FORGOTTEN AMERICANS WHO MADE HISTORY by Tammy Gagne
1 Mary Elizabeth Bowser Spies on the South Spies have a dangerous job They gather secret information about an enemy Then they give it to people they are loyal to Spies are used a lot during wars They can help one side win Some of the best spies are people no one would suspect Mary Elizabeth Bowser was one of these people Born around 1839 Bowser was enslaved by John Van Lew in Richmond Virginia When the slaveholder died Bowser was set free That’s when her time as a spy began Van Lew’s daughter Elizabeth was an abolitionist She wanted slavery ended That would take the North winning the US Civil War Elizabeth knew that Bowser could help by spying She helped get Bowser a job in the home of Confederate president Jefferson Elizabeth Van Lew Davis Bowser pretended to be an enslaved woman named Ellen Bond 4
The home of Jefferson Davis where Mary Elizabeth Bowser worked during the Civil War Working in the Davis home Bowser overheard important information on the South’s war strategy and troop movements She then gave it to people fighting for the North General Ulysses S Grant said Bowser sent him the most useful information from Richmond during the war 1911 Year when Bowser’s story was reported with her real name in an issue of Harper’s Monthly magazine Mary Bowser was enslaved in Richmond Virginia She was freed after the slaveholder died Bowser helped the North as a spy in the house of Jefferson Davis In 1865 people began to suspect Bowser of spying She fled No records of her life after this time have been found FINALLY IN THE HALL OF FAME Mary Elizabeth Bowser has been left out of most history books about the US Civil War For 130 years the US government did not even formally acknowledge her heroic work in the war She was finally inducted into the Military Intelligence Corps Hall of Fame at Fort Huachuca Arizona in 1995 5
