Historical Fiction Elizabeth Van Lew

Dear Diary,
I’m not the type to journal but I could’ve figure out any other way to express my sadness other than to write. I was planning on coming home in a couple of days, when I got a letter that informed me that my Papa has died. Life will be so different now without my Father there for me. I’m writing from the train, looking out the window it feels like all the memories are running through my head about my Father’s death. I must move on though for I know that he would not want me to sulk around and be upset about his death. I need to move on and free slaves and find out information for General Grant.

Dear Diary,
I’m coming home from school in Philadelphia where I have recently become an abolitionist. It is so difficult to wake up in the morning and see the slaves working all day long. I look out my window and feel that it should be me working out there and not them. What did they ever do to deserve this? I think perhaps I will try to convince Mama to free the slaves from our home.

Dear Diary,
Today I talked to Mama about freeing the slaves, she took it much better than I thought she would’ve. She said she would think about it normally she would say that she would have to talk to Papa about it, but he is now dead so that is not possible. If the slaves are freed I would feel so much better about being an abolitionist and working as a spy for the Union. I can’t imagine what it would be like to try and free slaves and tell people that slavery is wrong when I have slaves working away at my house.

Dear Diary,
I’m so happy! Mama said she would free the slaves! Most of the slaves are heading out tomorrow. I’m not sure what will happen to all of them but I hope that they will all be safe. Tomorrow I plan on talking to one of the slaves named Mary Elizabeth Bowser. She had talked often about getting and education, Out in Philadelphia. Well I think since our family has so much money and I don’t know what else we will do with it, I would like to pay for Mary’s education.

Dear Diary,
The war has started and I am now openly supporting the Union, and working as a spy. Well, I’m not sure if people know that I am a spy, but I am however. Today I am on my way to bring clothes and food to some of the prisoners at the Confederate Libby Prison. I’ve heard that the living conditions there are terrible and that most of the soldiers there are very sick. Today I found an article in the Newspaper about Libby Prison, this is what it said;” Libby takes in the captured Federals by scores, but let’s none out; they are huddled up and jammed into every nook and corner; at the bathing troughs, around the cooking stoves, everywhere there is a wrangling, jostling crowd; at night the floor of every room they occupy in the building is covered, every square inch of it, by uneasy slumberers, lying side by side, and heel to head, as tightly packed as if the prison were a huge, improbable box of nocturnal sardines” Just from reading this I am scared to go there. But I will do it for my country.

Dear Diary,
The prison was exactly as the article said it would be. I managed to free a few of the prisoners from Libby. To cover up my freeing the prisoners I have taken on a new identity, This new Identity that I have taken on is “Crazy Bet.” Because I dress so strangely I have never yet gotten caught, I hope that this will continue to happen.

Dear Diary,
I returned home today for a couple of days and I found one of our past slaves sitting in the kitchen talking to Mama. It was one of our past slaves, Mary Elizabeth Bowser the one that I had paid for her education, well it turns out that she had gotten and education to be a spy and an abolitionist as had I. We have decided to work together and be spies together. Mary will be a maid in the White House. Since Mary is just a maid at the White House, she is often times ignored so she is able to hear a lot of the important details about the war which she then tells me which I am then able to tell General Grant.

Dear Diary,
The war has now come to an end. It feels as though the war has been going on for the longest time. Today I was surprised when General Grant appointed me as headmistress of Richmond. This has gotten me shunned by my neighbors, I’m not sure why they are shunning me, maybe they thought it was wrong that I freed the slaves but I know what I did was right. I am able to tell something from right and wrong, and I know that slavery is wrong, and that is why I tried to stop it.