The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1917-05-26

1852, after Jackson had routed
Banks and driven him in confusion up the line Of
the Shenandoah. he wrote this letter:
Miss Belle Boyd: thank you for myself and
for the for the immense service that you have
rendered your country today
The Union General Shields was quartered at
Miss Boyds house He held council Of war
there Miss Boyd bored hole in the floor of her
chamber which Shields ROOM and lay
there with her to it throughout the night. The
next morning StonewaIl Jackson in full pos
sion of the plans for great BATTLE and able
to defeat the Union army.
She kept up her valiant work for the Confed-
eracy until. the Union officers began to suspect
her. and Jackson ordered her to move from her
Shenandoah home to Winchester. She had been
arrested by the Federals and had firted her way
TO Hberty-for she was pretty girl, despite the
nbelous photographs of her. In Winchester, Jack
son conferred upon her commission captain
in the Confederate army. BY this time the whole
North had become of the services she
rendering the Confederacy, and every officer and
private the alert to get her. Yet she
capped until 1864, when she was caught on block
ade runner. Her captOr lost his heart to her,
deserted the navy, and married her, and the
prince of Wales, afterward Edward W. attended
the wedding.
Belle Boyd is the most famous of the spies, but
there many others who deserve at least
much fame as she won. One of them was EIiba-
beth B.-Van Lew, who had the incredible courage
to act as a Union spy in Richmond throughout
the There not a moment during those
four years when Lizzie Van Lew could hear a step
behind her the street without expecting to have
somebody tap her the shoulder and say, you
my prisoner" She did not conf1ne her activi-
ties to spying and reporting what she had dis
covered to the Union generals; she hid escaped
prisoners in her house, she dealt out messages TO
soldiers in Libby from their homes; her resources
endless. One of her favorite devices
metal platter with a double bottom, in which she
used to pretend to convey food to the prisoners.
Once Confederate soldier, whose suspicion had
been aroused, insisted on examining 1T; but that
day Lizzie, who had been expecting some move
of this kind, had filed the false bottom not with
secret messages but with scalding water, and the
soldier dropped It with a shrek.
Lizzie Van Lew had a secret recess in her
house, hiding place for dispatches. Sometimes
she would a hand idly toward this recess,
and hour two later some old negress, ap-
parently busting the room, would slip her hand
back, of the mantel and find dispatch which
would go to Grant that day. 1t Lizzie Van
Lew who stole the body of Col. Uric Dahlgren
and smuggled it out Of Richmond, Of the most
daring exploits OF the
Rosa B. Greenhow was Confederate spy in
Washington who dazzled the Union in the early
days of the 1t one of her assistants,
Miss Duval of Washington, who brought Beaure-
gard the first news of McDowell's advance and en-
abled him and Johnson to foil the Federal plans
for the campaign of Bull Run. Mrs. GreenhOw
sent Miss Duval to Beauregard on July 10, Civ
ing him the first news of the contemplated ad-
vance and July Is she sent him word OF the
forces and the contemplated movement Of the
Union army. He promptly wired the information
to Davis and the word sent to Johnson, which
resulted in his advance and the terrible downfall
OF the Northern cause.
The Northern secret service was technically
under the direction of Gen. Lafayette c. Baker,
man without scruple. After the war Baker in
sisted taking to himself most OF the credit for
what had been done in detective work, but
matter OF fact the best work done in the war was
done by volunteers, and women, who were
willing to risk a shameful death to serve their
country. Many of them were private soldiers;
IIoT DiulIo rf0rfa
tectives OF these the most famous was Timothy
Webster one OF the greatest detectives who ever
lived. Webster succeeded in getting the South to
believe In him to such extent that he came
being made the colonel of Alabama regiment,
and in Baltimore he member of the Knights
OF Liberty, He became trusted emiSSary
OF the Confederate war department at Richmond,
and at Pittsburgh Union mob tried to lynch him
as Confederate spy. Nothing saved him but the
arrival Of Allan Pinkerton, with drawn revolver,
and Webster and Pinkerton backed against the
wall and stood OF the mob until help arrived
Webster was finally captured in Richmond and
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