Once the messaged were encoded, various methods were used to get them across enemy lines. Servants had a ready alibi for movement because the Van Lews owned a small farm on the outskirts of town. In a basket of eggs carried by a servant girl, one egg would be empty except for a coded message torn into strips of paper and rolled up into little balls. One trusted servant had a pair of shabby old shoes with a hollow heel. Confederate sentries did not stop old black retainers to examine the soles of their muddy shoes. The servants’ travel through the lines became so regular that Van Lew joked that her service beat the Confederate postal delivery.

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One of Van Lew’s most successful ventures gave her direct access to Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ household. Before the war she had sent Mary Elizabeth Bowser, one of her freed slaves, north for an education. At Van Lew’s request, Mary Bowser returned to Richmond and was able to obtain a position as a dining room servant in the Davis household. She reported directly to Van Lew all the information she overheard while serving dinner parties.

After Grant set up headquarters at City Point, Va. In 1864, communication with his spy in Richmond became so regular that flowers cut from the Van Lew garden appeared on the general’s table before nightfall. ‘The war advanced and the army closed around Richmond,’ she wrote in her journal. ‘I was able to communicate with General Butler and General Grant, but not so well and persistently with General Butler, for there was too much danger in the system and persons. With General Grant, through his chief of Secret Service, General Georges H. Sharpe, I was more fortunate.

Grant was probably the most unpopular man in Richmond, but Van Lew did not hesitate to flaunt her association with him. Early in the morning of April 3, 1865, as Federal troops were advancing on the city, she assisted her servants in raising a smuggled Stars and Stripes above the Van Lew mansion. This was going too far for the crowd in the streets, and a mob soon threatened to burn down the house. But Van Lew stood defiantly on the balcony. ‘I know you, and you and you!’ she cried. ‘General Grant will be in this city within the hour; if this house is harmed, your houses shall be burned by noon.’

Shortly after the war was over, Grant paid a visit to the proud spinster. They drank tea together on the columned porch of the Van Lew house. Perhaps Van Lew felt this recognition culminated the restoration of the Union and made her sacrifices worthwhile. She kept his calling card among her prize possessions until the end of her life.

Besides providing supplies and conveying information from incarcerated Federal officers, the Van Lews assisted in hiding escaped prisoners. The most famous escape from Libby Prison was led by Colonel Thomas E. Rose on February 8, 1864. A few officers dug a tunnel from a storeroom in the basement under the wall and under the adjoining street. The night of the planned break, the news spread throughout the prison, and 106 prisoners were able to escape before the guards discovered the tunnel.

Among the escapees was Brig. Gen. Abel D. Streight, who had been captured by Confederate Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest after a daring raid into Confederate territory. Van Lew him in his escape and hid him and several other officers in her house. Years later her niece recalled seeing her aunt touch a secret panel and a gaunt, unshaven man reach out toward the plate of food she was carrying. The niece later found the secret room under the eaves.

One of Van Lew’s most famous exploits remained a mystery until after the war. Even then, she was not usually given full credit for masterminding the removal and reburial of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, the son of Rear Adm. John A. Dahlgren. The younger Dahlgren led Union troopers in a raid on Richmond that rapidly disintegrated, primarily because of Confederate foreknowledge. Dahlgren was killed in the retreat, and Confederate troops searched his body, cut off a finger for its ring, removed his valuable wooden leg and found orders to burn and sack Richmond and kill President Davis and his cabinet. The Richmond newspaper said no one knew where the body was, but that ‘It was a dog’s burial, without coffin, winding sheet or service.’ Actually, Dahlgren was buried in Oakwood Cemetery in a section set apart from Federal soldiers.

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