After the Civil War broke out with the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12th, 1861, the residents of Richmond took to the streets in a spontaneous celebratory parade which Van Lew watched mournfully, as she wrote in her diary:
“Such a sight! The multitude, the mob, the whooping, the tin-pan music, and the fierceness of a surging, swelling revolution. This I witnessed. I thought of France and as the procession passed, I fell upon my knees under the angry heavens, clasped my hands and prayed, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.'”
Van Lew, who went by the nickname “Lizzie,” began smuggling messages to the Union army, according to the book “More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Virginia Women”:
“The Van Lews owned a small farm on the James River, which Lizzie began using as a transfer point for information. She would use baskets of eggs to send messages to the Federal forces at Fort Monroe in Hampton. One egg in each group contained her message, torn into small pieces and inserted into the shell.”
Elizabeth Van Lew was one of the most daring and successful spies of the American Civil War. During the war, she ran an extensive intelligence operation in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. She was so skilled at what she did that Union General Ulysses S. Grant would later write to her, "You have sent
