![]() ![]() Ellen Bond was illiterate and slow, but reliable. Not long after the Davis family moved to Richmond, Elizabeth Van Lew offered her slave, Ellen Bond, as a house servant to the first lady of the Confederacy, Varina Davis. The Confederate White House in Richmond circa 1910. Jefferson Davis and his family moved into the Confederate White House in Richmond in August 1861. Longtime abolitionists, the family felt their duty to work against the rebellion and help end slavery, so when Richmond was named the Confederate capital in 1861, Van Lew stayed put. ![]() That is, the people except for Van Lew and the underground of secret Union sympathizers and informants. The people of Virginia, even civilians, were violently anti-Union. Union sympathizers, especially Black activists, could expect beatings, torture and death. ![]() Captured Union soldiers were imprisoned, starved and shot by their rebel jailers. The South was in full rebellion against the United States. Not long after returning to Richmond, Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. ![]() Though it was technically illegal for her to come back to Virginia after being educated in the North, she returned anyway, and not a moment too soon. Later, Richards went overseas to Liberia as a missionary. Elizabeth "Bet" Van Lew became close friends with Richards and sent her to school at Princeton. Born into slavery around 1840, she was emancipated by the abolitionist Van Lew family of Richmond. ![]()
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