Elizabeth Van Lew & Antonia Ford: The Spies Next Door

by Linda Harris Sittig

While I research and write about Strong Women, I am always touched by how they follow their convictions even when it means trading a safe lifestyle to pursue their goals.

And this surely was the case with Elizabeth Van Lew and Antonia Ford.

ELIZABETH VAN LEW

Elizabeth was born in Richmond in 1818 but pursued an education in her mother’s hometown of Philadelphia, PA., at a Quaker school. It was there that she developed strong anti-slavery sentiments.

Upon returning to Richmond, presumably to become part of the upper-class society, Elizabeth planned a different future for herself.

When the Civil War broke out, Elizabeth and her mother arranged to visit several Union prisoners in Libby Prison. They brought baskets of food, clothing, and other needed provisions. While visiting with the prisoners, they gathered information on the Confederate Army. Upon returning home, they were able to relay the most important information to Union officers.

It did not take long before Elizabeth established a solid spy network within the Confederate capitol. In order to escape suspicion, she invited one of the Confederate prison wardens to become a boarder in her home. At the same time, she aided several prisoners in Libby Prison to escape.

When the war was over, President Ulysses S. Grant awarded her for her unwavering courage toward the Union cause, and Richmond society completely ostracized her.

Because she had spent her family’s money to support the spy ring, Elizabeth and her mother needed financial help. She asked the Federal Government for a war pension but was denied.

Later, Grant appointed her as the Postmaster of Richmond, VA, and while that did nothing to endear her to fellow Southerners, it did bring her an income.

Elizabeth died at age 81 and is buried in Richmond, VA.

Even today, her name is often heralded by northern records but branded as a traitor by Southerners.

ANTONIA FORD

Antonia Ford was also born in the South, in Fairfax County, VA. She, however, was a devout Confederate who, at the age of 23, started paying attention to the overheard conversations of the Union soldiers stationed near her home.

She played the part of a proper young Southern woman who couldn’t possibly be smart enough to pass on any information. But boy, did she.

A regular schedule was set with Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart, who wrote out a commission for her as an honorary aide de camp. She continued spying for the South until she was suspected of colluding with Mosby’s Rangers, a famous Confederate partisan ranger group known for lightning-quick raids.

The federal government sent a female operative to Fairfax to act as a new ‘friend’ to Antonia. That new friend discovered the papers signed by J.E.B. Stuart attesting to Antonia as a Confederate supporter.

She was promptly arrested and sent to the Old Capital Prison in Washington, D.C. – at age 25.

Antonia spent seven grueling months in the Capital Prison before her release. Unfortunately, her health had gone into rapid decline, and she never fully recovered. By age 33, she died and was buried in Washington, D.C.

THEIR UNUSAL LEGACIES

While there is no record that Elizabeth and Antonia ever met, there is an interesting side note about their lives.

Antonia Ford married, and her son Joseph Willard would go on to become a future Lieutenant Governor of Virginia.

Elizabeth Van Lew did not marry, but Elizabeth Draper, a former slave who was granted freedom and worked as a paid employee for the Van Lew family, would go on to give birth to a daughter. That child grew up to become the famous civil rights activist Maggie Lena Walker.

Strong Women leave echoes behind.

Thank you to blog follower and fellow historian Nancy Spannaus for suggesting Elizabeth Van Lew as a Strong Woman, and then I found Antonia Walker, too. Nancy’s blog: www.americansystemnow.com.

If you enjoyed learning about Elizabeth Van Lew and Antonia Ford, please sign up on the right sidebar of this blog to become a follower of Strong Women. The blog will be delivered to your inbox once a month.

My website, www.lindasittig.com, helps you learn more about me, and shows my published books, which all feature strong women of the past. My books are available online and in standalone bookstores.

Let’s salute August as a Strong Women month. It was on August 26, 1920, that the 19^th Amendment became law, giving women in the United States the right to vote. My mother’s generation cast the first vote.

I do need to clarify that only white women were awarded this privilege. It wouldn’t be until:

            1952 Asian American women could vote

            1962 Native American women could vote

            1965 African American women could vote

            1975 that all language minority citizens, including Latinx, could vote

Voting is a privilege and a hard-won privilege for all American women. Please remember that on November 5^th and cast your vote for the candidate that would best support women.

~ Linda