WOMEN IN WARTIME: AMERICAN CIVIL WAR SPIES by Yvonne Saxon

Rose O'Neal Greenhow

Two of the most notable female spies of the Civil War were Rose O'Neal Greenhow and Elizabeth Van Lew.

A girl from a small farm in Maryland, Rose Greenhow moved to Washington, D.C. when she was either 13 or 14 years old. After marrying Dr. Robert Greenhow, a federal librarian and translator in 1835, she was accepted into high society, even socializing with First Lady Dolley Madison. 

When Robert died in 1854, Rose bought a house four blocks north of the White House. She became a leading socialite, maintaining alliances with Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans. Her influence even reached to the White House, helping James Buchanan get elected president in 1856.

She always considered herself a "Southern Woman," and in the spring of 1861 she became a Confederate Spy. Rose heard that the Union Army was planning an advance on Manassas, Va  through the chairperson on the Senate Military Affairs Committee. Rose recruited Bettie Duvall a young woman with Confederate sympathies, to help her warn the Southern troops by hiding a cipher in Duvall's hair. Duvall snuck out of Washington dressed as a farm girl, and took the secret message to the Confederate Army. The First Battle of Manassas was a Confederate victory due to Greenhow's information.

Soon, 48 women and 2 men in several states were involved in Greenhow's  spy ring. They used a sophisticated cipher, coding and decoding messages. Unfortunately, Rose Greenhow was careless when it came to storing the confidential information, keeping maps and other documents in her home. Allen Pinkerton, the head of the Union Intelligence Service and the founder of America's first detective agency in Chicago, was sent to monitor Rose. Seeing a clandestine meeting between Rose and a Union Soldier, he reported it and the War Department stepped in. Her house was searched and a map of Union fortifications and other incriminating documents were found. She was placed under house arrest, and in the following weeks other suspected spies were imprisoned in Rose's home.

Even then, she continued communicating with members of her network, waving different colored handkerchiefs from the windows and smuggling notes in and out of her house. She was moved to the Old Capitol Prison but continued to be a nuisance. The Union government never brought her to trial fearing Rose would either expose governmental secrets or cause mockery of government officials, and she was released on May 31, 1862. Told not to leave Confederate borders, she defied the Federal orders, sailing to France and England to raise support and funds. While in England, she became engaged to the 2nd Earl of Granville, writing her memoir about her imprisonment.

On the return trip, Rose's ship ran aground near Wilmington, North Carolina. When Rose and two other Confedeerate agents tried to reach the shore in a rowboat, they capsized and Rose Greenhow drowned, weighed down by the two thousand dollars worth of gold she was carrying for the Confederacy.

Elizabeth Van Lew

Elizabeth Van Lew was born in Richmond, Virginia, but educated at a Quaker school in either Philadelphia, PA or Princeton, NJ, which may have accounted for her anti-slavery politics later.

Both Elizabeth and her mother were active in Richmond's high society, while practicing "multiple methods of giving their slaves independence and financial autonomy." One of their slaves, an African American girl named "Mary Jane" was baptized in their home church, sent to Princeton, NJ for an education, and spent 5 years in Liberia as a missionary, courtesy of the Van Lew's.

Elizabeth and her mother had to walk a fine line between maintaining their position in high-class society and their more radical politics of abolition, especially when war broke out. Both women convinced General John H. Winder to allow them to bring food and provisions to the captive Union soldiers in Libby Prison, on the outskirts of Richmond. Under the guise of "female benevolence," they passed messages back and forth from the prison, managed to find prisoners extra food and water, and helped prisoners escape, at great monetary and social expense to themselves. 

In order to divert suspicion from their activities, Elizabeth and her mother staged public outings where they could be seen helping Confederate soldiers and even had the Confederate prison warden living in their home.

 General Benjamin Butler heard about Elizabeth's activities and in December 1863, he recruited her as a spy for the Union Army. During the war, her spy network of 12 people, both black and white, helped her collect information from the Confederates. In March 1864, two Union officers attempted a raid on Libby Prison to free the prisoners. One of the officers was killed in the ill-fated campaign and his body was hung on display then secretly buried. Elizabeth used her spy ring to locate the secret burial, recover the officer's body, and rebury it in a safe location so it could be given to his family after the war.

Elizabeth's activities throughout the war got her acknowledgement from General U.S. Grant and a small stipend for her efforts. But it didn't cover the costs she accrued during the war, and she never recovered her social standing. She was labeled a "traitor," "crazy," and "mad" by the high society she used to associate with. 

After the war, she became Postmaster of Richmond during Grant's presidency. She hired many African Americans and women to posts.

When she died in 1900 at the age of 82, she left behind a legacy as an effective spy and a significant asset to the Union Army.

Resources used: nps.gov, battlefields.org

The post "Women in Wartime: American Civil War Spies" appeared first on sandinourshorts.blogspot.com

 

 

 

IS THIS A MYSTERY OR IS IT SUSPENSE? by Maria Hudgins

Question: The book you are reading has a murder on page twenty. Is it  a) mystery b) thriller c) suspense  d) adventure. Answer: It's a mystery.

I bet most of you got it right without even thinking about it. I remember a mystery conference I attended where a well-known mystery writer said, "I try to have a dead body on page one if I can." I think that's going a bit too far. It puts a cramp in your scene-setting plans. But the idea is fairly sound. Mysteries are about figuring out what happened. Suspense stories build up to something that happens.

This week, the third week in July 2024, is both. I have been glued to my laptop for more on the happenings in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In November we will have a coast-to-coast event that will involve all of us.Are we in a mystery, a suspense drama, or, as Joe Rogan suggests, a simulation? The events in Butler, Pennsylvania have left me with unanswered questions about what happened and why. Mystery. What will happen between now and our November election? Suspense. What are the odds something unexpected will happen between now and then? A denouement? A clash of philosophies? A meeting of minds?

The story I am writing now is morphing back and forth in my head between mystery and suspense. I am wondering if I have to stick with one or the other, or if I can sort of straddle the two. I haven't finished my outline, but I have already written the first chapter. I think this may be the problem. I should first do the outline. Then start writing.

There is a book I know will help me and I already have it on my bookshelf. It's Carolyn Wheat's How to Write Killer Fiction. She talks about "The Funhouse of Mystery" and "The Roller Coaster of Suspense." In a mystery the main character, the sleuth, is mentally challenged to figure something out, and the reader is, too. In a suspense story the main character, the hero, is emotionally, if not also mentally and physically, challenged to overcome a daunting problem. 

I have a slight problem with writing suspense. I love my main character and I hate having to put him or her through the coming challenge. But I have to steel myself against the misery and do it for the sake of the story. No misery, no story.

 Writing a mystery is more comfortable because the challenge is mainly mental. The problem here is that I have to keep it from becoming a dry mental exercise that nobody wants to read. Here's where the first-or-third person choice may help. I often choose first person because we can know what the main character is feeling as well as what he is thinking and you don't have to worry about head-hopping when it's all coming from one head.

And speaking of our current national challenge to choose a political leader, I am grateful to be the fly on the wall who observes the suspense and thinks about the challenge, but doesn't have to personally enter the fray. Thank goodness for TV and YouTube. 

A POEM TO READ BY THE CAMPFIRE by Yvonne Saxon

 

The Listeners

BY WALTER DE LA MARE

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,   

   Knocking on the moonlit door; 

TO PANTS OR TO PLOT? THAT IS THE QUESTION by Penny Hutson

Please forgive the much-used quote in the title, but that is the question many writers face. And having tried and failed many times to complete an entire book until I outlined one, I fall on the side of outlining. Fortunately, you don’t have to choose one or the other. You can do a little of both, and I’ve recently learned this is called plotzing or plantsing.

Just to be clear, by outlining I simply mean a detailed summary of your story from beginning to end and a description of its characters, both written out in complete sentences. I am not referring to those tortuous devices required in many English classes with the Roman numerals, letters, numbers, or other bullets.

Pantsing, on the other hand, means writing without any pre-written guideline. The name comes from the saying of doing something “by the seat of your pants.” Sometimes, it’s called the discovery method. The writer starts with a general idea of a story or maybe a “what if . . .” question and begins writing. Often, the pantser does not know how the story will end, what characters will show up, or what the main conflict will be.

Many highly successful writers like Stephen King and Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James use this method. King, in fact, declares outlining a waste of time. Lisa Cron, in her book, Story Genius, explains that some people instinctively know what makes a good story, so “. . .the novel merely unfolds as they write, delightfully surprising them at every turn.” She concludes that these writers may think they are just writing blindly from one scene to the next and that “. . . that’s the nature of writing itself, rather than their nature.” Often these writers assume everyone else can do the same thing.

Unfortunately, not everyone can. How do we know if we need an outline or not? Simple. If you’ve written a complete book without it, you don’t need one. If you haven’t, and like me you’ve tried, you probably do.

If you’ve completed one or more books without an outline but can’t interest an agent/publisher or get many readers to buy it, perhaps an outline would have helped create a better story. Maybe not, but it’s worth considering.

Not too long ago, I heard a best-selling American author, whose name I now cannot remember, confess in a live interview with R. L. Stine that he would never write another book without outlining, even though he’d written many successful novels as a pantser in the past. To his surprise, once he started outlining, his rough drafts came together quicker and needed less editing. Those are some of the benefits of using an outline, even if you don’t need one.

I completed my first novel using the Snowflake Method which I now love. It allowed me to choose the level of outlining and how much detail to include. I did the lowest level or least required amount for this particular method. Once I had created all the major plot twists, conflicts, and obstacles leading up to the turning point and then resolution, I had a clear road map to complete a descent rough draft. I could have further outlined all the chapters and then each scene within the chapters, but I did not go that far. Essentially, I pantsed my way through each scene and later decided where to break each chapter. I don’t know how much of my next novel will be outlined, but I will certainly begin with one.

So, if you’re starting a book length work for the first or hundredth time, and you’re struggling to complete it, you might consider starting with at least a simple outline. I recommend the Snowflake Method, but there are many others. Just pick one and stick with it to the end of your story. Don’t give up when it gets hard or assume outlining isn’t for you. It may not be as easy or as fun as creatively writing from one page to the next, but I believe it will pay off in the end. It took me several weeks to produce the outline for my novel, but after decades of starting and never finishing a novel, I was thrilled with the results. By starting with a limited outline and then pantsing my way through the rest, I captured the best of both worlds. Find what works for you and finish that book!