see url:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Van_Lew
You know I like the old stuff of which the world was made in the
past...when spying was proper spying and tradecraft was proper
tradecraft and learned the hard way, not this gaming shit and watching
too much stuff on the internet... :-). Huge armies of civil servants
and private corporations making billions out of equipment and materiels,
and universities getting huge funding for researching how to destroy the
internet and world wide web as a way of doing commerce, exchanging
goods, if not goodwill in the name of democracy and fighting terrorism
and crime...:-).
I have just watched a fascinating history of Elizabeth Van Lew on
"Yesterday", a television channel based in the UK. I have never heard of
her, but I was so taken with it, that I thought I would pass some
comments on to you. Her history is quite extraordinary and unique, and
the television programme was an eye-opener in itself. As a Unionist spy
living in the middle of Richmond, the centre of Confederacy during the
American Civil War, she had to know all the tricks of the trade just to
survive. She was a wealthy Quaker, who spent most of her money on
buying the families of slaves and freeing them from their bondage, then
employing them as free labourers on her estates. As well as being a
Quaker, she was a devout abolitionist. The programme shows the tricks
she used, from memory training given to her now free slaves, to setting
up safe houses and secret routes to unionist areas, to smuggling escape
kits into the prison where the captured unionist soldiers were
contained. She set up primitive code books, disguised as confederate
Bibles, and put maps into clothing, sheets and shoes which she took into
the prison with keypicks and such like in the heels. A very dangerous
life. She had to pretend to be very eccentric and become a master, or
is it mistress... of acting and disguise, so that her confederate
enemies wouldn't discover her goings on. As well as being very pious and
religious, she pretended to be mad, muttering to herself and developed a
twitch, so that it would throw her confederate friends off the scent,
the politicians and generals and their secret police
In one rash moment, when the Unionists had won, but before they entered
Richmond, she hoisted the Unionist flag...in an act of utter madness,
which brought out confederate loyalists in a huge demonstration, who
threatened to burn down her house. For some reason they didn't.
Despite receiving a small gratuity and some recognition from the
Unionist government, she lived the rest of her life in isolation and
poverty, living off handouts from grateful ex-soldiers and the families
of slaves whom she had helped. sThe remnants of the confederate
establishment never forgave her, blaming her for the death of their sons
who died in the war.
Just goes to show that not all spies do it for the money...or the
power...she did what she felt, nay...knew was right and history has
proved it so...Though we still have racism and slavery in the world and
in the USA and other civilisations today. I have given the wikipedia
url as an introduction, but I believe that someone has recently written
a biography of her life...
Enjoy... :-).
ATB
Dougie.
