The Women Spies Series 1-3

by Sergeant, Kit

  Hattie answered it, Pryce Lewis appearing in the hallway behind her. The two men on the portico introduced themselves as Edwin Stanton, aide to secretary of war Cameron, and Colonel Thomas Key, an aide to General McClellan.

  “We’ve been asked by our respective bosses to check on Mrs. Greenhow and Mrs. Phillips,” Colonel Key stated. He handed a pass over to Hattie. It had been signed by the secretary of war himself and Hattie admitted the two men into what the papers had dubbed “Fort Greenhow.”

  Hattie led them into the parlor, where Greenhow was knitting, her needles clicking together angrily. She dropped them and stood when presented with her guests.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Greenhow,” Stanton said warmly. “What have you done now to bring down such a wrath by the abolitionists?”

  “That’s not funny, Stanton,” Greenhow said, her eyes narrowing. “If you are not here to help me out of this confinement, then I’m done with this conversation.”

  “I will see what I can do.” He turned to address Pryce and Hattie. “I find it odd that the government seeks to employ Pinkerton operatives to guard a lady’s house.”

  “It’s no oddity: Mrs. Greenhow has created a vast spy network that we are only on the verge of uncovering,” Pryce returned, a challenge audible in his voice.

  “Spy network?” Mrs. Greenhow laughed a guttural laugh, placing a gloved hand over the lace décolletage of her gown, as if to remind the room that she was still a lady. “These men, and woman, continuously degrade me and treat me with utter disrespect.”

  “Is that so?” Colonel Key asked, standing and glaring at Pryce.

  “It is not, indeed, but our orders are to keep her under lock and key, as a protection to both our government and our soldiers in the field,” Hattie explained.

  Pryce had been angered, however, and demanded to see their pass. Colonel Key pulled the now wrinkled paper from his breast pocket and handed it over.

  “This concerns Mrs. Eugenia Phillips—and it does not give either one of you men proper authority to see Mrs. Greenhow.” Pryce returned the note. “I can either lead you to Mrs. Phillips’ room or escort you to the door, but your conversation with Mrs. Greenhow is now concluded.”

  Stanton stood. “What right does a detective have to order us out?”

  Hattie had been wondering the same thing, but Pryce remained undaunted. “I have authority from Pinkerton, who has been hired by your boss,” he nodded at Colonel Key, “to keep watch on Mrs. Greenhow.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Stanton replaced his hat and stalked out of the living room.

  * * *

  A few days after the incident, Pinkerton told Pryce and Hattie that the Phillips women were to be released and sent South.

  “They spit on Union soldiers,” Hattie stated upon hearing the news. “Like Greenhow, they wouldn’t hesitate to conspire against our government if given another chance.”

  “What can I say?” Pinkerton asked. “Stanton worked for their release. And further,” he locked eyes with Hattie before moving on to Pryce. “Stanton has lodged a complaint with the war department regarding the ‘chaperoning’ of Rose Greenhow.”

  “That’s fine, Boss,” Pryce said. “I’m tired of babysitting would-be women traitors. Put me back in the field.”

  And me, Hattie wanted to add.

  “Stanton’s a fool,” Pinkerton replied with a wave of his hand. “We answer to General McClellan, and I think I’ve made it clear that Rose Greenhow is shameless in her conduct and will continue to try to undermine the Union whenever possible.” He held up a slim piece of paper. “This is a message one of the Sturgis Rifles that act as her door guard gave me. Mrs. Greenhow bribed him to pass it on to another of her contacts.”

  “Did you get the contact’s name?” Hattie inquired.

  “Yes,” Pinkerton said with a wry grin. “It was Charles Winder, brother of Richmond’s provost marshal.”

  “The woman has no shame,” Hattie murmured.

  “Yes,” Pinkerton said, tossing the note into a drawer. “And that’s why she needs to stay put.”

  Chapter 19

  Mary Jane

  October 1861

  The silence of the servants at the Davis household sometimes made Mary Jane want to scream. They were trained to be aware of their master’s and mistress’s wants at all times, to think for them and know what they might demand before they demand it, delivering the unrequested goods all without one word from either servant or commandant. As Mrs. O’Melia told Mary Jane, it would be a miserable failure if Mr. Davis ever had to ask Mr. Garvin for anything. But all the same, Mary Jane wanted the help to have at least a hushed voice, or some autonomy over their circumstances.

  Mary Jane was hired to serve at Mrs. Davis’s parties and to help her out when her personal maid, Betsy, was occupied. Betsy was always by her mistress’s side and, with the combination of Mr. Davis falling ill in late September and Mrs. Davis halting her elegant affairs—she claimed it was to save money, but Mary Jane suspected the Richmond Examiner’s harsh criticisms had something to do with it— Mary Jane had little to do. She convinced Mrs. O’Melia that she was an excellent housekeeper as well, so she was assigned to clean Mr. Davis’s office.

  The fact filled Mary Jane and all of her contacts with glee, but with Jeff Davis convalescing, no major work was going down. Mrs. Davis herself received the cabinet members and dignitaries at the door, deciding whether their business required an interview with the bed-ridden president, or if it was something she could handle in the parlor.

  One such visitor that did not warrant a sojourn upstairs was Mr. Chesnut. Mrs. Davis ordered Mary Jane to serve them coffee in the snuggery.

  As soon Mary Jane entered the little room carrying a tray, Mr. Chesnut banged his fist on the table, startling her. He was clearly adamant in making his point. “As soon as England recognizes us as a sovereign state, all of our problems will be solved. And cotton is the way to do it, Varina.”

  Mary Jane set down the tray and wiped a napkin over a bit of spilled coffee. She served a cup to Mr. Chesnut and then to Mrs. Davis, who took an approving sip and then placed her cup carefully in its saucer. “I heard the British are favoring the North simply because they are opposed to slavery.”

  “Once their economy starts to suffer because there is no cotton, they will change their mind about the practice. Cotton is our gold mine and the surest way to win England over. But with all the slaves withdrawing up North, we have no one to pick our crops.”

  “I don’t disagree with you,” Mrs. Davis replied in her soft manner. “I just think as of now we have more important matters to worry about. We need our men in battle now, not in the fields.”

  Mr. Chesnut, his coffee untouched, muttered something about women not knowing the first thing about war.

  Either Mrs. Davis did not hear him or she chose to ignore his comment. She bestowed a patient smile on him. “Now, Mr. Chesnut, how do you like your coffee?”

  Despite the paucity of information that was available to Mary Jane that fall, she progressed her mission by gaining the trust of both Mrs. Davis and the rest of the servants. Mr. McNiven continued his daily deliveries of his baked goods and Mary Jane managed to convince Mrs. O’Melia to let her be the one to greet him. No one else was usually around when his wagon pulled into the driveway outside the servants’ entrance and they could speak freely.

  One day he told Mary Jane that Miss Lizzie had found a new way to keep abreast of Mary Jane’s progress. “She wants to meet with you, weekly if possible, at Miss Thompson’s shop. She’s a seamstress located down the hill. Mrs. Van Lew says to hang your red petticoat on the line a few hours beforehand to let her know of your plans.”

  “But how will I convince Mrs. Davis that I need to go to a seamstress?”

  McNiven shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

  The opportunity came sooner than Mary Jane thought. As Mary Jane delivered Mrs. Davis’s tea, her mistress pulled up the hem of her petticoat. “I
wish I could get a new dress, but the Richmonders would use that as an excuse to say I’m being ‘extravagant’ again.” She had said this more to herself than Mary Jane and, consequently, looked surprised when Mary Jane told her she knew of a good seamstress who could repair her dresses.

  “She kin also do alterations, ma’am,” Mary Jane continued. “Instead of buying new dresses, she kin change the style of yer old ones.”

  “You might be right,” Mrs. Davis conceded, tucking a loose curl behind her ear. “The righteous old biddies of this town can’t possibly look down upon repurposing old dresses, can they?”

  Mary Jane wasn’t sure if she was addressing her, but she replied, “No’m,” anyway.

  Once Mrs. Davis had entrusted Mary Jane with her expensive though simply decorated gowns, a new way of reporting intelligence formed. Mary Jane did as Mr. McNiven suggested, hanging something red on the clothesline whenever Mrs. Davis had something to take to the seamstress. Miss Lizzie would meet her there, and though her narrow face would droop each time Mary Jane had nothing to report, Miss Lizzie would fill Mary Jane in on what was occurring on her end. It was clear that Miss Lizzie had greatly expanded her underground network of spies and couriers. She’d managed to make contact with a guard in one of the warehouse prisons, saying that she expected to receive escaped Yankee prisoners at her home any day.

  “What about Wit—Mrs. Mary? You are going to house them right under her nose?”

  “Not under her nose,” Miss Lizzie corrected. “Above. I don’t know if you ever noticed it, but there is a small room in the attic.”

  Mary Jane shook her head in disbelief.

  “See?” Miss Lizzie’s eyes were shining. “If you didn’t know it was there, Mary will never know. They will arrive at night and stay up there until arrangements can be made to get them across the lines to freedom.”

  As she left the seamstress shop, Mary Jane admitted to herself that Miss Lizzie’s determination to aid the Union was as strong as her own, however foolish Mary Jane thought this latest plan was. While she waited to cross the street, she saw a white man in a large hat standing beside the curb.

  “I’m going through the lines tonight,” he said in a gruff voice.

  Bewildered, Mary Jane tried to see if she recognized him, but the large hat covered his eyes. He had a scar that led from his ear to his chin.

  Mary Jane took on her slave voice. “Sawry, suh, I’m not shuh what you mean.”

  “Yer sure you don’t, nigger?” he asked as a wagon passed them.

  Mary Jane hurried across the street, nearly colliding with a carriage, glad the package in her hands had prevented her from exercising her instinct to slap him.

  The next day, as she was running an errand for Mrs. Davis, she saw that same gruff man, this time dressed in a Confederate uniform, leading a handful of troops down Main Street, confirming what Miss Lizzie had advised her yesterday: Trust no one.

  Chapter 20

  Hattie

  November 1861

  Due to Pinkerton’s intervention with the War Department, Hattie and Pryce Lewis were once again attending to Rose at Fort Greenhow.

  Pryce told Hattie over tea that Timothy Webster had managed to infiltrate the Knights of Liberty. They were an underground group of Copperheads—Northerners who opposed the war—that were planning an uprising to take place in Washington City. Two days ago, on the same day President Lincoln had called for a national day of thanksgiving, Pinkerton agents and local police officers had raided the Knights’ headquarters and arrested the entire group.

  “Don’t you wish you could be helping the Union in some other way?” Hattie asked Pryce.

  He shrugged. “I’m really an operative at heart. This war is a temporary offshoot to my journey. I’m going to own my own agency one day.”

  “But the rebels—”

  Pryce shrugged. “It’s not my country.”

  Hattie wanted to slap him, but she held her hands close to her side. She wondered what Allan Pinkerton, the famed abolitionist, would have done if he knew one of his own operatives had such apathy toward the Cause. Someone rang the bell and Pryce left the kitchen to answer it. A few minutes later he returned with a cake.

  “What’s that?” Hattie asked.

  “A holiday fruitcake for Rose. A delivery man just dropped it off.” He took a penknife from his pocket and cut into it. Instead of the expected fruit and pastry, the innards of the cake were made of paper. Hattie extracted a wad and unfolded it. “Confederate bills.”

  Pryce picked out a folded sheet of paper and unfolded it, his eyes quickly scanning the contents. “Details of an escape to Richmond.”

  “Why that...” Hattie struggled to keep her language ladylike.

  “Tart?” Pryce asked, a smile in his eyes.

  Hattie rolled her eyes, momentarily forgetting their earlier animosity.

  “I have an idea,” Pryce said. He headed toward the front door and donned his overcoat and hat. “I’ll be right back.”

  In a few minutes, he returned, brandishing a beautifully decorated holiday cake. “I wouldn’t want Mrs. Greenhow’s appetite to suffer because we ruined her other dessert.”

  Hattie found one of Rose’s expensive ceramic serving trays and transferred the new cake onto it before adding the remains of the tainted one. “Shall we deliver this to Mrs. Greenhow?”

  “Indeed, we shall.” Pryce replied, grabbing a silver cake knife and server.

  “Mrs. Greenhow,” Pryce called from outside her room. “We had a special delivery this morning for you.”

  Rose opened the door, expectation written all over her face. Clearly she knew about the cake, Hattie surmised. “We found the other one unsuitable,” she told the spy. “So Mr. Lewis bought this cake for you instead.”

  “We think you’ll find the ingredients more agreeable to your palette,” Pryce added.

  Rose’s features filled with fury. She seized the serving tray from Hattie and then pushed past her to hurl the entire thing down the stairwell. The three of them watched the cake smash into the wall while the serving tray shattered into a million tiny pieces. Without a word, Rose turned and headed back to her room, slamming the door behind her.

  “Guess she doesn’t prefer fruitcake to treason,” Hattie commented before heading down the stairs to clean up the mess.

  * * *

  A few days later, Hattie was surprised to hear that her guardianship of Fort Greenhow would be at an end. Pinkerton had finally convinced Secretary Cameron to transfer Rose to the Old Capitol Prison. Rose was given only a few hours to pack. Pryce and Hattie thoroughly examined each item before allowing Rose to put it in her valise. When her carriage arrived to transport her to her newest confinement, her final words to Hattie were that she hoped that in the future she would have a “more noble employment than that of guarding defenseless women.”

  While Hattie agreed with her on the employment aspect, she would never have called Rose Greenhow defenseless. She simply waved to Rose and then turned to supervise the boarding of the mansion’s windows.

  The first thing Hattie heard when she arrived at the I-Street office the following morning was arguing. Pinkerton’s voice was firm while the other’s, slightly familiar to Hattie, was raised in protest. She could just discern the shapes of two figures through the frosted windows of the inner office. When she heard the door open, she pretended to be occupied with papers on her desk.

  “Ah, Miss Lewis, just the woman we needed. Could you come in here, please?” Pinkerton’s stocky body stepped aside as Hattie walked into his office. Timothy Webster paced rapidly alongside the bookcases in the back. Pinkerton gestured for Hattie to sit. “Mr. Webster has just returned from Baltimore.”

  Hattie nodded. “I heard of your success with the Knights of Liberty.”

  Webster stopped his pacing and stood at Hattie’s elbow. “I don’t need a nurse.”

  Pinkerton sat heavily behind his desk. “I’ve told you, your information is too valuable for you to
fall sick again.” He turned his gaze from Webster to Hattie. “Tim’s been suffering from attacks of rheumatism. Now that the Knights of Liberty are no longer a threat, I’m sending him on to Richmond. I want you to accompany him to be his caretaker. Not to mention that single men seem suspicious, but a man who is committed to one woman will seem trustworthy to almost anyone.”

  Hattie bit back her rebuttal as she thought of her own husband, whom not many people would call trustworthy.

  Webster folded his arms across his chest. “Boss, I’ve told you, I work better alone. A one-sided story is easy to fib your way out of, but when you add another person, you have to corroborate every detail so you don’t get tripped up.”

  Pinkerton stood up. “This is a non-negotiable. Miss Lewis will pose as your wife.”

  Timothy turned to Hattie. “This isn’t secretarial work or looking after a Rebel prisoner. We’ll be behind the lines, cavorting with the enemy. You’ll be endangering your life.”

  Hattie drew in a breath, insulted by his insinuations. She didn’t want either man to think she wasn’t up to the task Pinkerton was proposing. “I’m not afraid,” she replied.

  “Miss Lewis will be a great asset to your mission,” Pinkerton added. “She has lived in the South, albeit under different circumstances than the role she will play. She can garner information from the ladies who accompany the men you will be courting. You will leave tomorrow.”

  Webster gave a deep sigh before offering Hattie his arm. “Seeing as how we’re to be husband and wife, we better start getting into the role.”

  She gave him a shy smile as she accepted his assistance and rose out of her chair.