SPY GAMES
IN THE BEST OF CASES, a wartime spy’s prospects for a long life are not ideal. And when you are spying for the Union from within the home of the president of the Confederacy, the odds of dying young increase dramatically. Yet two slaves in the service of Jefferson Davis himself—William A. Jackson and Mary Elizabeth Bowser—provided vital information to the Union and lived to tell about it.
William Jackson’s master had reportedly hired him out to work in a Richmond restaurant prior to his being assigned the dual role of being Davis’ house servant and coachman. Ironically,
