hope and fear,
was filled with fierce exultation, and hastily prepared a room in the
house on the hill with new matting and fresh curtains for the use of
General McClellan. But the Federal forces were repulsed by the
Confederate troops under General Lee and "drew away over the hills."
General McClellan had failed in his attempt to take Richmond, and
within that room freshly prepared for his use bitter disappointment
and dead hope were locked.

There was great rejoicing in Richmond in this repulse of the Federal
army, and even those old friends who were now enemies of Elizabeth Van
Lew, could afford to throw her a smile or a kind word in the flush of
their triumph. She responded pleasantly, for she was a big enough
woman to understand a viewpoint which differed from her own.
Meanwhile, she worked on tirelessly through the long days and nights
of an unusually hot summer, meeting in secret conferences with
Richmond's handful of Unionists, to plot and scheme for the aid of the
Federal authorities. "The Van Lew mansion was the fifth in a chain of
Union Secret Service relaying stations, whose beginning was in the
headquarters tent of the Federal army. Of this chain of stations the
Van Lew farm, lying a short distance outside of the city, was one. It
was seldom difficult for Betty Van Lew to get passes for her servants
to make the trip between the farm and the Richmond house, and this was
one of her most valuable methods of transmitting and receiving secret
messages. Fresh eggs were brought in from the farm almost every day to
the house on Church Hill, and no one was allowed to touch them until
the head of the house had counted them, with true war-time economy,
and she always took one out, for her own use in egg-nog, so she said.
In reality that egg was but a shell which contained a tiny scroll of
paper, a message from some Union general to the Federal Spy. An old
negro brought the farm products in to Richmond, and he always stopped
for a friendly chat with his mistress, yes, and took off his
thick-soled shoes that he might deliver into her hands a cipher
despatch which she was generally awaiting eagerly! Much sewing was
done for the Van Lews at that time by a little seamstress, who worked
at both farm and city home, and in carrying dress goods and patterns
back and forth she secreted much valuable information for the Spy, on
whom the Union generals were now depending for the largest part of
their news in regard to Confederat