Ellen Bond was the name used by Mary Elizabeth Bowser who worked as part of a spy network run by Elilzabeth Van Lew during The War Of The Slaveholders' Rebellion. Thought to be dim-witted and dumb, she became a worker in, of all places, the Confederate White House. Mary, a graduate of the Quaker School for Negroes in Philadelphia was asked to go undercover by Van Lew and accepted the assignment.

She is cited as having possessed a photographic memory and could recite verbatim anything that she read. Mary is enshrined in the U.S. Army Intelligence Hall of Fame at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona. "In a highly dangerous mssion," a plaque reads, "she was one of the highest placed and most productive agents of the Civil War."