Beloved Enemy Read online

  “Does this sweet child have a name?” Hettie inquired. A fond expression creased her dark face.

  Carolyn giggled. “Oh, I’m sorry. I must have skipped that part. Here it is! ‘We have named her Elizabeth Ross Montgomery.’”

  Carolyn looked up at her father. “Papa, do we know anybody named Elizabeth or Ross?”

  Author Note

  One hundred and nine Union officers escaped from Libby Prison on that frosty night of February 9-10, 1864, making it the largest American POW breakout in military history. It was also the most successful. Two escapees drowned while trying to swim the swollen streams, forty-eight were recaptured, but fifty-nine men made it to freedom. Among the recaptured prisoners returned to Libby was “tunnel king” Colonel Thomas E. Rose of the 77th Pennsylvania Infantry. Rose immediately began plans for another escape, but his Confederate warders had had enough of his ingenuity. On April 30, 1864, he was exchanged for a Confederate colonel at City Point, Virginia.

  While there is no record of a character like Robert Montgomery in Libby, the prisoners did have inside help in the person of the enigmatic Erasmus W. Ross, who was the civilian clerk under British protection. Very little is known about this man as he died soon after the end of the Civil War in the fire that destroyed the famous Spotswood Hotel in 1870. While Ross was remembered by the majority of the prisoners as an evil-tempered man, there are a few recorded incidents where he helped some of the prisoners to escape. Some scholars believe that Ross was a Union spy in very deep cover who worked with Elizabeth Van Lew.

  Miss Lizzie Van Lew was probably the most successful female undercover agent for the Union during the war. Her mansion on Grace Street really did have a secret room over the portico, and she was privy to the breakout plans. Also, she happened to be in the country with her brother on February 9th. After the war, Lizzie remained in Richmond where she was reviled by the population as a traitor to the Confederacy. When she died in 1900, at the advanced age of eighty-one, she was buried in an unmarked grave in Shockhoe Cemetery at the far northern edge of Richmond. When some of the Union veterans of Libby heard about Lizzie’s death, they sent down a large granite boulder from Massachusetts with a bronze plaque inscribed with her name, dates and the old soldiers’ fond sentiments. Her home was deliberately torn down during the 1920s, and today an elementary school occupies the site.

  Libby Prison was also taken apart, not for demolition, but for exhibition at the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1892. The prison warehouse stayed in Chicago for several years after the Exposition, then it was disassembled once again and went on national tour. The train carrying the pieces was derailed in Indiana where an enterprising farmer bought the bricks and lumber, and used them to build a barn. In the 1960s, the barn was torn down during the Civil War Centennial, and the pieces dispersed. Occasionally parts of the old Libby Prison turn up at Civil War Collectors’ Fairs and in antique barns.

  Finally, I am deeply grateful to Carol Bessette, a Certified Master Tour Guide of Washington, D.C., for providing books, maps and a great perspective of Washington and Alexandria, Virginia, in 1864.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-3999-9

  BELOVED ENEMY

  Copyright © 2004 by Mary W. Schaller

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  Visit us at www.eHarlequin.com

  * The Cavendish Chronicles