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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm to blame a chalk reboarding, and we are taking

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Speaker 1: another look in this episode at what is apparently my

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Speaker 1: new favorite topic, spies. I set you an article last

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Speaker 1: week and you were pretty thrilled about it. Yeah, I was.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Sarah, I'm afraid you think I might be

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Speaker 1: obsessed with this. You are a spy. I wish I

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Speaker 1: were a spy, but really, I'm not obsessed with this topic.

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Speaker 1: I just think it's really fascinating and there's so many

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Speaker 1: different facets to it that you can look at. And

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Speaker 1: we're going to get off of it soon or at

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Speaker 1: least move on to something else civil War related, but

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Speaker 1: we couldn't do that without at least taking a look

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Speaker 1: at this last or one other facet I should say,

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Speaker 1: of the of Civil War espionage, which is African American spies.

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Speaker 1: And it appears as though many Black Americans took an

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Speaker 1: active role in Union espionage during the war, although, as

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Speaker 1: we'll see a little later on, in most cases there

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Speaker 1: aren't a lot of records around now to tell us

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Speaker 1: exactly what their individual accomplishments were Yeah, and there are

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Speaker 1: a few reasons for that. It's due in part to

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Speaker 1: racial prejudice, but also because Union spy masters would often

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Speaker 1: destroy any record of their contributions after the war to

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Speaker 1: protect the African American spies. And then most didn't want

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Speaker 1: their identities to become known in the first place, even

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Speaker 1: after the war, because they feared repercussions if Confederate sympathizers

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Speaker 1: ever found out about it. They had taken a big

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Speaker 1: risk spying in the first place and didn't want to

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Speaker 1: get caught after the fact. Yeah, the penalty was death,

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Speaker 1: so it would be really bad if you were found out.

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Speaker 1: But according to the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence,

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Speaker 1: intelligence on the Confederates provided by African Americans, which was

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Speaker 1: known as Black dispatches, was the quote most prolific and

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Speaker 1: productive category of intelligence obtained and acted on by Union

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Speaker 1: forces throughout the Civil War. So former slaves and free

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Speaker 1: blacks alike participated in this, and Harriet Tubman is probably

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Speaker 1: the most well known name in this category of spies,

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Speaker 1: although she's probably better known for her work with the

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Speaker 1: Underground Railroad. That's how most people know her, I think,

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Speaker 1: But existing records and books written by other self proclaimed spies.

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Speaker 1: In other words, white spies give us information to substantiate

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Speaker 1: about eight to ten more, including the person we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about in this episode, Mary Elizabeth Bowser. And

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Speaker 1: we don't know that much about Bowser, including whether that

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Speaker 1: was even her real name. Some people still question her

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Speaker 1: very existence, but she was eventually inducted into the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Army Intelligence Hall of Fame, so clearly some people believe

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Speaker 1: in her contribution. Yeah, you can't tell her story though,

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Speaker 1: without talking about someone whose existence is definitely known, that

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Speaker 1: of her union spy master Elizabeth van lu who started

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Speaker 1: a ring of spies in Richmond. And with the help

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Speaker 1: of Van lou story, we learned the generally accepted version

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Speaker 1: of a concerning Bowser too, and can explore the mystery

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Speaker 1: surrounding her. Who was she really? All right? So, Mary

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Bowser was born into slavery in about eighteen thirty nine,

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Speaker 1: and there's some questions surrounding her exact name, as we mentioned,

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Speaker 1: but it's likely that in those days she was known

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Speaker 1: just as Mary or even Van Louse Mary, because she

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Speaker 1: was the slave of John van Leu, who was a

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Speaker 1: wealthy hardware merchant in Richmond, Virginia, and the Van Lews

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Speaker 1: were a very prominent family. They were well connected, they

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Speaker 1: were well respected. They had this huge mansion on the

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Speaker 1: highest hill in Richmond. Things started to change though for

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Speaker 1: the family after John van Leu died, and sources differ

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Speaker 1: as to when that was eighteen forty three or eighteen

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Speaker 1: fifty one, But it wasn't the wealth that changed. The

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Speaker 1: family definitely inherited all of that. It was some of

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Speaker 1: their social conventions and beliefs that started to change. Right. So,

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Speaker 1: after his death, the eldest Van Lou daughter, Elizabeth van Leu,

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Speaker 1: convinced her mother to free all nine of the family

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Speaker 1: slaves Mary included, and she also supposedly bought the relatives

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Speaker 1: of those slaves and freed them too. So why did

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Speaker 1: she free these slaves? Well, Elizabeth had always had a

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Speaker 1: sympathy for slaves, but she had also been educated by

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Speaker 1: school in Philadelphia that opposed slavery, so that just reinforced

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Speaker 1: her beliefs and kind of solidified them. Several slaves chose

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Speaker 1: to stay on as paid servants in the Van lou household,

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Speaker 1: and Mary was one of them. Elizabeth foe after being

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Speaker 1: around Mary for a wild did recognize her intelligence and

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Speaker 1: ended up sending her up to school up north in

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Speaker 1: the late eighteen fifties. We're not sure where exactly it was,

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Speaker 1: but may have been a Quaker school in Philadelphia. Mary

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Speaker 1: did return to Richmond though, before the war started, and

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Speaker 1: according to a two thousand six article in American History,

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Speaker 1: public record does show that she married a free black

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Speaker 1: man named William or perhaps Wilson Bowser in eighteen sixty

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Speaker 1: one in Saint John's Church, and that's where her last

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Speaker 1: name of Bowser comes from. But she seems to have

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Speaker 1: immediately taken up with the Van lou household again, this

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Speaker 1: time though it was to do a very different kind

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Speaker 1: of work. Yeah, because after the war started, Elizabeth van

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Speaker 1: Leu really didn't waste any time contributing to the Union effort.

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Speaker 1: She got permission to nerves wounded Union soldiers in Libby Prison,

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Speaker 1: and conditions there were really pretty bad. She would visit

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Speaker 1: regularly and assist the soldiers, you know, bringing them items

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Speaker 1: like books and stationary and food. And she in this

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Speaker 1: way started her spy efforts too, because she would carry

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Speaker 1: letters and messages in and out of the prison, and

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Speaker 1: the way she did this was pretty clever, she'd hid

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Speaker 1: them in books or in the bottom of a food pan,

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Speaker 1: and then relay those messages to union officers. Sometimes she

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Speaker 1: would just talk to the new prisoners and they would

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Speaker 1: tell her what they'd seen, and other times, uh they'd

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Speaker 1: tell her what they had overheard from doctors or nurses

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Speaker 1: or guards who were talking in the prison. So she

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Speaker 1: had a lot of different means of communication going on

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Speaker 1: within the prison, but also some cool ways to code

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Speaker 1: or messages. Yeah, some of was the book she carried out,

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Speaker 1: for example, would have faintly underlined letters and numbers that

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Speaker 1: formed a message when you put them together and read

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Speaker 1: them altogether, a little smarter than Bell Boyd's tactic of

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Speaker 1: signing bell at the end of her aspect or early

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Speaker 1: tactic at least, or the pages of the books would

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Speaker 1: have tiny pin pricks on them that meant something, so

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Speaker 1: the books were used in that way. But another tactic

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Speaker 1: of Elizabeth says that she would write letters that had

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Speaker 1: coded messages written in invisible ink between the lines, and

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Speaker 1: the ink would turn black if you applied milk to it.

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Speaker 1: And Sarah loves this one because she used to be

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Speaker 1: quite the connoisseur of invisible ink. I was kind of

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Speaker 1: the treehouse spy in my day, and I did have

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Speaker 1: some invisible ink which which I used a great effect.

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Speaker 1: But Elizabeth would carry the CIPHERD code for all of

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Speaker 1: these messages in the back of her watch, which I

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Speaker 1: thought that was really interesting too, because who's going to

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Speaker 1: take apart this Richmond socialites watch when she's leaving the

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Speaker 1: prison out a real clever final detail for all of this. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it said that years later when she died, they

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Speaker 1: actually found that code in the same place. So she

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Speaker 1: kept it all those years, even after the war. Right,

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Speaker 1: So when it became dangerous to send this information through

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Speaker 1: the mail or through the post, Elizabeth set up an

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Speaker 1: elaborate network with five courier relay points between her home

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Speaker 1: and Union Army officers. And sometimes she would um tear

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Speaker 1: a message into pieces and have each piece delivered by

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Speaker 1: a different agent to keep it hidden. Yeah. Again, pretty

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Speaker 1: amazing tactics. So, of course others in Richmond noticed that

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Speaker 1: this woman had clear Union sympathies, she was visiting the

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Speaker 1: prison and all of that, and they didn't improve. So

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Speaker 1: too offset suspicion, she started up an act. She pretended

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Speaker 1: to be crazy. She wore dirty torn clothing, she left

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Speaker 1: her hair uncombed, it got all matted. She would hum,

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Speaker 1: she would jerk her head back and forth and carry

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Speaker 1: on conversations with herself while she walked down the street.

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Speaker 1: People even started calling her crazy bet, so nobody paid

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Speaker 1: that much heed to what she was doing. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: again to compare her to Bell Boyd, I mean, in

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Speaker 1: that episode we talked about how Bell used her feminine

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Speaker 1: wiles to carry off her spine draw out information from

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Speaker 1: from union men. Yeah, exactly, And Elizabeth has had to

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Speaker 1: pretend to be crazy and you know, use all these

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Speaker 1: secret codes, all these kind of involved tactics. Because she

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Speaker 1: was in her forties when she started spying and was

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Speaker 1: a spinster, not necessarily considered that attractive, so she took

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Speaker 1: a different approach. She did um and it was a

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Speaker 1: fairly effective one. Another thing that she did that was

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Speaker 1: different from Bell too, though, is that she didn't work alone.

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Speaker 1: And probably the best known for is establishing this extensive

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Speaker 1: network of spies in Richmond that the Federals dubbed the

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Speaker 1: Richmond Ring, and it consisted of hundreds of spies that

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Speaker 1: managed to work their way into pretty much every arm

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Speaker 1: of the Confederate. Established Libby Prison, the war, Navy departments,

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Speaker 1: Richmond businesses, and with the help of Mary Bowser, into

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Speaker 1: the Confederate Executive Mansion itself. All right, so we've got

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Speaker 1: to explain the background behind that. It said that Elizabeth,

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Speaker 1: perhaps through the recommendation of society connections, got Mary a

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Speaker 1: job as a servant in none other than Jefferson Davis's

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Speaker 1: household under the name Ellen Bond. And Mary, of course

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Speaker 1: was said to be intelligent. She had gone to school,

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Speaker 1: but she also put on an act, just like Elizabeth

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Speaker 1: in a way. She didn't let others know how smart

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Speaker 1: she really was. She pretended to be kind of dim witted,

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Speaker 1: a little bit loopy, so no one in the Executive

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Speaker 1: Mansion would think anything of saying important things in front

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Speaker 1: of her. Yeah, up to that point, slaves in general

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Speaker 1: were underestimated, though that's started to change a little bit

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Speaker 1: as the war went on. That was one of the

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Speaker 1: things that really blew me away about this this podcast too,

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Speaker 1: that that you would have to go through that transformation

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Speaker 1: of feeling that people would be so confident to speak

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Speaker 1: in front of their slaves at the beginning of the

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Speaker 1: war at least, Yeah, it's hard for us to imagine nowadays.

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Speaker 1: But in eighteen sixty three, General Robert E. Lee made

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Speaker 1: a statement that I think was kind of a revelation

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Speaker 1: at the time. His quote was, the chief source of

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Speaker 1: information to the enemy is through our negroes. I mean,

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Speaker 1: people didn't even realize that their servants would be listening

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Speaker 1: or would be taking in and interpreting the information that

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Speaker 1: they were so freely giving out. Yeah, so apparently Mary's

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Speaker 1: tactic worked. You know, she made herself blend into the background,

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Speaker 1: just kind of a spacey young woman who was working

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Speaker 1: in the house. And meanwhile though she was listening to

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Speaker 1: everything she heard while she was serving meals in the

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Speaker 1: presidential dining room, she saved scraps from Davis's waiste basket

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Speaker 1: while she cleaned up his study. She would memorize messages

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Speaker 1: that she read on his desk while she was dusting.

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Speaker 1: And man Thomas McNiven, who was a Scottish baker in

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Speaker 1: Richmond at the time and also a union spy and

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Speaker 1: the one who gave us the only documented reference to

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Speaker 1: Mary as a union spy, said that she had a

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Speaker 1: photographic memory, so she could remember every word of the

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Speaker 1: messages that she saw. Yeah, and the info that she

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Speaker 1: got included things like true movements, military strategies, treasury reports,

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Speaker 1: and from time to time Mary would meet up with

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth near the Van Loom mansion to give her reports

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Speaker 1: of what she learned, and then Elizabeth would come dressed

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Speaker 1: as a countrywoman so that she wouldn't be recognized, basically,

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Speaker 1: And it said that McNiven, for his part, would sometimes

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Speaker 1: serve as a courier for Mary too. When his bakery

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Speaker 1: wagon came around to the Executive mansion, she had passed

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Speaker 1: information along to him, and nobody thought anything of it

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Speaker 1: because it was just the baker coming backer and the

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Speaker 1: servant picking up the goods. So Mary pulled off this

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Speaker 1: act from about eighteen sixty three to eighteen sixty five,

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Speaker 1: and Elizabeth reported everything she found out back to Ulysses

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Speaker 1: as grant, and it said at one point General Lee

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Speaker 1: complained that the enemy received his directives before they even

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Speaker 1: reached his own lieutenant. So clearly there was a pretty

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Speaker 1: sophisticated spying system going on in Richmond. Yeah, and it's

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Speaker 1: also said that Davis suspected that there was a leak

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Speaker 1: in his house, but he never managed to really figure

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Speaker 1: out who it was. But Mary must have felt the

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Speaker 1: heat of suspicion, because in eighteen sixty five she just disappeared.

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Speaker 1: She fled the capital, and some even say that she

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Speaker 1: may have tried to burn down the house on her

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Speaker 1: way out the door. We're not sure if that's actually

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Speaker 1: kind of call attention to your own play, but nonetheless,

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Speaker 1: no one knows what happened to her. So after the war,

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Speaker 1: Van Loo and the federal government destroyed all the records

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Speaker 1: of the Richmond Ring to protect the lives of everybody

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Speaker 1: who was involved. But again that's why so many details

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Speaker 1: of Mary's life are still very sketchy. So we mentioned

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Speaker 1: McNiven and how he gave us our only documented source

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Speaker 1: of Mary's spying, but some people even feel that his

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Speaker 1: account can't be trusted because he had this tendency to exaggerate. Nevertheless,

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Speaker 1: stories about Mary did start showing up as earliest nineteen

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Speaker 1: hundred in Richmond newspapers, and Ben los Niece even revealed

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Speaker 1: her name in an interview in nineteen ten, so clearly

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Speaker 1: some people knew who this was, and they were talking

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Speaker 1: about her well after the fact. Bowser maybe even left

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Speaker 1: a diary behind, and it had reportedly been seen by

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Speaker 1: the wife of her great great grand nephew as late

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Speaker 1: as in nineteen fifty two and would have been a

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Speaker 1: gold mine of information about her life potentially, but it

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Speaker 1: was thrown away. And we mentioned at the beginning that

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Speaker 1: we weren't even exactly sure about what Mary's real name

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Speaker 1: was because more recent research by scholar Elizabeth Varren, who

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Speaker 1: wrote a book on Van lu suggests that Mary's name

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Speaker 1: was actually Mary Jane Richards, and Mary Jane Richards was

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Speaker 1: a Van Lou slave who was sent to be educated

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Speaker 1: in New Jersey as a child, and after the war,

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Speaker 1: Richard's married this guy with the last named Garvin and

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Speaker 1: went on to become an educator and a couple of

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Speaker 1: times in an interview and in a letter, she did

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Speaker 1: admit to working in the Secret Service during the war

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Speaker 1: as a detective, even though parts of her story contradict

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Speaker 1: some other accounts of Bowser's life. So it's it's hard

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Speaker 1: to say. Maybe this is the same woman, maybe maybe

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Speaker 1: it's different. Yeah, maybe it does lend some validity to

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Speaker 1: Bowser's story, though the story that a person like her

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Speaker 1: existed after the war. Verena Davis Jefferson, Davis's wife, was

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Speaker 1: asked about the espionage work of her former maid, Mary Bowser,

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Speaker 1: and she denied that any of her Richmond servants could

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Speaker 1: have been spies, and in nineteen o five letters she

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Speaker 1: even said quote, I had no educated Negro in my

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Speaker 1: household and really just flatly denied having hired anyone from

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Speaker 1: Van Lou. So her response is considered kind of questionable though,

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Speaker 1: because she reportedly had a few servants on staff who

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Speaker 1: were very well known and widely known around the area

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Speaker 1: to be educated. So she may have have said this

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Speaker 1: because she didn't want to admit that she had been

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Speaker 1: duped by someone working in her household. Yeah, or maybe

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Speaker 1: she wasn't even aware of what was going on in

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Speaker 1: her household, didn't realize her own servants were educated, especially

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Speaker 1: since we know Mary was putting on an act. Presumably

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Speaker 1: others could have been too, and that's a good point.

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Speaker 1: But as for Van Lou, Grant praised her after the

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Speaker 1: war for her contributions. He said quote, you have sent

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Speaker 1: me the most valuable information received from Richmond during the war,

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Speaker 1: so very high praise. And when he became president, he

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Speaker 1: appointed her Richmond postmaster, a position that paid four thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars a year, but after he left office, she lost

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Speaker 1: that gig. She went on to work in the Washington

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Speaker 1: Post Office, but eventually had to leave that too, and

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Speaker 1: then couldn't get work. Yeah, and by the time she

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Speaker 1: died on September dred at the age of eighty two,

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Speaker 1: she was very poor. She was lonely. She had spent

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Speaker 1: all her money, all her inheritance on her spy efforts

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Speaker 1: during the war and helping former slaves after that. And

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Speaker 1: in the end, the family of a man she had

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Speaker 1: helped libby prison came through for her. They gave her

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Speaker 1: some income, but she still had no friends locally because

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Speaker 1: of that controversial stance she had taken during the war.

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Speaker 1: So kind of a sad ending to the story of

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Speaker 1: a master spy, but interesting. Nonetheless, she's certainly stuck to

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Speaker 1: her principles. We can can say that for her. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she really did stick to her principle. She stuck to

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Speaker 1: her guns, and she really remained who she was. And

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Speaker 1: I think that's a good spot now to move on

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Speaker 1: to a listener mail. We have a email here from

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Speaker 1: Krista and she writes, Hello, ladies. I've been a fan

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Speaker 1: of your podcast for a while, but until now I

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Speaker 1: haven't had a reason beyond thanks and praise to write

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Speaker 1: in I feel that you missed one major factor in

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Speaker 1: explaining Australia's collective obsession with Ned Kelly. While most of

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Speaker 1: us are recent immigrants with no convict heritage, we still

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Speaker 1: appreciate a good, honest criminal. The reasons for this go

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Speaker 1: beyond the robin Hood syndrome that you mentioned. Ingrained in

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Speaker 1: our culture is a contempt for authority. We love seeing

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Speaker 1: someone stick it to the law, We love a joke

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Speaker 1: at the expense of the rich and powerful, and we

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Speaker 1: tend to cheer on the underdog. Perhaps to an American

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Speaker 1: this irreverence isn't immediately obvious, but understanding this larricani ism

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Speaker 1: is a vital part of explaining why we pick such

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Speaker 1: bizarre folk heroes and are generally uncomfortable with overt patriotism.

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Speaker 1: I don't quite know how to explain the concept, but

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Speaker 1: the Larrikin is a strange figure who rears his sardonic

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Speaker 1: head all through Australian cultural history, from murderous bush rangers

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Speaker 1: to soldiers in World War One who refused to obey

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Speaker 1: nonsensical orders from British command. Consider the song Waltze and Matilda,

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Speaker 1: said to be something of an informal national anthem. It

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Speaker 1: is a fairly ridiculous song about stealing sheep or a

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Speaker 1: sheer strike. It's worth checking out simply for an explanation

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Speaker 1: of the old assie slang. I really liked this letter

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Speaker 1: because I had never heard of alarican before, so I

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Speaker 1: immediately when looked it up. And it's a kind of

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Speaker 1: cool concept I think to have as kind of just

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Speaker 1: a national idea. It adds some to my understanding of

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Speaker 1: ned Kelly too, for sure. The other main email we

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Speaker 1: got about the ned Kelly podcast was telling us about

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Speaker 1: all of the movie, so we should have a viewing

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Speaker 1: party one of these days. With the Heath Ledger movie,

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Speaker 1: there's a Mick Jagger one which has generally been hands

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Speaker 1: and by most of our listeners. So yeah, we could

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Speaker 1: just have a ned Kelly marathon it themes. Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: should do that. So thanks for the movie suggestions, and

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Speaker 1: thank you for the vocabulary lesson. It was awesome to

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Speaker 1: kind of learn that new concept. Um, if you have

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Speaker 1: any other movie suggestions for us, episodes, suggestions, any more

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Speaker 1: spies you want us to focus on, even though Sarah

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Speaker 1: may kill me, if we keep along the spy route

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Speaker 1: much longer, although you've enjoyed enjoy she has enjoyed it,

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Speaker 1: So send us more spies. If you want to work

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Speaker 1: history podcast at how stuff Works dot com, or you

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Speaker 1: can look us up on Twitter at myston History or

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Speaker 1: on Facebook. Yeah, bonus point if you write a suggestion

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Speaker 1: in invisible ink. But I guess we have to have

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Speaker 1: the decoder too, so yeah, we might never get messy.

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Speaker 1: What's this blank sheet of paper? We were Steve deblina Um. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: please send us your suggestions invisible or not. And if

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Speaker 1: you want to learn a little bit more about the

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Speaker 1: underground Railroad, we have a great article on it called

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Speaker 1: how the Underground Railroad Worked, and you can find it

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Speaker 1: by searching for Underground Railroad on our homepage at www

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Speaker 1: dot house stuff works dot com. Be sure to check

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Speaker 1: out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join

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Speaker 1: how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising

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Speaker 1: and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House Stuff Works iPhone

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Speaker 1: up has a ride. Download it today on iTunes