Gloucester, VA - Spy in the White House

Every morning when the bakery cart came to the back door of the house, the young maid slipped out to talk with the delivery man and to pick up the family’s baked goods for the day. But this was no ordinary activity. In this case the family was that of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, the house was the Confederate White House, the bakery delivery man was Thomas McNiven, the Scottish-American baker who was a member of the Union spy ring and the young maid was Mary Bowser, a Union spy. We don’t know much about her, in fact, we don’t even have a picture of her but her activities were invaluable to the Union and its victory over the Confederacy.

We know that she was born between sometime before May 17, 1846 because this was the date she was baptized in St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, the same church where Patrick Henry gave his ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ speech. She was born a slave into the household of John Van Lew, a wealthy businessman who had moved to the south from Pennsylvania. When he died, his wife and daughter, Elizabeth Van Lew freed his slaves in the 1850’s yet Mary remained with the Van Lew family as a servant and, because she was quite intelligent, was sent by Elizabeth Van Lew to a Quaker school for African-Americans in Philadelphia. She lived in Liberia, Africa for a while and when she returned she married Wilson Bowser, a freed African-American on April 16, 1861. The very next day, South Carolina seceded from the Union and both Mary and Elizabeth began a new venture: spying for the Union. Elizabeth was well-known in Richmond and scorned as an abolitionist and a Union sympathizer but adopted a persona as ‘Crazy Bet’, the mumbling crazy lady who could safely be ignored. This way she could wander about town, gathering information and visiting those in her spy ring without attention.

Here is Elizabeth Lew.

Mary adopted the persona as an illiterate, slow servant girl and, after working at several functions for Lavinia Davis, the wife of Jefferson Davis, was hired full-time in the Confederate White House. Perfect position. With her photographic mind, she could memorize every paper on Jefferson Davis’ desk while she was cleaning and report the contents to McNiven when he made his rounds. With her ‘invisible’ servant demeanor, she could listen in on every conversation as she was delivering meals for Cabinet meetings and while she was removing dishes from meetings with Confederate generals.

In January 1865, towards the end of the Civil War, she thought that her activities had been discovered and she fled, though not with a final blow - an unsuccessful attempt to burn down the Confederate White House.

All of the records of her work were destroyed by the Union army after the war to protect her from retaliation. She did have a journal but somehow this was lost. Thus we do not know much about her work except what McNiven told his family after the war about Mary’s photographic memory and the information she provided him and through Elizabeth Van Lew’s niece who identified Mary as one of Van Lew’s best spies. After the war she became a teacher for freed slaves and gave several speeches about her work. But after 1867, she disappears into history though recent research has discovered her and her part in the successful Van Lew spy ring.

Her persona worked - who would suspect a dim-witted servant girl of spying in President Jefferson’s household? Who would suspect this unassuming servant of being such a dangerous person? Today she is honored in the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame at For Huachuca, AZ with these words: ‘Ms. Bowser certainly succeeded in a highly dangerous mission to the great benefit of the Union effort. She was one of the highest placed and most productive espionage agents of the Civil War.’

‘The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist.’

                                                                                                 Russell Baker