The Spymistress Read online

  Mary, recognizing herself, proudly clipped the article from the paper and pasted it in her scrapbook. “You could join us,” she reminded Lizzie and Mother. “We could use your help. The other Church Hill ladies wonder why you refuse.”

  “What do you tell them?” Mother inquired.

  “That you’re indisposed.” Mary shrugged helplessly. “What else could I say? Would you have them believe you’re lazy or disloyal? Forgive me, but your disinterest reflects badly upon all of us.”

  Lizzie wanted to retort that she was loyal, and keenly interested, but she managed a tight smile and said, “Thank you for making our excuses.”

  “I do what I can for the sake of the family,” said Mary, returning her attention to her scrapbook, “but people are beginning to talk.”

  Militia companies and untrained recruits from throughout Virginia followed quickly after the South Carolinians. The first regiments set up tents and training fields at the old fairgrounds on West Broad Street, a rough settlement dubbed Camp Lee. Soon thereafter, one hundred and eighty-­five cadets from the Virginia Military Institute arrived from Lexington fully armed, equipped, and prepared for war, bringing along a battery of nine field pieces, including a rifled cannon. After setting up quarters at the fairgrounds and undergoing a laudatory review by the governor on Capitol Square, the cadets began training the volunteers, many of whom were old enough to be their fathers. Leading the young drillmasters was a tall, dark-­bearded major named Thomas J. Jackson, who was reputed to be somewhat awkward and peculiar, but also a brilliant strategist and a particular favorite of Governor Letcher as well as General Lee, with whom he had served in Mexico. Rumors of the gentlemen’s admiration were quickly proven true, for soon after his arrival, Thomas Jackson was promoted to colonel and placed in command of Harpers Ferry, a crucial outpost General Lee was determined to defend.

  Richmond already seemed full to bursting, but the population continued to swell as Virginians who had been visiting or working in the North fled south, seeking sanctuary in their native state. Before long, the strain of welcoming so many strangers began to wear on the residents of Richmond. Even the newspapers, which generally regarded the city’s transformation into an armed camp with euphoric approval, began to draw attention to the potential danger. The Examiner warned that “Richmond contains at present a large number of secret enemies of the South, in petticoats as well as pantaloons” who must be watched closely lest they pass useful information to their cronies in the North.

  The Richmond city council evidently shared their concerns, for they passed an “Ordinance Concerning Suspicious Persons” decreeing that any citizen who suspected another of entertaining or expressing dangerous sentiments must inform the mayor. Lizzie could not help but think of the numerous letters she had written to her sister Anna in Philadelphia describing the changes secession had wrought within their beloved city. If her letters were intercepted, a malicious person could twist an ordinary conversation between sisters into something sinister and treasonous. Henceforth she would have to censor herself, and warn Anna to choose her words carefully too.

  The city council’s halfhearted attempt to prevent overzealous Southern patriots from forming anti-­Unionist vigilante mobs by obliging the mayor to suppress the creation of vigilance committees did nothing to ease Lizzie’s anxieties. Under the new ordinance, any neighbor with a grudge could inform on any other, since believing that the accused “entertained dangerous sentiments” was sufficient grounds for arrest.

  “If I am to be prosecuted,” Lizzie said defiantly, pacing the length of the parlor while her mother knitted in her chair by the window, “may it be for something I do—­some bold, brave action in defense of the Union—­and not merely for what I feel.”

  “I would prefer that you not be prosecuted at all,” said Mother, shuddering. “Remember Mr. Botts’s wise council and be cautious.”

  “How could I forget?” Lizzie went to the window and peered outside, glowering at the bunting and banners proudly adorning nearly every window and door frame and flagpole up and down the street. A sudden movement caught her eye, and she turned just in time to glimpse a tall figure disappearing behind the broad trunk of an oak tree in a neighbor’s garden. She waited for him to emerge on the other side, but he did not reappear. Unsettled, she watched awhile longer before concluding that her anxious mind was playing tricks on her, and as she turned away from the window, she silently berated herself for imagining phantoms and villains where none existed. She must be strong, clear-­eyed, and skeptical, and must never allow her nerves to get the better of her. She would need every scrap of her wits about her in the days to come.

  Lizzie wondered if General Lee and Colonel Jackson, men who had seen battle, were half as bloodthirsty as the ladies of Richmond had become. Young women spent their days sewing and knitting, and when they delivered the gifts of socks and shirts to the camps, they exacted promises from the soldiers to kill as many Yankees as they could for them, or to bring back Mr. Lincoln’s head in a box, or at least a piece of his ear.

  No man wanted to seem a coward, and no woman wanted to seem indifferent, which made the Van Lews’ absence from sewing bees and dress parades all the more conspicuous. Lizzie could not mistake the sidelong glances and whispers that followed her whenever she strolled around Church Hill.

  One morning, Lizzie was crossing the street to call on Eliza Carrington when she spotted a thin man halfway down the block, leaning up against a lamppost and carving a stub of wood. He did not so much as glance her way, but when he spat a long stream of tobacco juice into the street, she noticed that his scruffy blond beard was stained brown around the mouth. Her heart thumped, and without thinking that she might arouse his suspicions, she quickly turned and hurried back inside.

  She watched him from the parlor window through the lace curtain, gnawing on the inside of her lower lip, wondering what to do. The man fit Mr. Botts’s description of one of his observers too perfectly for him to be anyone else, and she knew he was no resident of Church Hill, nor did he seem to have any proper business there. When he seemed perfectly content to remain there all day, idly carving and utterly unconcerned that he did not belong, Lizzie found Mother in the gardens and invited her to the parlor on the pretext of discussing poetry, a subject that did not interest Mary in the least and would ensure she stayed away. Drawing the curtain aside, Mother studied the man gravely for a long moment, then sighed. “I suppose we must make some token gesture to dispel suspicions.”

  “I cannot sit and sew with Mary and her insipid friends,” Lizzie declared. “I could not bear it. Not for a single day, nor a single hour, not even to save my life.”

  “I suspect that if it were indeed to save your life, you would find the strength to sew a shirt or two,” Mother replied, amused. “We don’t have to join in Mary’s efforts, dear. We can contrive some innocent service of our own.”

  After pondering their options, they decided that gifts of books, fresh flowers, and paper and pencils to write letters home would do no harm, so Lizzie perused the family’s substantial library for volumes she could bear to part with while Mother took cuttings from the garden. They pretended not to notice the man with the tobacco-­stained beard as they left the house, and rather than take the carriage, they walked to the soldiers’ encampment to better display their feigned devotion to the cause. There they found rows upon rows of perfectly aligned small white tents, most with small fire circles at the entrance, a few with stovepipes poking up rakishly out back. Small wooden buildings, so new the pine boards were still yellow, were clustered along one end of the field, and Lizzie observed officers and their aides bustling in and out, delivering messages and carrying out orders. The First South Carolina Regiment drilled on the parade grounds while a flock of admiring ladies watched from behind a fence a few dozen yards away. Other ladies strolled among the neat rows of tents, pausing to offer a blanket to one soldier, a meat pie to another.


  Lizzie and her mother followed their example and walked through the encampment chatting with soldiers, distributing writing materials and helping compose letters, offering flowers and sincere good wishes. Lizzie truly did not want any harm to come to those young men, enemy soldiers though they were. Each cordial greeting to a young rebel placed another weight upon her heart, for they seemed not to realize what lay ahead. Blinking back tears, she resisted the urge to warn them not to be driven like cattle but to resist the call to arms, but she said nothing, not only because they would be shot as deserters if they heeded her, but because she knew they would not listen. The newspapers had described the soldiers as gallant gentlemen, but the young recruits Lizzie and her mother met were of a different class entirely—­uneducated, rough boys whose fathers toiled in trades in the cities or eked out a living on tiny plots of land. When Lizzie offered them Chambers’s Miscellany and poetry chapbooks and collections of instructive essays, some politely declined, explaining that they could not read, while one asked if she had any “ballard books” instead—­hymnals, or so she eventually puzzled out.

  “Why have you come to Virginia?” she asked one young fellow, inspired by the eagerness with which he thanked her for a well-­read copy of Emerson’s The Conduct of Life. “Why leave home and come so far?”

  The young fellow exchanged a look of surprise with his partner before answering, “Why, we come to protect Virginia, Ma’am.”

  “Why?” Lizzie was genuinely curious. “Protect Virginia from what?”

  “From them Yankees, Ma’am,” the other soldier replied. Freckled and dark-­haired, he seemed little older than the young volunteer drummer boys, and for a moment Lizzie wondered if he had wandered into the wrong part of the camp.

  “Mr. Lincoln said he’s coming down to take all our Negroes and set them free,” the first soldier explained, tucking the book beneath his arm. “If they dare to do so, we’ll be here to protect you women.”

  “If this should come to pass, we’ll be grateful for your protection, of course.” Lizzie ignored her mother’s warning look, the subtle shake of her head. “But why do you believe it will?”

  They regarded her with twin expressions of bewilderment. “Because the papers said so, Ma’am,” said the freckled soldier.

  “Lizzie, dear,” her mother murmured, “let it be.”

  But Lizzie couldn’t. Looking around the tent the two young men shared, she quickly surmised that they would benefit greatly from a visit by Mary and her sewing circle. “Do you have sufficient warm clothing and blankets?”

  “We got uniforms,” said the first soldier proudly, tugging on the brim of his cap and drawing himself up to show off his jacket. “Finest suit I ever had.”

  “And we don’t need blankets so much anyway,” said the second. “The nights are warm enough with a good fire, and they’re bound to get warmer with summer comin’ on.”

  But autumn would follow soon enough, and then winter—­but with God’s mercy, the war would be over by then. “What about arms?” Lizzie queried, mindful of the approach of a group of smiling, gracious young ladies who might find her questions strange. “Have you brought rifles from home, and have you been trained to use them?”

  “Oh, no, Ma’am, we don’t got any rifles yet,” the freckled soldier said. “You’re givin’ ’em to us.”

  “We are?” said Mother, startled into participating in the conversation.

  “Not you in particular, Ma’am,” the first soldier said, grinning shyly. “The state of Virginia’s gonna furnish our arms. That’s what the sergeant told us.”

  “If that is what Virginia has promised, then that is what you should expect.” Mother linked her arm through Lizzie’s. “Come, dear, we’ve monopolized these soldiers’ time long enough. Let’s allow other ladies a chance to meet them.” She nodded graciously to them both, and their eyes lit up with admiration as they tugged their caps and bowed. Mother was the very ideal of the Southern lady—­kind, gracious, polite, well spoken, pious, and charitable. She strolled through the muddy fairgrounds with as much grace and ease as if she were welcoming the soldiers into her own parlor.

  “That was an afternoon well spent,” said Mother as they walked home. “We provided only the most innocent aid and comfort, but I believe it will add much to our own comfort to have our neighbors believe us sympathetic to their cause.”

  “I hope so,” said Lizzie fervently. “Anything to spare me Mary’s sewing circle.”

  A few blocks from home, they passed the Lodge residence on Twenty-­Third Street, where they spotted Mrs. Lodge and her two eldest girls on the front porch knitting gray wool socks. Mary had mentioned a son too, who had enlisted in the first heady days of secession. Lizzie smiled brightly and waved, but Mrs. Lodge merely regarded her through narrowed eyes before nodding politely to Mother. Evidently, Lizzie would have to deliver a thousand books and blossoms before she redeemed herself in Mrs. Lodge’s esteem.

  When she and her mother arrived home, the man with the tobacco-­stained beard was gone.

  On April 27, the Virginia convention formally invited the Confederate States of America to make Richmond its capital. Nearly seven hundred miles to the southwest in Montgomery, Alabama, the Confederate Congress debated the proposal for nearly a month, and on May 20, they voted in favor of the move. The next day the government adjourned with plans to reconvene in Richmond two months hence.

  As soon as Richmond was officially named the new capital of the Confederacy, politicians, public servants, and opportunists joined the flood of newcomers, arriving in astonishing numbers to seek patronage from the fledgling government. The city buzzed with anticipation for the arrival of President Jefferson Davis, his wife Varina, and their brood of three young children. With nary a vacant hotel room or boardinghouse to be found, government officials scrambled to find a suitable residence.

  On May 23, Mr. Davis’s impending arrival was the popular subject of conversation at the polls as eligible voters turned out for Virginia’s secession referendum. Virginia’s course was so rigidly fixed that the referendum seemed almost an afterthought, and since the vote was by viva voce rather than secret ballot, Lizzie never doubted that intimidation would rule the day. Faced with death threats, Mr. Lewis had not returned to Richmond to cast his ballot against ratification, but instead remained in Rockingham County, where he presumably continued rallying the western counties to break away from the rebellious portion of the state. Mr. Botts, who did not dare show up at the polls, nevertheless continued to protest from Elba Park, calling the entire process a contemptible farce and arguing that although the vote might ratify secession, it did not validate the measure to join the Confederacy, a move he adamantly insisted was illegal. Lizzie feared for him, especially after Peter brought word from his friends serving in other households that the few brave Unionists who had voted nay were pursued from the Capitol Square by jeering, stone-­throwing mobs.

  The day after the vote, word that Union general-­in-­chief Winfield Scott had sent troops from Washington City across the Potomac into Virginia did nothing to dispel the prevailing euphoria. President Jefferson Davis was on his way, greeted as a conquering hero by cheering crowds that lined the railroad tracks and packed the stations at every stop along his route. Though suffering from a bout of poor health, he nevertheless acquiesced to demands for speeches along the way, and at one town after another, he promised his ardent listeners that the Northern invaders would suffer terrible consequences for their aggression. His words, transcribed in the newspapers by approving editors, preceded him to Richmond, so he had already become a great favorite with the people by the time his train approached the city on the morning of May 29, more than two days overdue.

  When word came that Jefferson Davis’s train was crossing the bridge from Manchester, cannon thundered a fifteen-­gun salute to herald his arrival. As he and his entourage of friends and dignitaries emerged from the train, eag
er civilians and soldiers crowded the platform and the grounds all around, cheering and applauding. A band struck up a rousing serenade as Governor Letcher and Mayor Joseph Mayo escorted the visibly exhausted president to an open carriage pulled by four magnificent bay horses. Thousands of cheering onlookers lined the four-­block uphill route to the Spotswood Hotel, the men shouting and throwing their hats in the air, the women waving handkerchiefs and tossing flowers. Visibly moved, Mr. Davis set aside his weariness and rewarded the citizens for their patience by smiling, waving, and offering firm handshakes as he graciously accepted their ebullient welcome.

  Lizzie stood silently among them, her arm linked through Eliza’s. Rather than wait for the next day’s papers and rely upon what were certain to be absurdly rapturous descriptions of Mr. Davis’s arrival, she had been determined to see him for herself and take her own measure of him. She knew that he was fifty-­two, and that he had been a soldier and a planter, that he had served in the United States House and Senate, and that he had been secretary of war to President Franklin Pierce. What she saw as he stepped down from the carriage at Eighth and Main was a tall, thin, dignified gentleman with a prominent nose and brow, high cheekbones above sunken cheeks, a thin mouth, and neatly trimmed chin whiskers. He was pale, and his left eye looked filmed over with some infection, and he seemed less eager for the office to which he had been chosen than resigned and determined to do his duty.

  After one last wave to the adoring crowd, Mr. Davis disappeared inside the Spotswood, but when the people’s cries for a speech did not diminish, he appeared at a flag-­draped window. “This is not the time for talk, but for action,” he began, and continued to address them for ten minutes more, praising the Old Dominion as the cradle that had rocked Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and a whole host of other noble patriots. These great statesmen had bequeathed to them a perfect model of government that had become twisted and perverted by an administration determined to deprive them of their constitutional rights, but the new heroes of the South would not let that stand. When at last Mr. Davis bade his avid listeners good morning and withdrew to sit down to breakfast, the throng roared its approval.