The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1907-07-09

to the grounds. That home was the
one where Miss Van Lew had so long
reigned.
Then i'm her pride OF craft
the m boosted of her own tiffany
told how she had betrayed every Sc
cret of her own people to their enc
mics, how she had laid her plans with
fatal success from the very beginning
OF the
She led the federal officers to the
attic, and there showed them the Sc
cret chamber.
For months men had wondered ov-
er certain escapes Of northern cap
tives from the LIBBY prison. Now the
prison stood but a few yards way
from the Van Lew grounds, which
were terraced down to the street across
which the old building stood on the
other side of the wharf. Tunnelling
under the walls of the prison, the cap
tives had emerged in the covered way
from which Van Lewis butler the on
" person in her secrets, carried them
up into the pannelled room. There
they were safely concealed, sometimes
for DAYS until she could get them
through the lines of defense.
Once. when two escaped spies, half
dead from starvation had just been
brought into her study some of Lees
young officers, ran gaily up the stair
way, crying, "Here we come, Miss Van
Lew. We have taken you by surprise
for once"
Truly they had. She had barely
time to motion towards the heavy
damask curtains of The tall window at
her back, and move hastily into the
library with it's wide open folding
doors.
Here she gave Lees boys refresh
| ments and talked as calmly as II
! though there were not men in the ad-
| Joining room whose lives and it might
be hers with them, trembled in the
balance.
But she sent the young officers off
| merily and those WHO did their duty
as it came to them were saved by this
feminine Benedict Arnold. ct seems
to us that Arnold was respectable be-
side this WOman.)
Miss Van Lew boasted openly OF
how her messengers passed constant
~ from Richmond to the federal fore,
es, and were not once even suspected
any more than was she.
1t is said that she probably did the
c~onfederacy more harm than any 9th
er n person.
Tt might be that, by her betrayal o
important movements, she even caus
! ed the final fall Of Richmond. Blu
these things lie very far behind us nov
One thing is certain. SO far as cal
be done, southern people should pre-
serve this creatures lame for lnfamy
Had she felt called upon to work 10
the union on principle it would haV
been far different.
Many gave up home, friends, rela
tives. fortune On both sides, and wen
out with nothing but honor. Whatev
er our views we can do nothing bu
respect these.
But this woman seems to have cal
ried out her fiendtsh betrayal throug
sheer perverseness and love of intrigue
She did not pretend'tO care for tn
I union, per sc. She owned many slave
, and did not treat them particular
~-aJ1 Clo TITO oofroto,1 nv that sam
love of scheming, that same pervers
, pride of intellect that sees superlorlt
= in the ability to out-do others in decel
r ton, that %actuates the father Of CIV
himself. An Elizabeth in Intelligent
and masculine grasp Of business,
e Catherine de Medici for political il
e trigue, a Lucrezia BOrgia for power
deceive this woman stands out fro
t the times in which she lived--a SIM
ter, ~portentious figure, like nothfI
the south has ever known, which hea
d err forbids she should ever know aga
o Ostracised by those who had loved b
best. she lived out her days in Rio
d mond. surrounded by an atmospne
@ of such loathing that even the lit
IS school children fed from her. A me
ID al leper, she was nursed by hlrlln
in her last days, and boosted to t
Is end of how she "outwitted the sma'
est OF them."-Mrs. S. F. Watson
Charlotte News
,g Get a free sample of DR.. Shoe