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“I live, as entirely distinct from the citizens as if I were plague-stricken. Rarely, very rarely, is our door-bell ever rung by any but a pauper or those desiring my service.” She adds: “September, 1875, my Mother was taken from me by death. We had not friends enough to be pall-bearers.”

When Grant had been succeeded by Hayes as President of the United States, the one-time Spy was obliged to ask for his aid:

“I am hounded down”–she wrote to his private Secretary. “I never, never was so bitterly persecuted; ask the President to protect me from this unwarranted, unmerited, and unprecedented persecution.”

From her own point of view, and from that of those who fought for the abolition of slavery and the preservation of the Union, Betty Van Lew’s persecution was indeed “unwarranted and unmerited.” But there was another side to the matter. Elizabeth Van Lew, although the child of a Northern mother, was also the daughter of John Van Lew, one of Richmond’s foremost citizens. The loyalty of the Southerners to the Confederacy and to one another, from their viewpoint, was praiseworthy, and there is every reason why they should have shunned one of Richmond’s daughters, who not only approved the cause of the hated Yankees, but who aided the Union generals in their determination to sweep “On to Richmond, to the defeat of the Confederacy.”

What to one was loyalty, to the other was treason–what to the Spy was a point of honor, to her old friends was her open and lasting disgrace, and never can the two viewpoints be welded into one, despite the symbol of Union which floats over North and South, making the United States of America one and “indivisible, now and forever!”

Betty Van Lew remained postmistress of Richmond for eight years, then she was removed, and there were black years of poverty and loneliness for her, as she had not laid by a dollar for a day of want, but had given lavishly to all in need, especially to the negroes. She was not able to sell her valuable but unproductive real estate, and was reduced to actual need. “I tell you really and solemnly,” she confesses to her diary, “I have suffered for necessary food. I have not one cent in the world. I have stood the brunt alone of a persecution that I believe no other person in the country has endured…. I honestly think that the Government should see that I was sustained.”

At last she was given a clerkship in the Post-Office Department at Washington, but after two years this was taken from her, probably for political reasons, and it was recommended that she be given a clerkship of a lower grade. This was done, and although she was cut by the injustice of the act, she clung patiently to her only means of support. Two weeks later, it is said that a Northern newspaper contained an editorial which spoke sneeringly of “A Troublesome Relic,” and ended with, “We draw the line at Miss Van Lew.” Even though she had not a penny in the world, she could not bear the sting of that, and she wrote her resignation, and went back to the great, lonely house on Church Hill a heart-broken, pitiable woman, who had given her all for what she believed to be the cause of right and justice.

But she could not live in the old mansion alone, and without food or money. In despair she wrote a letter to a friend in the North, a relative of Col. Paul Revere, whom she had helped when he was a prisoner in the Libby. She had to borrow a stamp from an old negro to send the letter, and even worse to her than that was the necessity of revealing her desperate plight. But she need not have felt as she did. As soon as the letter reached its destination there was a hurried indignation meeting of those Boston men who knew what she had done for the Union, and immediately and gladly they provided an ample annuity for her, which placed her beyond all need for the remaining years of her life. This was, of course, a great relief; but even so, it could not ease the burden of her lonely isolation.