Evening star. [volume], March 17, 1929, Image 89

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
ILLUSTRATED
FEATURES
Part 7—B Pages
Famous Woman Spy of the Confederacy “Going Home” to Dixie
recomputed
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The old Capitol Prison in Washington, D. C., where Belle Boyd was incarcerated for some weeks
before being sent South in an exchange of prisoners
Body of Belle Boyd Soon to Be
Taken From a Wisconsin Grave
and Reinterred in the Soil
of Her Native State.
BY NELL RAY CLARKE.
THE body of Bf*lle Boyd is going
home to Dixie. The beautiful
rebel spy, the beloved darling of
the Confederacy, is soon to sleep
in the soil which she loved more
than life itself.
Since 1900 it has lain in Yankee ter
ritory', in the little Spring Grove Ceme
tery at Kilbourn, Wis. Each Memorial
day the men against whom she con
nived with all her beauty, cleverness
and daring to betray into the hands
of the South, the old Union soldiers,
have placed fresh flowers on her grave.
Belle risked her life time and time
again to carry important information
to the Southern commanders. That
and her good looks made her the toast
of the Southern Army. She flattered
the Federal soldiers who fought back
and forth over Northern Virginia,
gleaned from them every fragment of
information she could get and passed it
along to the rebels. When the war
broke out she had just turned 16. Her
first efforts on behalf of the South
were regarded lightly, as hardly more
than the ill-advised actions of a school
girl, but later she became the most
widely talked of woman to play a part
in the war between the States.
Before Belle was 20 she had killed i
a Union soldier, had braved the cross
fire between the Blue and the Gray‘to
carry valuable information to Gen.
•'Stonewall” Jackson, had been sent to
■Washington on the order of the Sec
retary of War and twice cast in prison,
and had numerous tunes been captured
by Federal officers, who had turned her
loose because they could scarcely be
persuaded that this artfully innocent
girl in her teens could do real harm to j
their cause.
And she virtually ended her pic- I
turesque war career by marrying a
Yankee naval officer.
** * *
SHE must have bren quite a problem
to the authorities in Washington.
It was the Victorian era. the age of
sentiment, when women were coquettes
and men wore supposed to treat all
women with chivalrous courtesy. Com
pared with the World War, the Civil
War was a gentleman’s war. As Belle
was a woman, it is doubtful if she would
have bpen shot or hanged as a spy even
if she had been homely and unattrac
tive. But in those troublous times she
presented the picture of a young and
beautiful woman in distress, in spite of
the damage she did to the Union cause.
She came from a distinguished family
living in the Valley of Virginia at Mar
tinsburg, and was related to many of
the outsanding families in the South.
She was a lithesome blonde, and behind
her was the romantic glamour of
plantation life. Somehow through all
her experiences, from her manner and
bearing she managed to retain her
reputation. Like many Southern
women of her day, she knew- the subtle
'ftrt «f bringing men under her sway.
If she had been a modern miss, we
should say that Belle had "It.” •
She wTote the story of her adven
tures in prison and camp with quite a
bit of charm, and wherever there are
records they seem to confirm her state
ments. The confession story was a type
of writing little known in Belle’s day,
but her narrative possesses all the es
sentials.
“According to the custom of my
country, I was sent at 12 years of age
to Mount Washington College," she
says, "and at 16 my education was sup
posed to be completed." Then she en
tered upon the round of gayeties and
pleasures of her first social season in
Washington during the Winter of
1860-61, when for the last time "for
many years to come the daughters of
the North and the South commingled
in sisterly love and friendship.”
t During the crisis of the following
Spring Belle returned to Martinsburg,
which was on the edge of Federal ter
ritory. When Mr. Lincoln demanded
from the State of Virginia 75,000 re- j
cruits for the Union Army the State j
seceded and Belle's father immediately
enlisted for service under the Stars and
Bars. For a while she contented herself i
with doing what she could in the way I
of preparing tempting boxes of food
! and clothing for the Southern soldiers,
but she soon found this “too tame and I
monotonous to satisfy my tempera-1
ment,” she confessed.
Soon, however, the Confederates re- '
treated from above Martinsburg and the !
Federal forces, 25,000 strong, poured'
into the little city. They immediately i
began drinking and roistering about,.
and more than once Belle appealed to •
the officers for protection from insult j
I to herself and other women and against
j the destruction of their homes. When
j a party of soldiers broke into her home
! to raise a Union flag over it her mother
! protested, and was insulted by the
' soldier in command. This was too
much for Belle's hot head and "I drew
out my pistol and shot him,” she said.
Soon the commanding officer and his
staff arrived at the house to investi
gate the affair and he finally concluded,
according to the beautiful Belle’s ac
count. "that I had done perfectly
right."
That, was Belle's first real encounter
with the enemy and she had come off
victorious. Perhaps it was her first taste
of power. At any rate, she was there
| after involved in a continuous succes
sion of clashes with the Federal au
• thorities.
r “Meanwhile, my residence within the
■ Federal lines and my acquaintance with
f so many of the officers enabled me to
■ gain much important information as to
1 j the position and designs of the enemy,
f Whatever I heard I regularly and care
-1 fully committed to paper, and whenever
1 an opportunity offered I sent my secret,
• dispatch by a trusty messenger to Gen.
i J. E. B. Stuart or some brave officer in
s command of the Confederate troops,”
. Belle wrote.
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WASHINGTON, D. CL SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 17, 1920. *
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Eventually one of these notes fell
into the hands of the Union au
thorities and Belle was summoned be
fore the commander of the Union troops,
who read to her the article of war which
promised "death or whatever penalty
the honorable members of the court
martial shall see fit to inflict.”
"I was not frightened,” she says, "for
I felt within me the spirit of the Doug
lases from whom I am descended. I lis
tened quietly, made a low bow, and
i with a sarcastic 'Thank you, gentlemen
i of the jury,’ I departed; not in peace,
however, for my little 'rebel’ heart was
. on Are and I indulged in thoughts and
■ plans of vengeance.” And she was
only 16.
"From this hour,” she says, "I was a
i suspect and all the mischief done to the
' Federal cause was laid to my charge,
and it is with unfeigned Joy and true
MAGAZINE SECTION
__
pride I confess that the suspicions of
the enemy were far from being un
founded.”
Because of the close surveillance of
her movements in Martinsburg. her
family sent her to her aunt’s home in
Front Royal, Va., which was also in
the hands of the Federal forces. The
commanding general had com
mandeered the big house belonging to
• | the family for headquarters and Belle’s
l aunt was living in a smaller house in
i the yard. Upon her arrival Belle im
. mediately sent, her card to Gen. Shields,
. who answered it in person with true
I courtly courtesy, and introduced Belle
, to his'susceptible Irish aides, who. from
lime to time, paid Belle court, wrote to
i her "remarkable effusions,” as she
t called them, and gpve her some with
, ered flowers. From them she says she
i obtained "a great deal of very impor
A Brady photograph of
Belle Boyd when she
was the idol of the
Confederacy. In
those chivalrous
days her spying
l was only lightly
1 punished, but
1 according to World
1 War customs, she
might have been
1 executed
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tant information which was carefully
transmitted to my countrymen.”
Gen. Shields was "about to whip Gen.
Jackson,” so he taunted Belle. The night
before he was to put his plans into exe
cution he held a council of war in the
drawing room of the big house. Belle
knew that there was a hole in the floor
of a closet in the room above the draw r
ing room, so as soon as the officers were
assembled she stole softly upstairs and
by lying dow’n on the floor of the closet
and putting her ear over the hole she
heard every word of the conversation
in the room below'. As soon as the
officers had gone to their tents. Belle
crept out. jotted down everything she
could remember, saddled a horse, got
through the Federal lines with fake
passes, rode 15 miles to put the infor
mation into the hands of Col. Ashby
himself and then got back home before
daylight.
It all sounds a little improbable and
some historians say that not much of
that claim of Belle’s is true. She evi
r "***' ■ \
* ' • ' Biff gun of the Civil War
Battery guarding Chain Bridge at Washington in 1862
dently had a gorgeous imagination and
perhaps she did embroider the story a
little bit, but the above is the way she
tells it.
Gen. Shields marched south to lay
a trap for "poor old Jackson and his
demoralized army,” as he told Belle,
leaving behind a few hundred soldiers
to hold Front Royal. Meanwhile Belle
was discovered with some incriminating !
papers and put under closer surveil
lance. A few days later the rebels
came unexpectedly upon the town and
threw’ the few Federal troops into an
uproar. In the midst of the confusion
Belle obtained from a Federal officer
the general outline of the plans of the
Federal movements by asking him ex
citedly as he was leaving what he in
tended to do.
’ So. putting on a w’hite sunbonnet, she
ran as fast as she could out over the
. open fields toward the Confederate
t lines, which were rapidly advancing.
■ The Federal artillery soon spied her
s and opened fire. Bullets sang and fell
! around her and even pierced her
" clothes. A big shell struck the ground
■ within 20 yards of her feet, and in
■ stinctively she threw’ herself on the
i ground for protection against the flying
t missiles. Then on again she ran until
: she reached the Confederate lines,
i Acting on the information, Gen. Jack
'■ son w’as able to surprise Gen. Banks at
s Strasburg and brought, about the com
’ plete rout of the Federal forces at that
t point.
!** * *
’ pROM that, time on Belle was a
[ 1 marked woman. The Northern
! journals vie with one another in pub
lishing extravagant accounts of her ex-
I plolts anti heaped the worst of vituper-
E ation upc* her character. It was in
• I evitable, as the Federal and Cooled
FICTION AND
HUMOR I
prate armies swept back and forth over
Northern Virginia, that she should have
been captured. Mr. Stanton, the Secre
tary of War. ordered her arrest and she
was escorted in a coach, guarded by 550
horsemen with drawn sabers, to the
railway terminal and sent in charge
of a detective to Washington and lodged
in the old Capitol Prison.
I The War Department records show
that she spent at least five weeks in
prison before she was sent South in
an exchange of prisoners because “no
specific charges or information have
been lodged against her."
After her return to Virginia. Belle
made a tour of the South, where she
was the toast of every town she visited.
Not only were her bravery and her suf
ferings known, but they were being
heralded through the North as well, but
in less complimentary significance.
Upon her return to Martinsburg an
order was received for her arrest from
Secretary Stanton and again she was
taken to Washington, this time to be
lodged in the old Carroll Prison. The
newspapers during that period frequent
ly carried items about the beautiful
spy, many of them highly uncompli
mentary. but. admiring young men shot
messages tied to arrows into her room,
and hundreds of former enemies be
came her stanchest friends. The room
in which she was confined for so long
was low and fearfully warm, and the
“air was fetid and rank with the fumes
of an ill-ventilated basttle." Belle wto
stricken with typhoid fever. Accord
ing to the War Department, records, she
remained in Carroll Prison from Au
gust 28. 1863. until some time in No
vember. when she was again sent
through the Federal lines into the
South.
Again Belle Journeyed to the Far
South for her health, but returned
to Richmond in March, 1864, and since
she had not yet gained her strength
because of her long confinement in
prison, she decided to visit Europe and
so made her arrangements for sailing
ion a blockade-runner. When President
(Jefferson Davis heard of her plans he
made her the bearer of dispatches to
England.
The vessel was overhauled before it
reached Bermuda and was brought back
to Fortress Monroe as a prize. The gal
lant Federal officer who was put in
charge of the prize ship on its journey
into port fell victim to Belle’s charm.
And so she plighted her troth to Lieut.
Sam Wylde Hardinge.
Lieut. Hardinge was ordered to take
his prize to New York, where he and
Belle debarked for dinner and the
theater, and then on to Boston, where
Belle was interned in a hotel. She ob
tained permission a few days later to
leave the country and made her way
to Montreal, then to Quebec and finally
to England. Lieut. Hardinge. mean
while. sent in his resignation, which
was accepted. He then joined Belle in
London and they were married.
In a few days after the happy sur
render of La Belle Rebelle to the
Yankee naval officer he sailed to
America, only to be seized by the Fed
eral authorities and thrown into prison
as a deserter. For more than a year
Belle was left in London without money,
while her husband was shifted from one
prison to the other, the remittances
which were sent to her being confis
cated by the authorities. At the close
of the war she joined him. but his>
health was broken by the hardships h?
had undergone and he died in ISM>