#52 Ancestors 2024 Week 17 War: Cousin Walter "Wat" Bowie, Confederate Spy

 

My cousin, Walter "Wat" Bowie, born in 1837, was the son of a prominent lawyer and plantation owner in Prince George's County MD, William Walter Weems Bowie and his wife Adeline Snowden.

A practicing lawyer himself, the tall, handsome Wat, an accomplished horseman, was 23 years old when the Civil War broke out.  Since there were many slave holders in Prince George's County, sympathy for the South was very strong; in the election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln got only 1 vote. However, Wat's father, and other prominent men did not want Maryland to secede from the Union and were not anxious to see their plantations become bloody scenes of battle. 

Once it became clear that Maryland was not going to join the confederacy, Wat and many other young men (including my 2X-great grandfather, John Marshall Dent of St. Mary's County) decided to go South and sign up to serve the Confederate cause. 

When he reached Richmond, Wat was made a captain in the Confederate Provisional Army and became a spy in the Confederate Secret Service. His knowledge of the area around Washington and his connection to Southern sympathizers made him an especially valuable operative.

Wat was a bold, even reckless, agent, carrying messages through Southern Maryland and recruiting soldiers for the cause.  Several of his missions nearly ended in disaster. 

 

In 1862, he and a companion were arrested, charged with espionage, and hauled off to the Old Capitol Prison. A month later, his family was apparently able to bribe some guards and Wat escaped. 

Old Capitol Prison

Art courtesy of USF

In 1863, Wat and a colleague were captured again, this time crossing the lower Potomac from Maryland into Virginia with stolen fortification plans for Washington DC. As they were being marched toward the Union Fort at Point Lookout, Wat grabbed a gun from one of his guards, shot and killed him. Wat's fellow spy was killed in the gunfire, but Wat escaped unharmed.  By this time, Wat was notorious among the Union Army, and, determined not to let their prize get away, Union agents swarmed the Maryland countryside hunting for the escaped prisoner. 

A few days later, an exhausted and hungry Wat turned up at the plantation of John Henry Waring, a distant relative.  Waring was not at home, and his wife pleaded with Wat to leave immediately as she knew the Union soldiers were intent on tracking him.  In addition, her son, a Confederate soldier, was also in the house and would be arrested if he were found. Wat managed to charm Mrs. Waring and assured her that he had eluded his pursuers. 

As it turned out, not so much. Late that night, the household was awakened by Union soldiers pounding on the door. Mrs. Waring tried her best to delay them at the front of the house in order to give Wat and her son Billy time to escape, but Billy donned his uniform and presented himself to the soldiers. Wat, meanwhile, hid in the kitchen, and with the help of Billy's sister Elizabeth, smeared soot on his face and donned a dress and kerchief to disguise himself as a female slave.  He handed Elizabeth the papers he was carrying, headed out the back door, hopped on a horse and fled into the woods. 

Realizing that Wat had escaped, the soliders locked up Mrs. Waring and her four daughters, who then proceeded to burn Wat's papers in the fireplace. John Waring, who had returned home, his son Billy and three of his daughters were arrested and taken to prison in Washington.

Wat managed to sneak past the Union troops once more and made his way to Virginia. With a price on his head and far too notorious to work undercover, Wat joined up with the now infamous Confederate cavalryman, John Mosby, as part of Mosby's Rangers and distinguished himself leading daring forays into Maryland to harass Union soldiers, steal horses and supplies and sign up new recruits. 

Wat relied on his Maryland connections to hide him from the Union Army. This resulted in several of his friends being arrested for sheltering Confederate soldiers.  In October 1864, Wat devised an audacious scheme to rescue his friends from prison: He decided to kidnap Maryland Governor Augustus Bradford and hold him for ransom in exchange for his friends, having managed to persuade Col. Mosby to lend him several Rangers for this mission. 

On their way to Annapolis, Wat and his Rangers subdued a contingent of the 8th Illinois cavalry, stole their horses, and went on to hide out at the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd (the same man who later set John Wilkes Booth's broken leg). They moved on to Wat's family plantation where they stocked up on supplies and then headed to Annapolis.  There, they discovered that the governor was too heavily guarded and were forced to abandon their kidnapping plan. Deciding that it was too risky to go back to Virginia by the way they had come, they moved west where they planned to cross the Potomac near Rockville. 

Near the small town of Sandy Spring, the raiders planned to "requisition" supplies from the local general store.  Since it was owned by Quakers, they anticipated an easy conquest. This turned out to be a serious miscalculation. 

As it happened, the good people of Sandy Spring were totally fed up with the constant raids and scavenging by both armies. Wat's raiders did easily overpower the shop owners, but soon found themselves pursued by an angry mob of local citizens, Quakers included, who also alerted the Union garrison in Rockville.  

When Wat saw his pursuers advancing toward him, he leapt on a horse and attempt to ride straight through the mob. He was slammed off his horse by a shotgun blast in his face.  The Rangers managed to drive off their pursuers and took the wounded Wat Bowie to a nearby farmhouse, where he died.  They then hightailed it across the river and escaped to Virginia. 

(As a side note, the Quakers involved in this incident were charged by their church with "impudence" for their un-Quakerlike actions.)

Wat's body was returned to his family, and he was buried on family property across the road from Holy Trinity Church.  His mother Adeline was said to be so distraught that she never uttered another word and died a few months later.  She was buried near her son.

In later years, the Bowie graves were moved to Holy Trinity Cemetery to make way for a housing development. 

With thanks to Earl B. Eisenhart. Walter Bowie; Rebel, Ranger, Spy.