Dangerous Liaison

Dangerous Liaison. Risky Hometown Espionage Leads to Union Victory. You are standing at the site of 24-year-old Quaker schoolteacher Rebecca Wright's home, the location of Civil War intrigue. On September 16, 1864, Thomas Laws, an enslaved man from neighboring Clarke County, arrived at the Wright house carrying a message on tissue paper wrapped in tin foil and carefully tucked in his mouth. Union Gen. Phil Sheridan, told by a fellow officer that Wright was loyal to the United States, had sent the message asking if she could give him information on the Confederate Army. She informed Sheridan that a Confederate division and an artillery battalion were leaving the Shenandoah Valley. Both Wright and Laws faced harsh punishment if caught, perhaps even death, but there days later their espionage helped lead to Union victory at the Third Battle of Winchester., Sheridan visited Wright after the battle to thank her and ask how he could repay her. She requested he keep her role as spy a secret. Sheridan kept his promise but Wright's anonymity eroded in February 1867 when Rebecca's sister, Hannah, leaked information to a Baltimore Sun journalist, who boarded at the Wright home, that Sheridan had given Rebecca a note of thanks and gifts as token of gratitude for "the great service" she "rendered the Union cause.", Valley residents harbored anger about the conflict, and the revelation forced Wright to leave Winchester. Sheridan and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant secured Wright an appointment as an U.S. Treasure Department clerk. She lived in Washington D.C., and held that post until her May 1914 death., Thomas Laws largely maintained secrecy about his intelligence gathering for Sheridan. He died on April 16, 1896, and is buried at Milton Valley Cemetery in Berryville, about 12 miles east of Winchester.