They thought she was dull-witted, but she was really as cunning as a fox

     Mary Elizabeth Bowser was a former slave who operated as a spy for the Union cause while working on the household staff at the Confederate White House.

     Mary Elizabeth Bowser was born a slave somewhere around c 1839 on a plantation owned by John Van Lew of Richmond, Virginia. Details about her life are little known as family members inadvertently discarded her diaries in the 1950s. Upon Van Lew's death, in either 1843 or 1851, his wife and daughter, Elizabeth, freed their slaves.

     An outspoken abolitionist, Elizabeth arranged for Bowser to be educated in Philadelphia. As tensions increased between the North and South, Bowser returned to work as a household servant for the Van Lew family.

     Prior to the war Van Lew regularly sent reports to Union officials about activities in the South.

     Knowing that war was coming, she recommended Bowser for a position on the Davis household staff, and Bowser proved to be a very successful spy for the Union.

     The household members assumed she was a slave. Thus, Davis and his cabinet members, as well as military leaders, spoke openly in front of her about troop strategy and movement. They also took for granted that she was illiterate, and so she was able to read war dispatches and other important papers Davis left out. Bowser would then pass the information to Van Lew or to other Union informers who would pass her information to military leaders, including Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Benjamin Butler.

"Jefferson Davis never discovered the leak in his household staff," reads the account, "although he knew the Union somehow kept discovering Confederate plans."

     What Bowser learned in the Confederate White House she would repeat or message to Van Lew or to Thomas McNiven, the Union's Richmond spymaster, who operated a bakery that became a major central exchange point for information. Before his death in 1904, he told his daughter, Jeannette B. McNiven, about his experiences, which were written down in 1952 by her nephew, McNiven's grandson, Robert W. Waitt Jr. of Richmond. As recorded by Waitt, Thomas McNiven credited Bowser with being one of the best sources of wartime information, "as she 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."

     Unfortunately, little is known about Mary Elizabeth Bowser’s life and her work as a spy. After the Civil War ended, the US government destroyed any record of her, Van Lew and others, ostensibly for their protection. There is no record of what she did after the war, and the date and details of her death are also unknown.

     In 1995 Bowser was inducted into the Hall of Fame at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. The acknowledging of her role in the ultimate success of Union forces read, in part:

"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."