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Browse all Genealogy Gold Podcast EpisodesThe Union spy remembered as Mary Elizabeth Bowser is identified in surviving records as Mary Jane Richards. She was born around 1840 in Virginia and baptized in 1846.
Education and the Van Lew Family
Her baptism connected her to the Van Lew household in Richmond. Records place her education in Princeton, New Jersey, followed by time in Liberia and a return to Virginia in 1860.
Marriage and Wartime Intelligence
A church register records Mary’s marriage to Wilson Bowser on April 16, 1861, four days after the attack on Fort Sumter.
Mary worked with Elizabeth Van Lew’s Union intelligence network in Richmond. Her own 1865 public account described entering Jefferson Davis’s house and examining papers there. The familiar story of years spent secretly serving in his household rests on a much later recollection and should not be treated as established fact.
Teaching After the War
After the war, Mary taught formerly enslaved people and spoke publicly about her experiences. By 1867 she was teaching in St. Marys, Georgia. An October 1870 letter, signed M. J. Denman and written from New York, is the latest record currently identified by the National Park Service.
Remembrance and Legacy
This does not mean popular culture forgot her. Fictional portrayals include a novel by Lois M. Leveen called The Secrets of Mary Bowser is based on Mary’s life. A play by Ted Lange called Lady Patriot is also about Mary, and was produced by Mary Lange and performed at the Hudson Backstage Theater in Santa Monica, California, with actor Chrystee Pharris playing Mary Bowser. A made for TV movie in 1987 called A Special Friendship was based on the friendship and spy activities of Mary Bowser and Elizabeth Van Lew. In addition, the central character of the book, An Extraordinary Union, by Alyssa Cole, is based on Mary Bowser.
Mary Bowser was honored by the US government by being inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in Fort Huachuca, Arizona for her work as a spy during the Civil War.
Learn More
For a closer look at the evidence and historical context, explore these resources:
- National Park Service: Mary Jane Richards and the Bowser legend
- Historian Lois Leveen on Mary Richards’s recovered correspondence
You can also read The Unsung Heroes of the Civil War (free eBook) and explore our Civil War records guide.
