Detectives found Elizabeth’s sister-in-law living in a boardinghouse on Canal Street, told her they were conducting an investigation, and asked if she would testify against the Van Lews. Mary was happy to oblige, telling them that she had lived with the family for several years, that she’d heard them express hope that the Confederacy would fail, that they were strong abolitionists and sent a Negro woman north to be educated, that her estranged husband had deserted and fled to Union lines, and, most important, that she didn’t want her children growing up in their home.
The detectives pushed for more, asking Mary if she knew or had seen or heard anything else, any evidence that the Van Lews were involved with the spy network that was undermining the Confederacy. She didn’t, and their official report concluded with, “And further this deponent saith not.”
After examining all of the testimony against Elizabeth, and taking into account her family’s “wealth and position,” Confederate officials reached a split decision. While they believed that she was “very unfriendly in her sentiments” toward the Confederacy, and that, “like most of her sex, she seems to have talked freely,” they didn’t believe she had committed any significant acts of disloyalty. None of their searches of her home yielded any incriminating papers or escaped Union soldiers. None of their officers had been able to entrap her by offering to smuggle information through the lines. No one could prove she had anything to do with the spy ring assisting the enemy. For now, the adjutant general’s office concluded, there was “no action to be taken.”
Elizabeth knew how quickly that could change if, at any time, she stopped overestimating them and they stopped underestimating her. She dared not alter her routine. The wheels of the Underground spun on schedule, sending one dispatch after another to Grant’s headquarters at City Point. Every evening, from seven to midnight, the general, his officers, and two dozen soldiers gathered around the campfire, smoking cigars and discussing the latest information from their spies in Richmond.
They learned that everyone was preoccupied with Sherman’s ruthless march and that Jefferson Davis—publicly, at least—had struck a pose of confidence and optimism. “The Government, from time to time,” read one report, “claims to have dispatches of a favorable kind, but this is not believed by the community.” They even received updates about North Carolina, learning the exact number of troops General Lee sent to Wilmington to reinforce the forts below the town. They discovered that the weakest point of the enemy’s line was between the Nine Mile Road and the Mechanicsville Pike, and debated how to exploit it. On December 21, after Sherman had captured Savannah and presented it as a “Christmas gift” to Lincoln, they heard that the city’s “plain classes” were anticipating the evacuation of Richmond. They learned, from information Elizabeth gleaned through a Confederate deserter, that “the enemy are planting torpedoes on all roads leading to the city.”
As smoothly as her enterprise ran, Elizabeth still lived in a quiet and pervasive state of terror. She hadn’t forgotten that note from the “White Caps,” threatening to burn down her house and write with her blood. She knew strange men still spied through her windows, followed her on the street, took careful measure of her words.
Late one night she was awakened by a scratching at the garden entry door. A cold fear sank into her chest. She closed her robe around her and lit a candle with shaking fingers. A shadow at the door came to shape in the light, the features sharpening one by one: Mary Jane Bowser, looking as if she had just run for her life.