An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted on 02/07/2025
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One of the most-retold battles of the Civil War is the clash during the Battle of Hampton Roads, between the ironclads USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia --the latter of whom had been constructed over the hull of the converted screw frigate USS Merrimack. While neither vessel inflicted significant damage upon the other (nor did either side gain any real tactical advantage), the battle is nevertheless historically significant as it decisively ushered in the end of the era of wooden-hulled ships. However there is an equally compelling behind-the-scenes tale of how the Union was galvanized into rushing the Monitor into production so speedily, and that story centers around Union spy Mary Louvestre (possibly also spelled Touvestre). There are numerous conflicting (and exaggerated) accounts of Louvestre's heroism; one of these is a popular-but-fictionalized account authored by My Haley, titled The Treason of Mary Louvestre.
Born free in 1812 Norfolk, Virginia to parents originally hailing from French San Domingue, Mary (neé Oglivie) grew up identifying as biracial ("mulatto") and while the details of her childhood and formative years are mostly unrecorded, in 1838 she is on record as having registered as a business owner in the city --while the archived document does not specify the nature of the business, it is popularly assumed that it would have either been an entertainment venue (such as a restaurant or a bar), or a boarding house. But perhaps more significantly, a year later, Mary is recorded as having purchased an enslaved 10 year-old boy, Mark Rene De Mortie, who also came from the same part of San Domingue as her parents. She taught De Mortie to read and write, and emancipated him in March of 1850, just shy of what would have been his 21st birthday, and while he headed off onto a fascinating journey of his own, we'll have to leave that tale for now (watch this space for a future lesson!). In 1844 Mary married Michael Louvestre, another free French "mulatto" from Guadeloupe, who is assumed to have arrived in Norfolk sometime in 1837. The marriage produced three children but two died in childhood due to the then-yellow fever epidemic, and only one daughter, Susan, survived into adulthood. Susan and her husband produced one grandchild, Robert, before they both likewise died, and Robert was raised by his grandparents.
Throughout the 1850s Mary continued to obtain business licenses to operate additional boarding houses, while Michael worked just across the river from their boarding house... at the Gosport Shipyard in Portsmouth. Which brings us up to 1861. Once the Civil War kicked off, Michael happened to be working as a tool keeper in the steam engineering department, where he and several other machinists and shipyard employees had the opportunity to watch, firsthand, the beginning of the Confederate project to convert the Merrimack into the Virginia. The Louvestes enjoyed relative "invisibility" due to their age and their race, and realized the threat such a vessel would present to the Union blockade. In February 1862 Mary, with the help of her husband and his co-workers, snuck onto the shipyard and traced a near-perfect copy of the plans, sewing them into the hem of her dress. She then traveled unnoticed to Washington (likely by steamboat and not on foot as some more fanciful accounts insist!) and delivered the copied plans for the CSS Virginia directly to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. Work on the Monitor promptly picked up the pace, ensuring that the vessel would actually be present in time to square off against the Virginia, and thwart what would have otherwise been an uncontested Confederate domination of the entire Hampton Roads area. After the war, Secretary Welles travelled in person to what was now known as the Norfolk Naval Station, and inquired after Mary so that he might present a reward for her services to the Union, though history does not record what form (if any) that reward ultimately took. That same year she did compose a letter to Commodore A. H. Kilty at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, where she spoke of "Our Navy" and its "heroic defenders." This letter was retained as part of Welles's collection.
Michael died in 1880 and Mary followed shortly afterwards in October of 1883. On November 8, local newspaper The Norfolk Virginian, bore a front-page headline of "Death of a Respected Old Colored Woman;" the verbiage being significant because newspapers rarely reported on the goings-on of Black Americans. "Mary Louveste, an old and respectable colored woman, was found dead in her bed on yesterday morning in her house at the corner of Newton's Lane and Nivison Street." The article goes on to speak of Mary and Michael's marriage: "the two always bore excellent characters (sic) and stood well in the community by reason of their thrift and polite bearing. The old woman possessed some property and recently sold her house for upwards of $2,000. Efforts were lately made to get her to go to the hospital to spend the rest of her days, but she refused to go." No mention is made in the article of her brief-but-critical career in espionage, nor of her connection to Secretary Welles. No visual representation exists of Louvestre; my accompanying illustration is taken from a conjectural sculpture by a local artist.
For further study:
https://www.pilotonline.com/2021/02/21/who-was-civil-war-spy-mary-louveste-new-research-reveals-a-more-complete-complex-life-story/
Next lesson - Lesson 173: James Monroe Whitfield