Episode 54
Ironclad Spy: The woman that saved the Union during the Civil War - Mary Louvestre
🎙
Mary Louvestre (1812-1883) was a woman of extraordinary courage and determination who lived in Southside Hampton Roads, Virginia during the American Civil War. She was a spy for the Union Army, risking her own life to help the cause.
She risked this all as a free, African American woman, at the age of 49.
Battle of the Ironclads Episode (podcast)
Mary Louvestre: Civil War Spy (video)
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Transcript
Imagine you are living in Virginia.
Speaker:You were in a boarding house in the growing city of Norfolk with
Speaker:your spouse, and business is good with a large port so close.
Speaker:You get plenty of visitors day and night who come in after a long day of work at
Speaker:Gospel Shipyard, just across the waterway.
Speaker:I had workers.
Speaker:Tool maintainers and men of all trades walk through your doors.
Speaker:And recently you've been hearing about this strange ship that is
Speaker:supposed to be made of steel.
Speaker:Think of it, a ship made of metal.
Speaker:How would that even float?
Speaker:And it has cannons on it too.
Speaker:At least that's what those steel workers said last night.
Speaker:Anyways, imagine that, but gospel is a Confederate ship here.
Speaker:If they have a ship like that, could the union ever stand a chance to defeat it?
Speaker:In 1862, the war between the union and the Confederate states of
Speaker:America had been going on for a year.
Speaker:And this is exactly the situation that Mary Louvestre found herself in.
Speaker:Join us as we talk about Mary Louvestre, the Iron Cloud Spy
Speaker:that may have saved the union.
Speaker:Welcome to Top of History.
Speaker:I'm your host Scott here with my wife and historian Jen.
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired world travels
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Speaker:with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.
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Speaker:Now, Jen.
Speaker:Obviously we're talking about the video that just pop posted yesterday.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, so talk a little bit about, set the stage for us on Mary Louvestre, who
Speaker:we're co we're calling the Ironclad Spy.
Speaker:So it's Women's History Month and we're kicking off Women's History Month.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:With, uh, a Union Spy, and it's the beginning of the Civil War.
Speaker:It's 1861.
Speaker:and we have a woman of color living in Norfolk who is running the boarding house
Speaker:in Norfolk across the Elizabeth River.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:across to the Gosport Shipyard, which today is the Norfolk Shipyard.
Speaker:And if you see in the video, I mean, there is naval ships actually being
Speaker:fixed and retrofitted and dry docked and all the things that happened
Speaker:to the Navy ships, um, in dock.
Speaker:And so, uh, it's a shipyard still in use today.
Speaker:But in April of 1861, it was undergoing a lot of changes because Virginia
Speaker:is gonna succeed from the union.
Speaker:That's right in on April 17th, 1861, and not even three days, April 20th, 1861.
Speaker:Uh, the union.
Speaker:Is pushed out of the gospel
Speaker:shipyard.
Speaker:The gospel shipyard.
Speaker:And that's, and that's one thing that I, I didn't realize because we've just been
Speaker:doing all these more civil war mm-hmm.
Speaker:kind of topics recently.
Speaker:We just did Fort Norfolk.
Speaker:And Fort Norfolk is not far away.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:And Fort Norfolk was union held the entire time.
Speaker:No, Monroe was held.
Speaker:That's what I meant for Fort Monroe.
Speaker:Fort Monroe.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's, it means literally just.
Speaker:It's not far.
Speaker:Like driving wise.
Speaker:You could probably get from now today?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:From the shipyard over to Fort Monroe.
Speaker:What, maybe 20, 30 minutes?
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:definitely.
Speaker:But I would assume there's no bridge.
Speaker:In 1861.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like there are today.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And it's fortified as we show in the video, has a moat around
Speaker:it and a very small bridge
Speaker:to get across.
Speaker:But not, not long sale for ships at the time, not
Speaker:long sale for.
Speaker:And that's how people basically traveled.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:At the time they had a ferry.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Now Fort Norfolk, you did mention Fort Norfolk and that
Speaker:is another video we do as well.
Speaker:Uh, that was taken by the Confederacy.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And that was, that's actually even closer.
Speaker:Even closer.
Speaker:That's even closer cuz it's literally, it's almost like right
Speaker:across the river, basically.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. Yes.
Speaker:Um, but Fort Monroe is, is a little bit further away, but it's not that far.
Speaker:Fort Monroe is closer basically to the ocean if it's kind of
Speaker:picturing in your head, which, it's kind of interesting cuz we're gonna
Speaker:talk more about Fort Monroe in, in a moment and how it's, it never.
Speaker:To the Confederacy, and it's in the southern part of Virginia,
Speaker:which is a Confederate state.
Speaker:I mean, it's where Technic, it's where the capital of the Confederacy is in Richmond.
Speaker:It's where Robert Lee is from.
Speaker:It is like a Confederate state, but you have Fort Monroe, kind of like in
Speaker:the southern part of it on the coast.
Speaker:That is always union
Speaker:health.
Speaker:It's funny, you know, even as we talk about it, , uh, what pops into
Speaker:my head is like, you ever play risk?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:When you were a kid.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:and there's like, there's very key.
Speaker:Spots on the board Yeah.
Speaker:That you wanna hold.
Speaker:And for the union, Fort Monroe was one of those spots.
Speaker:I mean, that was like, they did everything they could to, to hang onto it.
Speaker:It was easily defendable.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:But they did everything they could.
Speaker:So we're, we're kind of, so we're going, we're, we're veering off here.
Speaker:But it's important to the story.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:It's important.
Speaker:It's important to the story because where we are here in Norfolk Yes.
Speaker:You know, we basically, we kind of just get to go.
Speaker:Nowadays, downtown Norfolk to visit where Mary Louvestre used to live.
Speaker:So, and Mary Louvestre's gonna use Fort Monroe as part of her plan.
Speaker:So we'll get into that.
Speaker:April 17th, Virginia succeeds from the Union.
Speaker:April 20th, the Union Burns, God's Port shipyard.
Speaker:So nothing goes into the Confederates hands and the ship.
Speaker:The Merrimack is burned down to the waterline, and so
Speaker:the Confederacy takes over.
Speaker:God poured shipyard on April 21st, the next day, and they take that ship
Speaker:that is burned down to the waterline and start to reinforce it with iron.
Speaker:Metal, uh,
Speaker:plates, and we show a good picture, kind of like how they,
Speaker:how they did that.
Speaker:And they start to build up the CSS Virginia.
Speaker:So the first iron clat of the Confederacy, right across that waterway, which
Speaker:everyone is pretty much traveling by boat at this time because there's
Speaker:no bridges like we have today,
Speaker:right?
Speaker:They're taking ferries from the, from the shipyard sting
Speaker:back over to the boarding house.
Speaker:Boarding house right across the waterway.
Speaker:On in Norfolk is a boarding house owned by a free woman of color.
Speaker:Mary Louvestre, and you'll see her name as Tu Vestry.
Speaker:Um, and her maiden name is Ogilvy.
Speaker:And you'll see other things online that she was enslaved,
Speaker:but she was never enslaved.
Speaker:And this research was done by, um, some Norfolk librarians
Speaker:who were able to put together.
Speaker:Her mother and her father were free people of color, and they married,
Speaker:and Mary was their daughter.
Speaker:And if you remember, A child always becomes the status of the
Speaker:mother and a, a child of color.
Speaker:And since Mary's mother was free, Mary was free.
Speaker:And so she's born in 1812 and she's first registered as a, uh,
Speaker:free person of color in 1828.
Speaker:So she's 16 years old.
Speaker:So that's kind of like the time you registered
Speaker:somebody.
Speaker:And one of the things that I appreciated about you kind of making this point
Speaker:that she was free the whole time, which was, which was rare, but it was.
Speaker:Not so rare that it was completely uncommon.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You know, you talk about the population then about a, you know what, 20, 25%
Speaker:of the African Americans that were in living in the Norfolk area were free.
Speaker:Free.
Speaker:So you have about, it's 1840, 11,000 people living in Norfolk.
Speaker:40 per 43% are African American or black.
Speaker:Um, that's about half and of that population.
Speaker:22% are free.
Speaker:So one fourth are free.
Speaker:So that's about a thousand people.
Speaker:So it's not rare to be free, but it is.
Speaker:Very much you, you are under the social consciousness of your surroundings.
Speaker:You're living in a slave state, you're a person of color.
Speaker:Enslavement is, uh, predominantly is African American, so you always
Speaker:have to carry your, your freedom, your certificate of freedom.
Speaker:That's why she's registered at 16 years old and you're always
Speaker:carrying paperwork that proves.
Speaker:Freedom.
Speaker:And, and I think you even talked about, and it didn't make the video,
Speaker:it just, it didn't fit into the story she actually ended up buying mm-hmm.
Speaker:like a, the, essentially like a little boy.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And kind of essentially she, she took him on kind of more as a, it
Speaker:seemed like an act of kindness.
Speaker:Took him on, kind of raised him, and then gave him his freedom when he was a little
Speaker:bit older that didn't make the video.
Speaker:But I thought that was an interesting point that you brought up.
Speaker:Um, even though it didn't make the, you know, my, my editor's
Speaker:cut.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So in 19, She does purchase a little boy, 10 year old boy from a local doctor.
Speaker:He is from the same area as her father.
Speaker:Her father is a French from the, uh, Caribbean Yeah.
Speaker:Area.
Speaker:And the little boy is the same, um, background.
Speaker:And so she feels very drawn to him and she, um, she purchases him and he
Speaker:does stuff around the boarding house.
Speaker:And then she gives him his freedom when he turns 18.
Speaker:She probably did.
Speaker:I, you know, I, I conjured that, you know, he was, Abused in some way.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:And she wanted to offer,
Speaker:you know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I thought, I thought that was interesting.
Speaker:And it was just kind of an interesting piece of how it kind of builds the
Speaker:character that is Mary Louvestre who did this very brave act.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You know, that we're gonna discuss here in just a minute.
Speaker:And it speaks really to kind of her character and, and it may
Speaker:explain kind of a piece of her
Speaker:motivation.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:And you know, we give a lot of background of.
Speaker:Birth because her parents are free.
Speaker:Again, people of color who are free in a, in slave state, so they're
Speaker:operating under those social norms.
Speaker:They have to be very strong.
Speaker:You, you have to be, yeah.
Speaker:They're not even a choice.
Speaker:So then to raise children and stay in a slave state and, and make
Speaker:a life there, she has to have.
Speaker:Some kind of, you know, strength and someone who is a risk taker
Speaker:or someone who's very sure of themselves in both parents.
Speaker:So she marries a gentleman who was on a Navy ship.
Speaker:He was a ship steward.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And, uh, They get a license for the boarding house, and together
Speaker:they operate the boarding house.
Speaker:Uh, right off the, we, we have a, a map of it.
Speaker:It was on Niveen Street, which is today.
Speaker:You see the, uh, gold star if you're looking at, if you're watching this live.
Speaker:If not, if you're listening to this live on the podcast, it's where the modern
Speaker:day Sheridan, Norfolk Waterside Hotel is.
Speaker:It
Speaker:is, it is.
Speaker:On the waterfront, right.
Speaker:You'll see in our video, we're walking right in front of the Sheraton That's
Speaker:right on the waterfront right there.
Speaker:And we literally turn around and, and the Elizabeth River is
Speaker:right there.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So they basically can see them building the ironclad.
Speaker:So not only is the boarding house, like they're watching
Speaker:them build the ironclad, but.
Speaker:Mary's husband, Michael Lou Vestry, who we talk about their marriage
Speaker:in 1844, and we talk about the church that they're married in.
Speaker:We talk about that for two reasons.
Speaker:One, there is primary source document that supports their marriage.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Which is a great fine for her historian.
Speaker:So we wanna, you know, recognize that because there's, there's the marriage
Speaker:records in the church.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:But for a person of color to get married in 1840, um, they're
Speaker:actually married in 1844.
Speaker:, that's also rare because people don't, at the time, don't wanna recognize
Speaker:that people of color can do that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Can do that kind of status of marriage.
Speaker:And at some points people still use her maiden name cuz they don't wanna
Speaker:give her the status of a married
Speaker:woman.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Her maiden name is Ogilvie Ogilvie.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But, uh, Lu Vestry, uh, is her Mary name.
Speaker:So Michael Lure, who owns the boarding house with Mary,
Speaker:actually works at the shipyard.
Speaker:And he works in the STEAM department.
Speaker:He's a tool.
Speaker:Uh, the steam engineering department, he's a, actually takes care of the tools.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Tool maintainer.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Tool keeper.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And he works with another union, sympathizer.
Speaker:William Lyons.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And we actually go to William Lyons's grave.
Speaker:So they're working together in the steam department of the css,
Speaker:Virginia, uh, ship building.
Speaker:And they're coming back over to the boarding.
Speaker:With other ship builders and people who are building and they're discussing
Speaker:changes or plans or technology updates, and they're pulling out blueprints
Speaker:and they're pulling out plans.
Speaker:And Mary Louvestre is a part of all of this.
Speaker:She's part of watching this.
Speaker:She's part of gathering the information and.
Speaker:It's between them that they decide that she is the safest person to
Speaker:bring this information to the union.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:and it, I, it's interesting to me, and I don't know if there'd be any documentation
Speaker:that would kind of speak to whether or not they, like, before this started
Speaker:happening, they already kind of knew like, Hey, we're on the side of the union, or
Speaker:they were just kind of like there living.
Speaker:And then this opportunity arose and.
Speaker:They had that conversation amongst themselves and said,
Speaker:Hey, we should probably get this to the side that we believe in.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, which ultimately something like that happened because they ended up doing it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Like I said, April 21st, April 20th, it's burned.
Speaker:April 21st.
Speaker:Uh, the shipyard's taken over by the Confederacy 1861.
Speaker:It.
Speaker:Very long.
Speaker:It's summer of 1861 where Mary Louvestre goes to Fort Monroe for
Speaker:the first time and meets General Wool and says, I'm privy to information.
Speaker:I'm privy to.
Speaker:Shipbuilders of the, of an ironclad.
Speaker:And, but I want people to understand this is new technology for ship building.
Speaker:No one's done this really iron on the side of a ship and it's not gonna sink.
Speaker:Like it's, it's unheard of.
Speaker:And so this is, this is important intel.
Speaker:I can't even distress like it is when people think of the
Speaker:civil war and ship technology.
Speaker:It's the battle of the Ironclads that changes
Speaker:the world.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and we talk about that in our ironclad video.
Speaker:Like th this was kind of a, a seminal moment for the globe,
Speaker:for the globe, for everybody.
Speaker:Ship building changes in that moment.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And so this, this espionage, this secret that she has is
Speaker:like top tier secret, right?
Speaker:And so she goes to general rule in the summer and tells
Speaker:him I have this information.
Speaker:So by December he gives her a.
Speaker:And he gives her a pass to travel.
Speaker:So if you can imagine in the Civil War, Virginia is Confederate state.
Speaker:Fort Monroe is a union fort and he's giving her a pass
Speaker:to travel through the state.
Speaker:And so they did this during the Civil War because it's
Speaker:America, it's still operating.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so people
Speaker:still need to live and trade still kind of happened a little bit.
Speaker:It's
Speaker:called a flag of truths.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And people could use it to travel to see family.
Speaker:Uh, cuz you know, brother versus brother and really the most
Speaker:unassuming person that people don't think are doing anything is women.
Speaker:And mostly colored women.
Speaker:So she is the perfect person
Speaker:for Espina.
Speaker:And, and this is, this is another place where you kind of point out the accurate
Speaker:details where as I was searching online and we encourage folks listening and
Speaker:those, watching the live stream, you know, you have to be careful about when
Speaker:you search up online because the first couple hits in Google when you, when
Speaker:you look up, her name is old kind of.
Speaker:Blogs or, or posts or something like that.
Speaker:And they're incorrect when they say like she was given a pass
Speaker:to go visit her old master.
Speaker:She never had an old master.
Speaker:So that's not accurate.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So you have to be careful when you're doing this kind of research and that's
Speaker:one of the things that I think that you bring to the channel and that you
Speaker:bring to this podcast is a historian who does thorough research and that,
Speaker:and that's important because, um, some of the stuff that you dug a
Speaker:little bit, and obviously you weren't looking at the primary source document.
Speaker:Yourself, but you found the, the articles about, about other
Speaker:historians who found those
Speaker:documents and there and, uh, general Wolf's paper still exists at Fort Monroe.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that tra travel, that flag of Truce Travel Pass still exists.
Speaker:Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker:And his reason for her traveling.
Speaker:Is colored woman.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So he doesn't even have a reason.
Speaker:. Right.
Speaker:Really like, I don't know if he even expects someone to look at it.
Speaker:, they, they
Speaker:probably don't.
Speaker:And, and then, and you bring that up on the video, she's the perfect spy.
Speaker:Unassuming, no one's gonna like, really,
Speaker:what's this lady doing?
Speaker:And you know, and one of the things that clicked for me, and I don't
Speaker:even think it had clicked for you, but in, when I was looking at the
Speaker:timeline, she was 50 when she did this.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cuz she's born in 1912.
Speaker:So she's like 49.
Speaker:Yeah, she's, so, she's, I mean, 18,
Speaker:12.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:1812.
Speaker:So yeah, she's, she's 49.
Speaker:About to turn 50,000.
Speaker:50.
Speaker:I mean, that's, that's pretty wild, right?
Speaker:So here's, here's a woman who's, you know, black at the time, even though she's
Speaker:free, also being a woman, also being a bit older, obviously nobody's gonna be like,
Speaker:oh yeah, there's a union spy over there.
Speaker:That's not
Speaker:what they're thinking.
Speaker:They're not, but they're thinking.
Speaker:There is the chance, if she is captured, what do you think
Speaker:the future holds for her?
Speaker:She would be immediately enslaved.
Speaker:That's a great point.
Speaker:By the south, like if she is caught and found to be a union spy,
Speaker:which I don't even know if they would give her that agency, but
Speaker:they would just, they would just.
Speaker:Make her enslave her.
Speaker:And so she's risking her freedom doing this.
Speaker:She's risking her life doing this.
Speaker:So in December, she gets the, the pass from General Wool at Fort Monroe, and
Speaker:she actually makes the trip February of 1862, so about two months later.
Speaker:Wintertime, usually a lot of battles aren't going on in the wintertime.
Speaker:People are traveling.
Speaker:It's not crops in the field, and so she makes it up to Washington DC So
Speaker:we show Norfolk to DC is 70 hours for her to travel by foot by boat.
Speaker:By wagon.
Speaker:70 hours, she gets up to Washington, DC and she only will speak to the Secretary
Speaker:of the Navy, Gideon Wells, nobody else.
Speaker:So imagine woman of color walking into Gideon Wells' office and all the people
Speaker:between him and her secretaries, chief of.
Speaker:You know, people are like, oh, just give it to me.
Speaker:Just give it to me.
Speaker:No, she refuses.
Speaker:A woman of color refuses every white.
Speaker:And says, no, I'm gonna speak directly to Secretary of
Speaker:the Navy.
Speaker:It's not like she just kind of walked in with nothing.
Speaker:She did have the, the pass from the general, from the general
Speaker:rule, but that's all she had.
Speaker:That's all she has.
Speaker:She's not showing anything else.
Speaker:And, and back then, most would expect her to be like, oh yeah, here's
Speaker:the secret thing that I'm carrying.
Speaker:Please deliver it to the Secretary of the Navy.
Speaker:And she said, absolutely not.
Speaker:Absolutely not.
Speaker:I need to speak to him.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:She's not even telling him what she has, just that she
Speaker:needs to speak to him directly.
Speaker:And because no one knows what she has.
Speaker:She gets right in front of him and when she gets in front of him from her dress.
Speaker:From her dress, like all the petty coats, she pulls out the
Speaker:blueprints of the CSS, Virginia.
Speaker:So it's, it's that moment that she has everything.
Speaker:This is what they're building, this is what it looks like.
Speaker:This is the technology that you're using.
Speaker:Any updates they're making, she has all of it.
Speaker:She leaves such an impression on wells, and we talk about this, that
Speaker:when he comes back to Norfolk in 1868, after the war, he inquires about her.
Speaker:Where's that woman that came to see me?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think he wrote a letter to like a, a local military official Yes.
Speaker:In the Norfolk area.
Speaker:To check on her.
Speaker:To
Speaker:check
Speaker:on her.
Speaker:He wanted, he wanted to find
Speaker:her, couldn't find her.
Speaker:And the, and the local official, like to kind of tracked her down,
Speaker:he'd like, Hey, I found her.
Speaker:So he, so there's, there's correspondence.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Spread again, those, those letters.
Speaker:That's the library of Congress.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Those letters exist as well.
Speaker:And so they're like, oh, hey, I found her.
Speaker:And so I think he, she's still at the boarding house, right.
Speaker:So I think he, didn't he come to visit?
Speaker:Did he come to visit her?
Speaker:Is that right?
Speaker:He, he came down
Speaker:to Norfolk and tried to find her and couldn't.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And that's when.
Speaker:The letter.
Speaker:Can someone find her?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, and then they find her and let him know that she's okay.
Speaker:But this is 1862.
Speaker:This is February of 1862.
Speaker:The Battle of the Ironclads is going to happen, uh, March 8th and ninth of 1862.
Speaker:So really it's like a month later.
Speaker:So, yeah, so they take these plans, they're like, Hey, go
Speaker:. Can you show the, show the
Speaker:So if you're watching, um, this live and I'll talk about it.
Speaker:The Virginia is, you can see how it's built above the water line.
Speaker:It's kind of, looks like they have stacked metal leaned in against each agenda.
Speaker:It's almost like a tent feature and they have candidates coming out
Speaker:of the monitor is quite different.
Speaker:The monitor real, the metal doesn't really.
Speaker:Go above the water line, except for one kind of round, I think
Speaker:it's almost like a turt, right?
Speaker:That's up there with a, a gun that goes 360.
Speaker:So it makes the monitor, in my opinion, harder to hit because it's so flat and
Speaker:the Virginia is a little bit easier.
Speaker:It's more of a target since it's out of the water.
Speaker:But this is what the two ironclads look like.
Speaker:And if you know anything about the Battle of the Ironclads, the, the css,
Speaker:Attacks first, and it's attacking union ships that are wooden and they are just
Speaker:foundering and one of them kind of runs
Speaker:the ground.
Speaker:. Yeah.
Speaker:It's basically save itself.
Speaker:It basically just kind of rolls through and like mows 'em all down.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And run runs the ground to save itself.
Speaker:And this Virginia goes back to Fort Norfolk for the night and that
Speaker:ship stays, it's, it's burning and it stays lit, but they're able.
Speaker:Uh, word up to DC that they have released their ironclad.
Speaker:And so the monitor comes down the coast and that's why they say the
Speaker:battle is March 8th and ninth.
Speaker:The monitor makes it down that night and it sees the fire of
Speaker:that ship that has run a ground.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And the Virginia is coming back to kind of end that ship.
Speaker:It took them, you know, went back for the night rested.
Speaker:It's coming back in the morning to kind of end the people and that ship.
Speaker:Obliterate that ship and it, that's when it meets the
Speaker:monitor.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and if you ever, uh, we show it briefly on this video mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And if you go back and watch our Battle of the Iron Clouds video, we show it a lot in
Speaker:a little bit longer, a little more detail.
Speaker:Like, I mean, these, these ships are circling around each other
Speaker:for hours and hours and hours.
Speaker:It's like you keep trying to shoot each other and cannonballs are bouncing
Speaker:off and they're not doing anything, and they're like, this is brand new.
Speaker:We don't know how to do this.
Speaker:So it's, it's kind of like a stalemate, right?
Speaker:I think it's like for three hours they chase each.
Speaker:Back and forth and all around.
Speaker:And both of 'em are firing.
Speaker:Both of, uh, their, you know, artillery is, is bouncing off of the metal.
Speaker:And we say that this is such a, a world experience because
Speaker:people are watching this battle.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it just, the word just travels this, these ships are invincible.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so ship building, this is when I used can in the picture, you'll,
Speaker:you see an old wooden ship in the background cuz it really is.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:, they don't make wooden ships anymore.
Speaker:It's done.
Speaker:Now all ships are gonna be metal from here on out.
Speaker:Uh, as and today, military ships are all metal as today.
Speaker:So that, this is the moment that does that without those plans from
Speaker:Mary Louvestre, and of course William Lyons and of course Michael Louvestre,
Speaker:who risked their lives to get them.
Speaker:The union would not have been prepared for that.
Speaker:It would not have known what they were doing or what they were making.
Speaker:And so it was just, it's so paramount in that moment that it, it really
Speaker:was a, a secret that really saved the union and in that regard, and in
Speaker:that battle.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It was really just such an incredible story and it, it was.
Speaker:It's a fun one to make because that's, that's a, that's an exciting story, right?
Speaker:That's, that's a successful, exciting story.
Speaker:And again, from, from a production standpoint, which is what I like
Speaker:to talk about, because I don't know the history, but from a production
Speaker:standpoint, it's fun to make, right?
Speaker:You kind of get to pick the music and kind of set the mood and kind
Speaker:of increase the, the intensity.
Speaker:And then at the end you show the, the pictures, you know, that we've all seen
Speaker:in, in history books and stuff like that of the Battle of the Ironclads, and yes.
Speaker:The reason there was a battle of the Ironclads is because of
Speaker:what she did.
Speaker:Because of what she did.
Speaker:And it's a woman.
Speaker:It's a woman who, who did this.
Speaker:And not only just a woman, but a woman of color that did this.
Speaker:And I think.
Speaker:For anybody to kind of, uh, foil the Confederacy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Not only a, a woman but a person of color to do it.
Speaker:It just makes me very proud.
Speaker:And we always talk about, um, peop you know, history people, what's happening to.
Speaker:, everyone in time when a war is happening and the Civil War.
Speaker:We do talk about the battles and we do go to the battlefield, but we want to remind
Speaker:you it's not just impacting soldiers, it's impacting families, it's impacting
Speaker:children, it's impacting women, and every American is gonna be touched by the
Speaker:Civil War since it is a war of America.
Speaker:For a woman to do this, For me, I, I just admired her so much.
Speaker:I wanted more of the truth of her story to come out.
Speaker:And it's being researched slowly.
Speaker:Uh, and like I said, there's more primary sources that are being
Speaker:uncovered, but I think she needs to get credit for what she has done.
Speaker:And, uh, and we, we were just really proud to bring her
Speaker:story.
Speaker:Yeah, it again, it was, it was super fun.
Speaker:If you haven't watched the video, go, go check out the video.
Speaker:Um, if you're listening to the podcast, I will absolutely link to
Speaker:that video in this podcast notes.
Speaker:So bravery comes in all forms, but in 1862, during the.
Speaker:Thick of the Civil War.
Speaker:Mary Louvestre displayed the most classic version of bravery, the kind that stories
Speaker:are told of throughout history, taking on a secret spy mission for something
Speaker:that she believed in a cause that was bigger than herself and more important
Speaker:than her livelihood as a free black woman living in Virginia, if she hadn't made it
Speaker:to the Secretary of Navy, Gideon Wells.
Speaker:Would the union have ever ma made the u s s monitor?
Speaker:Could they have defeated the Confederate?
Speaker:See without this revolutionary steel ship building is this one act, the one
Speaker:that turned the tide of the Civil War.
Speaker:Luckily, we have Mary Louvestre's actions to thank for accomplishing
Speaker:that vital mission for the union and possibly for the board itself.
Speaker:Now if you enjoyed this podcast, you may like our past episode that we
Speaker:talked about on Battle of the Ironclads and our upcoming episode about the
Speaker:Confederate Spy Rose Greenhouse, whose work was credited for the South's
Speaker:success at the first Battle of Bull Run.
Speaker:So thank you for listening to the Talk with History podcast.
Speaker:If you know someone else that might enjoy this podcast, please share it with them.
Speaker:We rely on you, our community to grow, and we appreciate you all every.
Speaker:We'll talk to you next time.
