Elizabeth Van Lew, the Southern belle who spied for the Union in the very capital of the Confederacy, risked her name, fortune and very life for the ideals of the America she loved during the most bitterly divisive struggle in our nation's history.

In the spring of 1861, all the South seemed swept by the fever of secession. Yet below the clamour, many Southerners did not support the institution of slavery upon which the Confederacy was built. Some dissenters left the South. Others remained silent. And a few, like Elizabeth Van Lew, chose to actively fight against it.

Even before the Civil War, Elizabeth had freed her slaves; and when war came, her views soon isolated her from friends and neighbors. Then, when a Negro girl whom Elizabeth had sent North to college returned on a mission for the Union, Elizabeth quickly volunteered her services.

While Southerners were boasting of such spies as Belle Boyd and Rose Greenhow in Washington, an equally brilliant and resourceful secret operative worked against them under their very noses. For four years, Elizabeth Van Lew risked danger and capture with her amazing exploits. Yet few suspected that this gentle, well-born lady was actually a vital link in the underground network that grew up all over the South.

From the dust jacket