International Women's History Month: Elizabeth Van Lew

It’s National Women’s History Month. In recognition of women's vital role in American history, we would like to recognize another notable Pinkerton woman.

Southern socialite Elizabeth Van Lew is long remembered as one of the most effective Union spies and Pinkerton agents. Born in Virginia but educated in the North, Van Lew staunchly opposed slavery and succession.

Van Lew joined other Unionists to create an underground network to encumber the South’s war effort and covertly aid the Union. She operated a spy ring that included freewoman May Elizabeth Bowser and Confederate War and Navy Departments clerks, farmers, sewists and storekeepers, all working for the North.

In addition, she used her position and status to give aid and comfort to captured Union troops at Libby Prison, known for deplorable conditions. She provided the soldiers with food and medicine; unbeknownst to the prison guards, she helped the Union soldiers with their escape plans. The soldiers supplied vital information about Confederate troop movement, supply trains they viewed from the prison’s windows, and planned attacks and casualties they overheard in conversations between surgeons, prison staff and guards.

Because of her vast network, she could dispatch this information to the Union Secret Service and the U.S. President himself.

Van Lew never considered herself a spy but rather a patriot for all her work on behalf of the Union during the Civil War. She was, nevertheless, inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in 1993.

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