Only Call Us Faithful

by Marie Jakober

Book Overview

Elizabeth Van Lew, Patriot Elizabeth Van Lew was born in Richmond, Virginia, a citizen of the United States of America. When Virginia and other southern states seceded, she didn't feel that changed... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765303167
• ISBN13: 9780765303165
• Release Date: December 2002
• Publisher: Forge
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

excellent biographical fiction

In the 1840s after attending finishing school in Philadelphia, Elizabeth Van Lew returned to her Richmond, Virginia home and liberated all her slaves. While her family, friends and neighbors think she has gone crazy, Elizabeth insists she has become an abolitionist. When the Civil War breaks out, Elizabeth takes advantage that everyone who knows her thinks she is a harmless loony spinster so she believes she has the perfect cover for an espionage ring to help the North. She obtains permission from family friend Confederate General Winder to bring sustenance to Union POWs incarcerated in nearby Libby Prison and gaining the cooperation of a physician, uses coffins to free dozens of imprisoned northern soldiers by faking their deaths. Her actions grow bolder and wider in scope as Union spymaster General Sharpe realizes she is an asset while the Confederate police begin to scrutinize her activity. ONLY CALL US FAITHFUL is a lovely biographical fiction novel based on the real life of Richmond espionage belle Elizabeth Van Lew. The well written story line grips the readers from the onset as the lead protagonist proves fascinating when she does not fit the behavioral mode of what is expected of a young single upper class female by her society. Readers will take immense pleasure in this enthralling account of a little known courageous heroine. Harriet Klausner

A fascinating authentic look at the War Between the States

I've read many books on the Civil War and this is one of my faves, up there with Andersonville and Gettysburg. The protagonist, Eliza Van Lew, is based on a true person who aided the Union POW's in Libby Prison and provided info to the Union through an underground network. The voice of Van Lew, spoken by her ghost, offers an intriguing perspective on the war and its outcome. Author Jakober invites us into a world where Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and other main figures from the South continue to live in the past. I especially enjoyed her takes on how the 21st century has idealized the South's culture and mores. The South remains the "romantic" side of the war despite, or because of its, loss and its strictly stratified society. It is a story of a woman breaking free of her culture's bonds, leaving you no doubt as to who the true "Rebel" is.

A Must For Civil War Buffs

This is the story of a Southern Lady, from a fine old Virginia family,in fact a superb example of the Southern womanhood that Confederates claimed to be fighting for Only this one didn't want them to fight for her. She was loyal to the Union (and also antislavery) and when her state seceded her reaction was to set up in business as a spy for the North. Narrated, in an original twist, by the heroine's ghost, this novel gives a fascinating picture of the war behind the lines. Spies (including a Black one right inside Jefferson Davis' White House) slave stealers, prisoners of war and loyal Virginians helping the Union Army (or trying to) give a whole angle on the war that Gone With The Wind never mentioned. I do have one or two gripes. While the heroine (and the author, I suspect) have some reason to be aggrieved at the way the loyal southerners have been forgotten by history, I feel she makes a bigger mystery of this than it really is. Wars, even more than other historical events, tend to get remembered "in primary colours" and as the War passed into memory as a war of North against South, the dissidents on both sides got airbrushed out, all the more so as they still had to live with the neighbours, hence found it wiser not to brag about their war records. So by 1870 you got Southern Unionists saying they had served with Lee, whilst every Yankee claimed to have been a true blue Union Man, even if really he had voted for Vallandigham and spent every waking moment organising resistance to the Draft. So it goes. Also, Miss Van Lew rather passes over the effect of Radical Reconstruction in smothering the development of a "loyal" southern tradition. Unlike her, many former Unionist disliked carpetbaggers and uppity blacks as much as any Reb, and (like Andrew Johnson, about the most prominent loyalist, yet whom the novel doesn't even mention) found in opposition to Reconstruction a quick and easy path to reconciliation with their neighbours Still, enough quibbling. With all its faults, it's a great novel, and if the Civil War turns you on, it belongs up there on your bookshelf. Read and enjoy