Wednesday, 12 April, 2023

The Civil Warriors Civil War Round Table
of the San Fernando Valley/Los Angeles will
hold its next meeting of 2023 at 7:00PM
Pacific Daylight Time on Wednesday, April
12, via Zoom. We will be hosting a
presentation by Stephen Romaine who will
talk about “Elizabeth Van Lew, Mary Bowser
and the Richmond Underground.”

When the topic of espionage during the Civil War
is explored, it generally involves isolated incidents
concerning individual spies, scouts and
deserters providing intel on specific plans, troop
strength or movement. Later in the war,
clandestine operations became essential for both
sides, sending and receiving messages from
military and political leadership across lines.
The presentation will look at the Richmond
Underground with Elizabeth Van Lew and Mary
Bowser playing essential roles, as well as other
critical members, and how this group sent and
received communications, first with General
Benjamin Butler and later Ulysses S. Grant.

A case will be presented that the Van Lew
network provided some of the most consequential
intel on a regular basis to Union Command
from 1864 through early 1865. Also, how evidence
suggests the Van Lew Spy Ring provided an early
leg-up on a series of Confederate secretly funded
series of plots to target northern cities, rarely
discussed in Civil War discourse.

Stephen Romaine has an English degree from
Villanova University and a Masters in Financial
Management from Fairfield University. He has
worked for IBM, Oracle and Hewlett-Packard, as
well as several start-ups. He also ran his own
consulting firm.

 Mr. Romaine has read extensively and enjoys
researching American history, especially on the
subject of the Civil War. While taking graduate
classes in American Studies at Fairfield
University, he wrote a paper on espionage during
the Civil War and was encouraged by his
professor to expand the topic and seek
publication. Secret Army Behind Enemy Lines was
published in 2019 after several years of research.
He also wrote a nonfiction paper, The Case
for Mary Bowser, the Quintessential Spy, published
by the Society for Women of the Civil War, in the
October 2022 Issue of At Home and in the Field.

We will be meeting via the Zoom meeting
app. We will send out the meeting on-line
connection information shortly before our
meeting day (4/12/23). Please plan on
beginning your hookup a few minutes before
the 7:00PM Pacific meeting time. If you are a
first time visitor to the Civil Warriors, please
contact us at cwrtsfv@gmail.com for
information regarding the hookup. Guests,
new members and returning members are
always welcome to join us for this and future
meetings! If you can’t make this meeting,
please consider one of our exciting upcoming
meetings noted in our Future Presentations
section.