Sign-In
Cart
Lincoln's Lady Spymaster: The Untold Story of the Abolitionist Southern Belle Who Helped Win the Civil War
Hardcover
Civil War Period (1850-1877)General World History
Publisher Price: $28.99
ISBN13: 9780063333659
Publisher: Harper
Published: Jun 3 2025
Pages: 288
Weight: 0.90
Height: 1.10 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.10
Language: English
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
In this gripping Civil War history, Fox Business's Gerri Willis charts the making of a spymaster genius.
Wealthy Southern belle Elizabeth Van Lew had it all. Money, charm, wit--the most elegant mansion in Richmond.
So why risk everything to become a Union spy?
The answer was simple: freedom. Right in the heart of the Confederate capital, Elizabeth played the society lady while building a secret espionage network--the Richmond spy ring--of slaves, Unionists, and prisoners of war.
It would cost her almost everything. Flouting society's expectations for women in the Civil War, Elizabeth infiltrated prisons and defied public opinion. Her story is filled with vivid personalities, including:
- Assassin John Wilkes Booth
- Washington socialite and Southern spy Rose Greenhow
- Prison escape artist Thomas Rose
- Cavalry hero Ulrich Dahlgren
- Black spy Mary Bowser who infiltrated the Confederate White House
From grave robbery to a bold voyage across enemy lines, Elizabeth's escapades only grew more daring. But it paid off.
By the war's end, she had agents in both the Confederate War Department and the Richmond White House, and her couriers provided General Ulysses S. Grant with crucial, daily intelligence for his final assault.
In this meticulously researched biography, Gerri Willis uncovers the Southern abolitionist heroine that the Lost Cause buried--an unbelievable tale of one woman's courage, resistance, and liberation. Heartfelt, thrilling, and inspiring, this work of women's history, Lincoln's Lady Spymaster, restores a forgotten hero to her rightful place as an American icon.
1 different editions
Also available
Lincoln's Lady Spymaster: The Untold Story of the Abolitionist Southern Belle Who Helped Win the Civil War
Willis, Gerri
Audio Book
Also from
Willis, Gerri
Lincoln's Lady Spymaster: The Untold Story of the Abolitionist Southern Belle Who Helped Win the Civil War
Willis, Gerri
Audio Book
Also in
Civil War Period (1850-1877)
The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
Larson, Erik
Paperback
America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick
Crawford, Bob
Hardcover
The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker: A True Tale of Love, Murder, Treason, and Ordinary Folks Who Saved America
Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe
Hardcover
Centennial: The Great Fair of 1876 and the Invention of America's Future
Bordewich, Fergus M.
Hardcover
Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War
Fields-Black, Edda L.
Hardcover
Getting to Reparations: How Building a Different America Requires a Reckoning with Our Past
Brown, Dorothy A.
Hardcover
Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America
Ellsworth, Scott
Hardcover
The Confederacy Myth: How an Insurrection of Slaveholders Tried to Destroy the United States
Williams, Connor
Hardcover
If I Can Get Home This Fall: A Story of Love, Loss, and a Cause in the Civil War
Alexander, Tyler
Hardcover
The Road Was Full of Thorns: Running Toward Freedom in the American Civil War
Zoellner, Tom
Hardcover
The Man Behind the Cane: Preston Brooks, Political Violence, and the Road to the Civil War
Quigley, Paul
Hardcover
A Promise Delivered: Ten American Heroes and the Battle to Rename Our Nation's Military Bases
Seidule, Ty
Williams, Connor
Hardcover
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
Baptist, Edward E.
Paperback
Lincoln on Leadership for Today: Abraham Lincoln's Approach to Twenty-First-Century Issues
Phillips, Donald T.
Paperback
Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869
Ambrose, Stephen E.
Paperback
Lincoln's Road to War: A Day-by-Day Account of the First 60 Days of Abraham Lincoln's Presidency
Johnson, David Alan
Hardcover
Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America
Nelson, Megan Kate
Hardcover
The Memoirs of General William Tecumseh Sherman: The Complete Annotated Edition
Sherman, William T.
Hardcover
The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
Foner, Eric
Paperback
The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896
White, Richard
Paperback
To Rescue the Republic: Ulysses S. Grant, the Fragile Union, and the Crisis of 1876
Baier, Bret
Whitney, Catherine
Paperback
The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West
Nelson, Megan Kate
Paperback
The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920
Sinha, Manisha
Paperback
Defending Dixie's Land: What Every American Should Know About The South and The Civil War
Bishop, Isaac C.
Hardcover
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (National Book Award Finalist)
Faust, Drew Gilpin
Paperback
Such Troops as These: The Genius and Leadership of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson
Alexander, Bevin
Paperback
Maine's Place in History: Joshua Chamberlain's 1876 Address at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition
Chamberlain, Joshua
Hardcover
Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle
Johnson, Paul
Paperback
Everything You Were Taught about the Civil War Is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!
Seabrook, Lochlainn
Paperback
A Legacy in Brick and Stone: American Coast Defense Forts of the Third System, 1816-1867
Weaver, John R.
Hardcover
Civil War Camps and Soldier Health: Sanitation and Military Effectiveness in the Union Army
Hess, Earl J.
Paperback
We Gather Together: The True Story of Thanksgiving and the Woman Who Fought to Make It an American Holiday
Kiernan, Denise
Paperback
Behind the Scenes: Or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House
Keckley, Elizabeth
Paperback
The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights
Wickenden, Dorothy
Paperback
Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow
Gates, Henry Louis
Paperback
Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End Slavery
Kreitner, Richard
Hardcover
Reminiscences of My Life in Camp: An African American Woman's Civil War Memoir
Taylor, Susie King
Paperback
Freedom Was in Sight: A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, D.C., Region
Masur, Kate
Paperback
The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War
Privette, Lindsay Rae Smith
Paperback
Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever
Dugard, Martin
O'Reilly, Bill
Paperback
Seeking Freedom in Indian Country: Slavery, Sovereignty, and Resistance Within the Five Tribes, 1790-1861
Oertel, Kristen Tegtmeier
Hardcover
Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero
Lineberry, Cate
Paperback
To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown [Updated Edition]
Oates, Stephen B.
Hardcover
The President and the Freedom Fighter: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Their Battle to Save America's Soul
Kilmeade, Brian
Paperback
Hell's Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier
Jonusas, Susan
Paperback
Abolitionists of the Northeast: Black Leaders in the Antislavery Movement
MacDonald, Gail Braccidiferro
Paperback
Abolitionists of the Northeast: Black Leaders in the Antislavery Movement
MacDonald, Gail Braccidiferro
Hardcover
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin: Presenting the Original Facts and Documents Upon Which the Story Is Founded
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Paperback
Scars on the Land: An Environmental History of Slavery in the American South
Silkenat, David
Hardcover
Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman's March and the Story of America's Largest Emancipation
Parten, Bennett
Paperback
The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War
Delbanco, Andrew
Paperback
Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery
Willis, Deborah
Krauthamer, Barbara
Paperback
Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman's March and the Story of America's Largest Emancipation
Parten, Bennett
Hardcover
No Common Ground, Second Edition: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice
Cox, Karen L.
Paperback
A Plausible Man: The True Story of the Escaped Slave Who Inspired Uncle Tom's Cabin
Ashton, Susanna
Hardcover
Cassius Marcellus Clay: The Life of an Antislavery Slaveholder and the Paradox of American Reform
Marshall, Anne E.
Hardcover
Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad
Dobard, Raymond G.
Tobin, Jacqueline
Paperback
Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End Slavery
Kreitner, Richard
Paperback
Requiem for Reconstruction: Black Countermemory and the Legacy of the Lowcountry's Lost Political Generation
Bland, Robert D.
Paperback
Retreat from Victory: The Battle of Malvern Hill and the End of the Seven Days, July 1, 1862
O'Reilly, Francis Augustín
Hardcover
Civil War Photo Forensics: Investigating Battlefield Photographs Through a Critical Lens
Hippensteel, Scott
Hardcover
Hope Never to See It: A Graphic History of Guerrilla Violence During the American Civil War
Fialka, Andrew
Paperback
Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War
Lowenstein, Roger
Paperback
The Unvanquished: The Untold Story of Lincoln's Special Forces, the Manhunt for Mosby's Rangers, and the Shadow War That Forged America's Special Oper
O'Donnell, Patrick K.
Hardcover
The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation
Wineapple, Brenda
Paperback
Out of This Strife Will Come Freedom: Free People of Color and the Fight for Equal Rights in the Civil War Era
Milteer, Warren Eugene, Jr.
Paperback
Lexington: The Extraordinary Life and Turbulent Times of America's Legendary Racehorse
Wickens, Kim
Paperback
Unconditional Surrender: Ulysses S. Grant in the Civil War
Mackowski, Chris, PhD
Fields, Curt
Paperback
The Red Badge of Courage: A Graphic Novel Adaptation of Stephen Crane's Classic
Crane, Stephen
Paperback
Death or Victory: The Louisiana Native Guards and the Black Military's Significance in the Civil War
Cade, A. J.
Hardcover
Raising the Hunley: The Remarkable History and Recovery of the Lost Confederate Submarine
Kropf, Schuyler
Hicks, Brian
Paperback