In Lewis's story the world is gray, and bleak and cold. Winter in our world can be bleak, harsh, cold and dreary. Bareness is everywhere: brown, stubby, empty fields, leafless trees, empty parks devoid of people. Shorter grayer days and longer darker nights send us inside to huddle and isolate. Christmas calls us out.
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.
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| Elizabeth Van Lew |
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
The Listeners
Many of our favorite mysteries include pets, and in homage to May being National Pet Month, here are some mystery authors' pets!
James Patterson's cat
I can't say whether it helps James Patterson crank out yet another bestseller, but his cat Redboy sits on his head. Patterson says "He's a head cat, not a lap cat."
Janet Evanovich has a Havanese named Ollie and also has a "Readers' Pets" column on her website.
We know that long walks in nature can inspire writers, but David Baldacci quipped that "our dogs hid their leashes because we were walking them too much."
Val McDermid was adopted by a cat who followed her home one night and yowled at her door until she opened it. The cat strode right in and soon became a fat, curry-loving member of the family.
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| "Out For Christmas Trees" by Grandma Moses |
If you've always wanted to "try your hand" at creative expression, such as art, dance, writing, cooking, music, you name it, but you feel as if you're too old, or it's too late, keep reading! Here are just a few examples of women who seemed to be "late bloomers," but became successful in their creative field.
Julia Child didn't start learning how to cook until she was 36. Until the end of World War II, the American cooking icon was working for the Office of Strategic Services (a spy agency) where she met her husband Paul. In preparation for their marriage, Julia enrolled in a "brides to be" cooking class, but her first meal she described as a disaster! It only made her more determined to learn how to cook well. When the couple moved to France in 1948 she fell in love with "that glorious food and those marvelous chefs." Although she was determined to become a chef it wasn't easy: her first exam at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school she failed. Her first cookbook she co-wrote with Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck was initially rejected. Alfred A. Knopf eventually published the book in 1961 to immediate success. Then, at the age of 51 Child would become the host of PBS's very first cooking show, "The French Chef."
Toni Morrison, a Nobel laureate in literature, was almost 40 when her first novel was published. She began writing fiction at a Howard University informal poet's and writer's group. At one meeting she brought a short story about a Black girl who wanted blue eyes. Later, as a single working mother, she developed that story into her first novel, The Bluest Eye, getting up every morning at 4 a.m. to write while her two children slept. Another novel followed three years later and then her third novel, Song of Solomon won the National Book Critics Circle award. In 1988, her novel Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Before her death in 2019, Morrison penned 11 novels, many short stories, plays, and numerous other works of literature.
Laura Ingalls Wilder also started later--she was in her 40's when she began writing in farm and other small publications. Her first novel Pioneer Girl followed 20 years later and was immediately rejected. Her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, already a successful writer, urged her mother to turn her stories into a collection for children. At age 65, Little House In The Big Woods was published, the first of 8 books in the series inspired by Wilder's youth.
Anna Mary Robertson Moses or "Grandma Moses" began painting in earnest at the age of 78. Born in 1860 on a farm, she would draw pictures on the white paper her father would bring home. She was also inspired to paint by taking art lessons at school. Starting at age 12 and for the next 15 years, she worked as a housekeeper for wealthier neighbors until she met and married her husband, Thomas Moses. With her own house, farm, and children to care for there wasn't time to paint, but she was creative at home. She created quilted objects, used house paint to draw a scene on a fireboard, and made embroidered pictures of yarn for her friends and family. By 76, she'd developed arthritis, and it was suggested that painting would be easier than embroidery. So in order to create a postman's Christmas gift, she turned to painting. If one of her hands started hurting she'd switch to the other one. At 78, her paintings were seen in the window of a drug store by an art collector. He bought them all and commissioned more, launching her public career. Grandma Moses painted more than 1500 canvasses in three decades, her last painting done when she was 100. She lived to be 101.
Why not start your new year creating a work of beauty? Write that story! Paint that landscape! Cook that gourmet meal! Dance that tango! Weld that sculpture! It's not too late and you're not too old. What are you waiting for?
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2. Also by Asmodee, in Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, you can step back in time to help Scotland Yard solve ten cases that get
Michael Rigg:
I’m not much of a beach reader. Sun and sand and sweat don’t create an inviting atmosphere for reading. (And sunscreen makes the pages stick together.) But sitting at a beach house in Sandbridge pouring over a novel, with the roar of the ocean as background? Well, that’s a horse of a different color. Especially if there’s air conditioning involved. Next on my summer
First and foremost, the mystery must have ancient ruins! Give me castles with high battlements, broken walls, and stone staircases so I can question if the victim jumped or was pushed? Lots of drafty secret passages great for spying, kidnapping, or escaping, and centuries old weapons affixed to the wall or the requisite suit of armor. Also at least one ancient church or abbey must make an appearance. Gravestones and a wandering monk or two (either alive or dead) add to the atmosphere. Disappearing relics or Celtic artifacts really get my attention. Stone circles, like the Piper’s Stones in County Wicklow with their mystic background tend to send a shiver up my spine.
All of the writers of the "Sand in our Shorts" blog wish all of our
readers a wonderful year to come! We've put together some of our favorite poems
to curl up with on a cold winter's day, so grab a blanket and a warm cup of
cheer and enjoy!
Maria Hudgins:
My favorite poem is "The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert Service.
"Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee . . ."
Today, dear readers, we’re going trick or treating for mysteries! There are eight “houses” on this street and each one has clues to a mystery book, series, or tv/film adaptation. Some you know, others may be new to you. So imagine yourself dressed up as your favorite sleuth, and see if you can figure out what mysteries will be in your treat bag!
The next house is really old; it looks like it was
built in the 1940’s. There are two nice old ladies on the porch serving
elderberry wine and cakes. Suddenly, a man dressed like President Teddy
Roosevelt charges out the door blowing a trumpet, giving everyone a fright! One
of the ladies offers you a glass, but a frantic young man in the bushes
gestures “NO!” He tosses a copy of a play in your bag and whispers “get out of
here.”
Choosing a mystery to read is like going into a coffee house and starting at the big board of coffee drinks: there are a lot of choices! Which one do you choose? What do those names even mean? Because mysteries are as varied as coffee drinks, why not choose you next mystery like you’d choose a coffee? How? By looking at the “menu” and the “ingredients”!
Let’s start with the basics. To make a good cup of black coffee, you need the right ratio of boiling water to high quality beans. Whether dripped, poured over, or pressed through, the right amount of water to beans will produce a satisfying cup. The right ratio of crime to be solved and interesting characters to solve it will produce a satisfying mystery.
Any kid can tell you where Santa Claus is from—the North Pole. But his historical journey is even longer and more fantastic than his annual,...
