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RAPPED OVER THE KNUCKS.

One of the city papers contained Monday a word of exhortation to certain females of Southern residence (and perhaps birth) but of decidedly Northern and Abolition proclivities. The creatures thus alluded to were not named…. If such people do not wish to be exposed and dealt with as alien enemies to the country, they would do well to cut stick while they can do so with safety to their worthless carcasses.

On the margin in faded ink there is written: “These ladies were my mother and myself. God knows it was but little we could do.”

Spring came, and McClellan, at the head of the Army of the Potomac, moved up the peninsula. “On to Richmond!” was the cry, as the troops swept by. It is said that the houses in the city shook with the cannonading, and from their roofs the people could see the bursting of shells. “Crazy Bet,” watching the battle with alternate hope and fear, was filled with fierce exultation, and hastily prepared a room in the house on the hill with new matting and fresh curtains for the use of General McClellan. But the Federal forces were repulsed by the Confederate troops under General Lee and “drew away over the hills.” General McClellan had failed in his attempt to take Richmond, and within that room freshly prepared for his use bitter disappointment and dead hope were locked.

There was great rejoicing in Richmond in this repulse of the Federal army, and even those old friends who were now enemies of Elizabeth Van Lew, could afford to throw her a smile or a kind word in the flush of their triumph. She responded pleasantly, for she was a big enough woman to understand a viewpoint which differed from her own. Meanwhile, she worked on tirelessly through the long days and nights of an unusually hot summer, meeting in secret conferences with Richmond’s handful of Unionists, to plot and scheme for the aid of the Federal authorities. “The Van Lew mansion was the fifth in a chain of Union Secret Service relaying stations, whose beginning was in the headquarters tent of the Federal army. Of this chain of stations the Van Lew farm, lying a short distance outside of the city, was one. It was seldom difficult for Betty Van Lew to get passes for her servants to make the trip between the farm and the Richmond house, and this was one of her most valuable methods of transmitting and receiving secret messages. Fresh eggs were brought in from the farm almost every day to the house on Church Hill, and no one was allowed to touch them until the head of the house had counted them, with true war-time economy, and she always took one out, for her own use in egg-nog, so she said. In reality that egg was but a shell which contained a tiny scroll of paper, a message from some Union general to the Federal Spy. An old negro brought the farm products in to Richmond, and he always stopped for a friendly chat with his mistress, yes, and took off his thick-soled shoes that he might deliver into her hands a cipher despatch which she was generally awaiting eagerly! Much sewing was done for the Van Lews at that time by a little seamstress, who worked at both farm and city home, and in carrying dress goods and patterns back and forth she secreted much valuable information for the Spy, on whom the Union generals were now depending for the largest part of their news in regard to Confederate plans and movements of troops.” And she did not disappoint them in the slightest detail.

She must have a disguise in which she could go about the city and its environs without fear of detection, and she must also gain more valuable and accurate information from headquarters of the Confederacy. This she resolved, and then set to work to achieve her end. At once she wrote to a negro girl, Mary Elizabeth Bowser, who had been one of the Van Lews’ slaves, but who had been freed and sent North to be educated, inviting her to visit the stately mansion where she had grown up, and the invitation was eagerly accepted. On her arrival in Richmond, she was closeted a long time with her one-time mistress, to whom she owed her liberty, and when the interview ended the girl’s eyes were shining, and she wore an air of fixed resolve only equaled by that of Betty Van Lew.