours: our duty and privilege is the laying of the foundation of future empires in Africa…    … It is our duty to curtail our superfluous expenditures.  There should be retrenchment of our expenditures for splendid edifices….Let our surplus means be beneficially expended; let it be vested in the improvement of our country, in placing our prosperity upon a safer and more permanent foundation—in rendering ourselves independent…    … It is our duty to labor.  We dwell in a country rich in resources, which with little exertion can be called forth in sufficient variety and abundance to render us comfortable and independent. But there is a fatal lack of productive industry among us…. The commerce of the country has always been in such articles as our citizens have had no part in producing; hence we acquire wealth from this source without helping to create it.  We purchase the palm oil and camwood and ivory from the natives giving them in exchange articles of foreign production …. The prosperity arising from our commerce is almost as evanescent as that based on missionary appropriations.  Foreigners on the one hand, and the natives on the other, are our supporters.    *     *     *    … we must either abandon our state of utter dependency upon foreigners, by creating the means of supplying our own wants, or relinquish our profession of liberty as a nation.  A state of dependency is entirely incongruous with a state of liberty….    …The…rich and fertile soil…invites us to its cultivation. Nothing should be allowed to interfere between us and the soil…