Hero of the Week 107

 Welcome back viewers!

This week's hero is...

Elizabeth Van Lew

Elizabeth Van Lew was born on October 12, 1818, in Richmond, Virginia. When she was a child, she was sent to a Quaker school in Philadelphia. This had the unintended consequence of causing her to reform her views on life. One of the things that changed forever, was her view on slavery. 

Although she had come from a slave-holding family, Elizabeth became an anti-slavery advocate as soon as she returned to Virginia. When her father died in 1843, she made the decision to free their family's slaves. However, her fight against slavery did not end there. When the Virginia seceded from the Union and Civil War began in 1860, Elizabeth Van Lew decided that her loyalties would lie with the Union.

During the war, an old tobacco factory was used as a prisoner-of-war camp in the city of Richmond. It was meant to incarcerate Union officers who were captured during battle. It was called, Libby Prison. Due to the Confederacy's limited amount of supplies conditions inside the prison were quite deplorable for anyone unlucky enough to be taken there. Many of the prisoners began to die within weeks of their arrival.

Elizabeth decided to aid the prisoners in any way that she could. She persuaded the Confederate warden of the prison camp to allow her to bring food and medicine to the prisoners. By doing this, she incurred much anger and disgust from many of her neighbors who were ardent supporters of slavery and secession. It was not long that she began receiving numerous death threats wherever she went in Richmond. Despite her unpopularity, Elizabeth not only continued to help the Union POWs, she also participated in espionage against the Confederacy.

She organized a spy network of 12 people (including former slaves). They began their activities by smuggling letters from the prisoners out of Libby Prison to their families. As the war progressed, they began reporting on Confederate troop movements through Virginia. She was able to smuggle her dispatches to Union lines by using a colorless liquid to conceal the words and numbers on the paper. She would then use a courier to carry them to the nearest Union outpost. The words could be uncovered when milk was poured over them. By December of 1863, her network began the high risk operation of aiding the escape of POWs from Libby Prison. Her information would play a decisive role in one of the most famous prison escapes in American history. 

In February of 1864, Elizabeth Van Lew received word that the POWs in Libby Prison were planning a mass breakout. She aided them by smuggling them maps of the area that showed how to avoid Confederate outposts. The breakout began on the night of February 14, when 108 prisoners escaped through an underground tunnel that they had dug. Due to the information that they had been given, approximately 58 successfully evaded recapture and made it to Union lines (48 were recaptured and 2 drowned while crossing the Potomac River). 

For the rest of the war, Elizabeth Van Lew's spy network continued to aide the Union armies. One member of her network (a former slave named, Mary Bowser) proved to be invaluable. She was able to disguise herself as one of Confederate President Jefferson Davis's slaves and sneak into his home. Once there she stole numerous of documents from his desk. These documents were then delivered to directly to Union General Ulysses S. Grant during his Overland Campaign in 1864. They would have a direct impact in his eventual victory over Robert E. Lee a year later.

When the Civil War ended, Elizabeth Van Lew's network officially disbanded. However, General Grant never forgot her incredible contribution to the Union war effort. When he was elected President in 1869, Grant appointed Elizabeth to the position of postmistress of Richmond (a position she held for eight years). Despite being lauded as a hero by the Federal government, she was treated as an outcast by the people of Virginia (especially in Richmond). Many of them viewed her as a traitor to the Confederate cause and treated with contempt for the rest of her life. When she died on September 25, 1900, hardly anyone in Virginia (except for her family) mourned her.

Today however, Elizabeth Van Lew is remembered as an American hero. In 1993, she was posthumously inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame. Her headstone reads, "She risked everything that is dear to man–friends, fortune, comfort, health, life itself, all for the one absorbing desire in her heart–that slavery might be abolished and the Union preserved". No words could better describe, Elizabeth Van Lew.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/elizabeth-van-lew

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/elizabeth-van-lew-an-unlikely-union-spy-158755584/

https://ehistory.osu.edu/articles/elizabeth-van-lew-crazy-bet-brings-down-richmond

Iconic Image 6

 Welcome back viewers

This month's Iconic Image is...

The Kent State shooting

Intro

This image depicts a teenage girl kneeling over the body of a teenage boy while screaming in terror. Behind her foot, is a long blood trail that is staining the street. Other students are standing by in shock and disbelief over what has just happened. This photograph would become a haunting image of one of America's greatest tragedies.

Part I

The day of May 4, 1970, was a day that began like any other for the students and teachers of Kent State University. Things took a different turn at noon when thousands students and activists gathered on the university's Commons just out side the Taylor Hall building. They were anti-war activists protesting the American involvement in the Vietnam War. President Nixon had recently announced that he had ordered an Incursion into the country of Cambodia (which bordered Vietnam). This announcement caused nation-wide protests against the widening of a war that had already become very unpopular.

The college of Kent State was no exception. The number of protesters gathering at the college alarmed Ohio Governor Jim Rhoades, who ordered the deployment of the Ohio National Guard to Kent State. Fearing that a riot was about to take place, university officials attempted to ban the gathering. Despite their best efforts, more than 2,000 people gathered at the Commons to demonstrate. The protest officially began with students ringing the college's Victory Bell. The National guardsmen arrived just minutes later and ordered the protesters to disperse. When they refused, the guardsmen fixed bayonets and began advancing. When the protesters threw rocks at them, they returned fire with tear gas. For the next 20 minutes the guardsmen tried to disperse the protesters. Although some of the latter left, most stood their ground.

At 12:24 PM, a group of guardsmen suddenly wheeled around on a hill overlooking the crowd and fired. For the next 13 seconds, they fired a total of 67 live rounds of ammunition into the protesters. Due to their elevation on the hill, many of the bullets passed over the heads of the protesters and hit those in the back of the crowd. When the shooting was over, three students lay dead on the ground. A fourth would die in the hospital. Another nine were severely wounded (one would be paralyzed for the rest of his life). Only after the shooting, did the protesters finally disperse while some stayed behind to tend to the wounded.

Part II

Among the protesters was a senior majoring in photography named, John Filo. Filo had been working for Kent State University's newspaper and decided to photograph the incident. After taking numerous images of the protest, Filo was forced to dive for cover when the shooting began. When it had stopped, Filo looked up and saw a young girl kneeling over another student. The girl was screaming for someone to help the young man. Since Filo only had enough film left for one more picture, he snapped a quick image of the spectacle before quickly leaving the scene (he feared his camera would be confiscated by the police). 

The girl in the picture was identified as Mary Ann Vecchio. She was a 14 year old runaway from Florida who had hitchhiked her way to Kent, Ohio. She had arrived at the college campus to take part in the anti-war protest. Before the shooting started, Mary had met a student named, Jeffrey Glenn Miller. Jeff was a recent transfer student from Michigan. 

He was friends with two other students on the campus (Allison Krause and Sandra Scheuer). Mary and Jeff were having a conversation when the National Guard suddenly opened fire on them. Jeff was shot through his mouth and died instantly. His two friends, Allison and Sandra were also killed. The fourth victim was a psychology student named, William Knox Schroeder. Tragically of the four victims, two of them (Sandra and William) were not taking part in the protest. They were simply walking to class when they were caught in the crossfire.

Epilogue

John Filo's image of the massacre ultimately became the most famous of the day. His photograph won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1971. He continues to work as a successful photographer to this day. The shooting at Kent State sent waves of anger across the United States and turned many more Americans against the war. Despite the carnage that had been caused, no member of the Ohio National Guard was ever charged for the shooting. Why the guardsmen opened fire has never been determined.

Although the photograph had made Mary Ann Vecchio very famous, she very much resented all the attention that was given to her. In fact, it ended up getting her arrested and sent to juvenile detention since she was a runaway. After a couple run-ins with the law, she eventually married and worked at a casino. Despite all the trouble it had caused her, Mary Ann harbored no resentment towards John Filo. The met in 1995 and remain good friends to this day. She is now retired and lives in Florida. 

This photograph remains a symbol of a great tragedy in American history. It tells a story of a loss of innocence and of life. But it also shows the power that the voices of students can have when they wish to be heard. The anti-war protesters only grew larger and stronger after the shootings at Kent State. Ultimately, they succeeded in convincing President Nixon to withdraw American servicemen from Vietnam.

https://www.kent.edu/may-4-historical-accuracy

https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/kent-state-shooting

https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/04/19/girl-kent-state-photo-lifelong-burden-being-national-symbol/