Union spy Elizabeth Van Lew risks her life to shelter escaping Union officers in her Richmond home

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Elizabeth Van Lew was a Union spy with a house on Church Hill in Richmond, Virginia, close to the Libby Prison.  She had always done her best to aid the comfort of the Union prisoners there openly when she could, and had maintained clandestine contact with them.  When 109 Union officers tunneled out of the prison and escaped, Van Lew sheltered a number of them in her house, several of them for up to two weeks.  (By John Osborne)  
Source Citation
Joseph Wheelan, Libby Prison Breakout: The Daring Escape from the Notorious Civil War Prison (New York: Public Affairs, 2010), 173. 
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Type
    Battles/Soldiers
    How to Cite This Page: "Union spy Elizabeth Van Lew risks her life to shelter escaping Union officers in her Richmond home," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/41678.