Civil War Spy

Mary Bowser

During a sesquicentennial year, battles and generals of the Civil War continue to get most of the attention. In the past I felt some of the heroic women deserved their own story, and I have blogged about a female soldier and Dr. Mary Walker. This time I'll continue with an almost totally unknown spy by the name of Mary Bowser. Her birth date is unknown, but it's believed that she was born in 1839. She was born a slave to John Van Lew in Richmond, Virginia. Upon his death in 1843, Van Lew's wife freed the slaves, but it was in name only due to the terms of his will.

Van Lew's daughter, Elizabeth, became the head of the household in the 1850s. She was aware of Mary's intelligence and sent her North to be formally educated. Mary became a missionary to Africa, and returned to Virginia to marry Wilson Bowser, a free black man. Shortly afterward, the Civil War broke out.

Elizabeth Van Lew was part of a major spy network in Richmond, and she frequently resorted to a routine that gave her the appearance that she was crazy, earning her the nickname "Crazy Bet." She briefly appears in my novel Honor & Glory. Her greatest achievement though was using Mary Bowser as a spy.

Not only was Mary highly educated, but she had a photographic memory. She assumed the role of a slow-thinking, dull-witted servant. Van Lew managed to get her to serve at social functions held by Varina Davis, the wife of the Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Eventually, she was hired full time and worked in the Davis household, serving meals. Because of Mary's education and memory, she was able to work invisibly, reading any papers.

She relayed the information to a baker by the name of Thomas McNiven who made deliveries. In his recollections that he relayed to his daughter, he only used Mary's first name. He mentioned her photographic memory and that she could repeat everything she saw on the President's desk "word for word." Mary's full name wasn't revealed until 1911 in Harper's Monthly Magazine by Elizabeth Van Lew's niece.

Her [Elizabeth Van Lew] method of reaching President Davis in his least-guarded moments is evidence of her genius as a spy and a leader of spies. The Van Lews had owned a negro girl of unusual intelligence; several years before the war she had been given her freedom... this young woman was Mary Elizabeth Bowser, was now sent for; she came, and for a time was coached and trained for her mission; then... she was installed as a waitress in the White House of the Confederacy.

There are no records as to what happened to Mary after the war, but in 1995, the United States Army finally recognized her contribution and inducted her into U.S. Army Intelligence Corps Hall of Fame. I won't post the photo commonly believed to have been Mary Bowser because it's a hoax. While the woman's name was Mary Bowser, she wasn't the same Mary Bowser, who had served as a spy during the Civil War.

Kim Murphy

www.KimMurphy.net

How History Becomes Distorted

Recently while researching my first nonfiction title A Fate Worse than Death about rape in the Civil War, I came across a book with an interesting diary entry from Private John Haley of the 17th Maine Infantry. On December 10, 1864, Haley wrote about a colonel in another regiment that was "perpetrating one of the foulest outrages upon two defenseless women." He went on to state that if these women had not submitted to "their infamous proposals" their house would have been burned and the women would have been "turned out into the bleak of December."

In Haley's disgust, he said that if privates had done such a thing, they "would have suffered death. The nearest tree would have been requisitioned." But because the colonel was an officer, he was drunk, "as is his custom."

I wanted to quote the complete passage for my book, but because the edited version of Haley's diary is still under copyright, I felt uncomfortable quoting a complete paragraph, even though the original is a public domain work. Instead, I searched for the original diary, which happens to be located in a small library in Maine, where the former private had lived. The current librarians were wonderful in helping to locate the original entry from Haley's diary and sent me a copy.

Here's the unedited version:

At this place [Virginia] occurred a dastardly outrage, if [the] report be true. Colonel Byles, of the 99th Penn. and his ADJT [adjutant] made their headquarters at a farm house near by occupied by two women alone. They made infamous proposals to them, which being refused, these miserable, cowardly skulks threatened to burn the house unless their demands were complied with. So to save their home, and themselves from being turned out into the 'bleak December,' they submitted.

Had this outrage been the work of privates, they would probably have dangled from the nearest tree in very short order, Col Byles consenting thereto. But there may be another side to the story, women are not all of them always paragons of virtue and these innocent creatures may have been 'as deep in the mud as Col Byles was in the mire.' As who shall say?

One thing we did know, Old Byles, was a drunken old fool and one never knows when an officer keeps in this condition, what crazy and dirty ideas may creep into his brain.

I think even with the snippets that I've posted from the book, anyone can see how the original is much more colorful and ominous than the altered version. I wish I could say this was an isolated incident while researching my book. It hasn't been.

No wonder our outlook on history is distorted.

Kim Murphy

www.KimMurphy.net

Civil War Doctor

Mary Walker

 

Even during a sesquicentennial year, most people think of battles and generals when the Civil War is mentioned. Like all wars, it seems that women are all but forgotten. Originally, I had planned on blogging about the roles of women during the war, but I discovered the topic was too broad. Many of the heroic women deserve their own story. Last time, I wrote about a female soldier, and I'll continue with Dr. Mary Walker. She was the only woman who served as a surgeon and was the highest ranking female during the war. She is also the only woman in history to have been awarded the Medal of Honor.

Born in New York, she wasn't the first woman to graduate from medical school, but she was the only woman to graduate in her class of 1855. She married another medical student and kept her maiden name, which was very much against tradition during the era. She and her husband set up a practice together. Like many feminists of her time, she began wearing bloomers and tossed out her corset.

After four years of marriage, Dr. Walker and her husband separated. Divorce was almost unheard of, so years passed before it became finalized. In the meantime, she moved to Iowa. When the war broke out, she volunteered for the Union Army. In the 1860s, no female doctors existed in the army, and she was allowed to practice as a nurse.

The war dragged on, and Dr. Walker went to the battlefields of Tennessee, where General Thomas accepted her as a surgeon. Men of all ranks protested. In spite of the complaints, she was commissioned as a first lieutenant and assistant surgeon. She frequently crossed enemy lines to give aid to civilians. In April 1864, she was captured by the Confederates.

As a prisoner of war, Dr. Walker was sent to Richmond, Virginia. Later in the year, she was included in prisoner-of-war exchanges and released. Afterward, she worked in a female prison in Kentucky and a war-related orphanage in Tennessee. At the war's end, she was awarded the Medal of Honor for her service.

After the war, Dr. Walker went on the lecture circuit tirelessly working for women's suffrage and other women's rights. She had taken to wearing men's clothing and was arrested for it on several occasions. Ahead of her time, she was often considered too extreme by many of the well known suffragists.

In 1917, the U.S. Congress created a pension for Medal of Honor receivers, and in doing so, they withdrew the awards from many of the recipients. Dr. Walker's award was one of those withdrawn, but she continued to wear her medal for the rest of her life. She died two years later. Despite the controversy surrounding her choices, she remained proud of her achievements as a physician and women's rights advocate.

In 1977, Dr. Walker was posthumously rewarded with the reinstatement of her Medal of Honor.

Kim Murphy
www.KimMurphy.net

A 19th-Century Female Soldier

In my Promise & Honor Civil War trilogy, I included a female soldier in the cast of characters. Over 400 women are known to have served during the war, but it's anyone's guess how many went unrecorded. While researching my first nonfiction title, A Fate Worse than Death, I came across a fascinating article about a female soldier. Very few have read her story since the 19^th century. Unfortunately, I can't even tell you her name because the reporter in the 1863 Missouri Democrat article withheld it to retain her privacy. He described her in typical Victorian style, "... large lustrous dark eye... ruddy and fresh looking..." But from there on out, he let her tell her own story.

 

Even before the American Civil War, her story was far from mundane. She lost her parents at a fairly young age, and at fourteen she was married to a member of a minstrel troupe. Widowed after eighteen months of marriage, she was supported by her two brothers. Then, the war broke out, and both of her brothers enlisted.

 

Not knowing what to do with herself, she grew restless. She traveled to Baltimore to be near her brothers and became a nurse, caring for the sick and wounded. Before long, she got tired of being on the receiving end of "insults and ungrateful returns" from some of the recovered soldiers. An idea came to her, and she asked her brothers' permission to "dress in male attire and join their regiment."

 

Her younger brother brought her to some "rough places" for her to learn how to act more like a man. No one noticed, and she enlisted as the major's orderly. Shortly after, the regiment was sent to New Orleans. Her younger brother was wounded in a skirmish and later died. She had no time for grief. In the second assault on Baton Rouge, she received a "severe sabre cut on the right arm. A ball grazed one of the lower limbs, and a number passed through my clothes."

 

As a result, the inevitable happened. The major of the regiment discovered her gender. During the war, if a female soldier was discovered after she had proven herself in battle, she was often allowed to stay. So it was for this woman.

 

For the most part, she lived as any other soldier, doing her job as best as she could. Another man learned her identity and attacked her in a "out of the way place." Her would-be rapist failed to realize that a female soldier could defend herself. She shot him. "I meant to disable his arm, but he stooped... the ball entered his face and found its way under his skull-cap." Instead of being angry at him, she tended him until he was out of danger. He sent her a written apology "in such a manner that I forgave him."

 

Although the article is unclear as to how long she remained in the regiment, she continued working for the major until he resigned. When she went home on furlough to Michigan, she had every intention of returning to her brother. Unfortunately before she could get back, he died from a fever.

 

Alone and uncertain what to do with herself, she had a few non-military adventures before enlisting once again. In a familiar job as a major's orderly in Rolla, Missouri, she met a young officer from Iowa where she fell "desperately in love." He had no clue of her true identity until she finally told him. "The result was that we engaged to be married this fall."

I salute this 19th-century soldier, and truly hope that she lived a long and happy life with her Iowa officer.

Source

"Genuine Romance in Real Life," Missouri Democrat, September 1, 1863.

Kim Murphy

www.KimMurphy.net

Contraception: Civil War Style

In the decades before the Civil War, there was no organized movement to advocate or control contraception. Freethinking printers and publishers began spreading the word about reproductive choices. Fruits of Philosophy by Charles Knowlton was copyrighted in 1831 and originally printed anonymously. The advanced scientific writing on women's anatomy and reproduction was an innovative work. His response to moralists was that "Mankind will not abstain." In December 1832, Knowlton was arrested for obscenity.

Fruits of Philosophy went through many editions and by the 1850s was found in nearly every section of the country. Although some of the science was incorrect by today's knowledge, Knowlton was a visionary, predicting overpopulation problems and suggesting that women take control of their reproductive health.

Until Margaret Sanger coined the words "birth control" in 1914, there was no standard term for family planning. In the nineteenth century, metaphors such as "limitation of offspring," "preventatives," and "regulators" were used. Devices and methods had an equal number of euphemisms, including "womb veils," "wife's protector," and "female preventatives."

Coitus interruptus or "withdrawal" was commonly used in Victorian America. In 1831, Robert Dale Owen published Moral Physiology. He publicized the technique with his pamphlet, writing candidly and without many of the euphemisms characteristic of the era. Douching was another common method, both as a contraceptive and as an abortion technique. By mid-century, "prevention powders" and expensive bottles of "toilet vinegars" were sold commercially.

In the 1840s, the rhythm method was introduced. Unfortunately for many women, the most common advised time of coitus in the 1850s through the 1870s was right at the time when they were most likely to conceive. In 1839, Charles Goodyear invented the vulcanization of rubber which gave rise to the manufacture of condoms, intrauterine devices, douching syringes, diaphragms, and cervical caps. Before this time, condoms were made from animal membranes and had been associated with the stigma of being a preventative for syphilis in the brothels. Due to improved technology and lower costs, rubber condoms came into widespread use during the 1850s.

Womb veils were cervical caps or diaphragms. By the 1860s, these contraceptive pessaries were advertised under a variety of names, including "French shields" and "womb guards." Secrecy and non-interference with sexual pleasure were promoted with their use. Why secrecy? Not all men were reliable with coitus interruptus or in wearing a condom. As well as that, some men were unsympathetic to a woman having reproductive control.

Contraceptive sponges were mentioned in the advice literature as early as the late 1700s. Opinions varied as to a sponge's reliability, but they became commercially available by the mid-nineteenth century. Druggists sold wide varieties or a woman could buy a sponge of the correct size and attach a silk thread to make her own.

As in modern times, abortion was a controversial subject during the nineteenth century. While the exact abortion rate is impossible to calculate, historians agree that the number escalated from one abortion in every twenty-five or thirty live births to one for every five or six births in the 1850s and 1860s. The law as to when a fetus became a full-fledged person has been argued over for centuries. Antebellum Americans adopted the medieval common law from Thomas Aquinas that the soul entered the fetus at the time of quickening or with the first movements.

Originally, lawmakers believed that abortion was mainly utilized by unmarried women to avoid disgrace. But by the late 1830s and early 1840s, abortifacients became a commercial business. "Regulators" or "preventative powders" came in the form of pills or fluid extracts for a woman to induce an abortion in the privacy of her home. Along with drugs, abortion instruments were readily available through mail order and drug stores. "Female physicians" cropped up in urban areas with Madame Restell among the most famous, running a mail-order business and abortion service from the 1830s through the 1870s.

During the Civil War, women were forced into many nontraditional roles. Yet little notice has been given to reproductive control during the era. Contraceptive knowledge became public before the war, and with a growing awareness of science and choice, demand came about for better methods that paved the way for modern birth control.

Bibliography

Brodie, Janet Farrell,Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America. Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1994.

Grossberg, Michael, Governing the Hearth: Law and the Family in Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1985.

Knowlton, Charles, Fruits of Philosophy: An Essay on the Population Question, 3rd new ed., with notes. 1878 reprint ed. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1972.

Tone, Andrea, ed., Controlling Reproduction: An American History. Wilmington,Delaware: SR Books, 1997.

Tone, Andrea, Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America. New York:Hill and Wang, 2001.

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Kim Murphy
www.KimMurphy.Net