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SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY - The life and times of Union Spy Elizabeth Van Lew will be the subject of a free lecture at the New York State Military Museum on Saturday, July 27.
The lecture by Donald Wyman, a retired Army and Central Intelligence Agency officer and the author of a novel based on Van Lew's life, begins at 1 p.m.
Van Lew, who was born in 1818 and died in 1900, was an abolitionist in a slave state who began spying for the United States shortly after the Civil War started and Virginia joined the Confederacy.
She visited Union officers held in Richmond's Libby Prison-a converted tobacco warehouse-and used those contacts to gather information to send to Union generals. She also helped Union prisoners escape and Confederate soldiers desert.
She organized a spy ring which included clerks in the Confederate War and Navy Departments and even ensured that a free black woman who favored the Union worked as a servant and a spy in Confederate President Jefferson Davis' house.
She was known as Grant's spy because of the frequent information she sent to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, the commander of the Union Army.
Wyman's lecture will focus on Van Lew's undercover operations and the clandestine techniques she employed to keep her spy ring secret.
While Van Lew was ostracized by her Richmond neighbors after the Civil War in 1993 she was inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.
The New York State Military Museum is located at 61 Lake Avenue in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. and features exhibitions about the rich military history of New York State and the service and sacrifice of its citizens. The program on Saturday is free and open to the public and is jointly sponsored by Grant Cottage and the Friends of the New York State Military Museum.
| Date Taken: | 07.21.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 07.21.2014 16:39 |
| Story ID: | 136814 |
| Location: | SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY, US |
| Web Views: | 90 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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