History is written by the winners, Napoleon Bonaparte observed, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Civil War history written - rather, recollected - by Thomas McNiven. (1) For those who don't recognize the name, Thomas McNiven was the self-proclaimed baker/spymaster of Richmond, Virginia who claimed to have sabotaged the Confederacy with his covert operations, funded in part by the U.S. Secret Service. (2) McNiven's claim could have been verified once, beyond a Rebel's doubt, by documentation that is supposed to have existed. Unfortunately, that documentation has been completely destroyed, we're told, in most cases by McNiven's own hand. (3)

Elizabeth Van Lew, inarguably Richmond's most famous Yankee spy, kept an "occasional journal" that now resides in the special collections archive of the New York Public Library. In her journal Van Lew described an undercover Unionist network in Confederate Richmond made up of a number of neighborhood loyalists. Among them was the spy she called "Quaker." (4)

Long after the war's end, McNiven claimed to have been that spy. (5) Reminiscing to his daughter about his part in the Richmond underground, McNiven explained, "We used code names...Quaker for me." (6) Supporting Van Lew's assertion that "Quaker" spied for the Union are several citations in the Official Records of the Confederate and Union Armies. (7) But again, the Official Records provide no information at all on Thomas McNiven. McNiven's post-war explanation was simple: fearing for his safety, he requested his records from the War Department and destroyed them all.

Another document that could have substantiated McNiven's claim was his wartime journal. But that source was also destroyed, after McNiven's death in 1904, by the executor of his will. There is only one McNiven record that has managed to survive. Like the childhood game of telephone, McNiven told his recollections to his daughter, who told them to her son who, in 1952, wrote them down.(8)

McNiven's story, although it is intriguing (literally), presents a problem for serious researchers of the Civil War. As Museum of the Confederacy library manager Ruth Ann Coski has noted, "Historians dote on absolutes." (9) There are few absolutes to be found in the "Recollections of Thomas McNiven." Nonetheless, lack of documentation has not thwarted his legend. In fact, the opposite has occurred. So often has the McNiven story been repeated that it is now simply assumed to be true. (10)

In addition to narrating his own participation in Van Lew's circle of intrigue, McNiven can be credited with advancing the tale of Mary Elizabeth Bowser. (11) By now, thanks in large part to her 1995 induction into the U.S. Army's Military Intelligence Corps Hall of Fame, Bowser is well-known as the African-American slave placed by Van Lew in the Confederate Whitehouse to spy on the First Family. A good story with all the elements: subterfuge, danger, heroism. Regrettably, as with McNiven's documents, the supporting evidence is gone. In Bowser's case, her diary was discarded inadvertently by descendents. (12)

A letter countering the Bowser legend does exist but since it is far less romantic and-more to the point-written by the loser, it has received virtually no attention. Varina Davis who, like her husband, lived by principles and personal integrity, was asked in 1905 if Bowser had spied for the Union while in her service. Mrs. Davis' response:

My daughter has sent me your letter of inquiry to know if I had in my employ an educated negro woman whose services were 'given or hired by Miss Van Lew' as a spy in our house during the war. We never had any such person about us... (13)

From here the argument deteriorates into a contest of "he says/she says," a disagreement that history tells us the victor wins.

Unfortunately, McNiven's influence is exerting itself once more. Recent scholarship has stimulated interest in the sexual lives of Civil War soldiers. (14) Writers are discovering the notorious "Clara A.," a prostitute/spy in Richmond who is alleged to have serviced a host of prominent Confederates. Of course, there are descendants of the named officials who are not pleased. They suggest McNiven was more interested in retribution than in accurate record keeping. In their view, "Clara A." was McNiven's last chance to defame those men responsible for his arrests-for-questioning during the war.

Thomas P. Lowry, an otherwise thorough researcher, was one of those writers who could not resist Clara's charms. In "The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell" Lowry quoted from her diary:

Tempting stuff--but when the citation is checked, the following is revealed:

Once again, we are like an audience watching a magic act; before our eyes, the document disappears. Not that it matters much--Clara's story is too good to ignore. Who can fail to see that Clara A. is yet another legend in the making.

Notes

1. "History is a fable penned by the victors." Napoleon Bonapart quoted by Jack McMillan in "Adventures North and South."
2. Interestingly, among the twenty bakers listed in the 1860 Richmond Business Directory, Thomas McNiven was not included.
3. "Recollections of Thomas McGiven and His Activities in Richmond During the Civil War as told to Jeanette B. McNiven and retold to Robert W. Waitt, Jr." Civil War Richmond. 2002.
4. Ryan, David D. A Yankee Spy in Richmond: The Civil War Diary of "Crazy Bet" Van Lew. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1996, 55.
5. Ibid., 143.
6. "Recollections."
7. U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington DC: Government Printing Office 1880-1901, Ser. I., Vol. XXXIII, 519-521.
8. "Recollections."
9. Coski, Ruth Ann. "White House Spy Legend Lives On." Museum of the Confederacy. 2002.
10. See Rose, P. K., " The Civil War: Black American Contributions to Union Intelligence," Central Intelligence Agency. 2002. Rose admits, "Much of this information is difficult to substantiate or place in perspective and context due to the lack of supporting documents."
11. "Black History: Virginia Profiles. Mary Elizabeth Bowser." Richmond Times-Dispatch 1 Feb. 2002.
12. Ryan, 136.
13. Coski.
14. Lowry, Thomas P. The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell: Sex in the Civil War. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. See also Lowry's The Civil War Bawdy Houses of Washington, D.C. Fredericksburg, VA: Sergeant Kirkland's Press, 1997; Topping, Elizabeth. What's A Poor Girl to Do? Prostitution in Mid-Nineteeth Century America. Gettysburg, PA: Thomas Publications, 2001.
15. Lowry, The Story, 157.
16. Ibid., 193.

Images

Top: Confederate White House courtesy of the Library of Congress, call no. LC-D4-43165.
Right: Image of Elizabeth Van Lew provided by Civil War Richmond
Left: Image of Mary Bowser provided by James A. Chambers, U.S. Army Deputy, Office of the Chief, Military Intelligence.
Center: Image of Varina Davis provided by the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Watercolor on Ivory, 1849 by John Wood Dodge.

Copyright © 2003 Priscilla Rhoades
All rights reserved

About the Author

         Priscilla Rhoades is a writer of short stories, poetry and features whose work has appeared in The San Francisco Bay Guardian, The Long Beach Press-Telegram, The Iowa Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, In Posse Review, and other publications. A transplanted Californian, she now lives on two acres in the mountains of western North Carolina.
 
For other historical articles by Priscilla Rhoades that have appeared in Kudzu Monthly, please see King of the Confederate Counterfeit, The Women of Castle Thunder, and Boy Gangs of Confederate Richmond.

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