Thomas Laws and Third Winchester

Thomas Laws, an enslaved black man, risked his life in mid-September 1864 to carry messages through Confederate lines near Winchester, helping Union forces win the Third Battle of Winchester. When Union Gen. Philip H. Sheridan needed information about Confederate forces in and around Winchester, he learned that pro-Union resident Rebecca Wright might help, but he needed someone able to pass through the lines to reach her. A scout recommended Laws, calling him a "loyal and shrewd" enslaved black man who had a Confederate-issued pass allowing him to sell vegetables in Winchester. Sheridan asked Laws to carry a letter to Wright, and Laws readily agreed despite the danger. The message was written on tissue paper, compressed into a small pellet, wrapped in foil, and carried in Laws's mouth so he could swallow it if he were stopped and questioned. At midday on September 16, when Laws knocked on Wright's door and asked whether she was "a Union lady," Wright hesitated out of fear for her own safety, and Laws later recalled that he thought he was "between Heaven and Earth." He delivered the note, however, and when he returned that afternoon, Wright had written a reply saying that some Confederate troops had left the area and that the remaining force was "much smaller than is represented." Laws carried her response back through the lines to Union scouts. The information Wright provided and Laws smuggled at mortal risk proved crucial to Sheridan's pivotal victory at Third Winchester on September 19, a battle that turned the tide of the war in the Valley and ultimately helped ensure Abraham Lincoln's reelection that November. Laws died in 1896 and is buried in Milton Valley Cemetery in the Josephine City Historic District in Berryville.

Virginia · United States