Union spy Elizabeth Van Lew convinced Confederate First Lady Varina Davis to accept the service of Mary Elizabeth Bowser, a former slave freed by the family. Bowser, educated in a Philadelphia school, read Confederate president Jefferson Davis’s correspondence when she cleaned his study and eavesdropped on his conversations with Confederate leaders. She reported the information to Ulysses S. Grant through Van Lew’s espionage network. Because of racial prejudice and assumptions about the literacy and intelligence of African Americans, Davis did not suspect her of being the leak until late in
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