Elizabeth Van Lew: The Life of the Richmond Woman Who Ran a Union Spy Ring in the Confederate Capital

Though espionage is a hallmark of every major war, spies are often depicted in countless works of fiction as discovering secrets on which the fate of nations hang in the balance. Reality is generally rather more mundane, as spies often gather low-level intelligence that only makes sense when it is examined by analysts and compared to information from other sources. Espionage provides clues to what the enemy is planning, but on its own, it rarely changes the course of a war. Moreover, real s...