The Women Spies Series 1-3

by Sergeant, Kit

  Wilson’s glance darted around him, as if seeing who might have heard, but there was not a soul around. He stepped in closer anyway. “Wife, you speak of treason.”

  “I do.” Mary Jane’s voice rang loud and clear. “Treason might be the only way to win this war.”

  Wilson shook his head. “You are putting the both of us in danger.”

  Mary Jane took a deep breath. “And that is why I must return to the Van Lew Mansion. I wouldn’t want to put you in any more perils than you are in for being a slave in a Southern city. You are subject to any white man’s will. Regardless of whether your current master is kind, you could be sold to a cruel man at his will. I would not want my children brought up in that atmosphere.” With that, she kicked her heels and steered her horse in the direction of the Van Lew Mansion.

  Chapter 4

  Belle

  July 1861

  Much had changed in the months since Belle had left her boarding school. There was no place in the world more scenic than where she had grown up, but she had been dismayed to find out that her hometown of Martinsburg, Virginia, was the only region in the Shenandoah Valley that had voted against secession. She knew the issue currently dividing the nation was that of slavery, and Belle recognized that the practice, while necessary, was imperfect and would someday come to an end, but the Federal government had no right to demand the immediate abolishment of it. Her family had always had slaves, including Mauma Eliza, who had run away from an intolerable master when she was little and who became Belle’s personal maid. The other five slaves in her family mostly helped out on her father’s tobacco farm.

  The majority of the Martinsburg males had enlisted with Company D, the 4th company of the 2nd Virginia Infantry, including both Belle’s father and her many beaux. Mr. Boyd had been offered an officer’s position but declined in favor of joining the ranks with his fellow townsmen, under the command of Colonel T. J. Jackson.

  “You must look after your mother while I’m gone,” Ben Boyd told his oldest daughter as he packed his bag. “In war, boys become men as soon as the first shot is fired. But for now, it’s time for my little girl to become a woman.” He smiled. “I know how you’ve always been eager to be older than you are.” Her father loved to tell the story of how an eleven-year-old Belle, dismayed to hear that she was too young to attend a dinner her parents gave for prominent Virginia politicians, led her horse, Fleeter, into the dining room and demanded that, since Fleeter was old enough to attend, he should be set a place at the table. Although Mauma Eliza was fit to be tied, the guests insisted that Belle join them for dessert. A house servant led Fleeter back to his stall in the barn as Belle enjoyed a custard to the delight of the Boyds’ important visitors.

  “I will, Papa,” she replied.

  He went to his top drawer and pulled out his Colt revolver. “I’m going to leave this with you.” He put a hand on Belle’s head. “I know you know how to use it.”

  “Of course.” Despite the fact that she desperately feared for her father, and all the boys going off to war, she refused to cry in front of him. There was something so unfair about men marching off to war while their women stayed back at the house and wept, and she knew her father was counting on her, his oldest daughter, to take care of the family in his absence. Belle turned the gun over, checking to see that it was loaded. If only she could join the war and use the gun to shoot Yankees!

  Belle watched them march off, old men such as her father with graying mustaches and whiskers, accompanied by boys still in the flush of youth, some barely able to shoulder a musket. Belle had just turned 17—a year older than her mother had been when she got married—and she felt not just a little dismay as she noted Cliff McVay, a once promising beau, heading toward the gaps in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the destination of Harper’s Ferry.

  Belle knew that she was no great beauty: her nose was a little too hawkish and her eyes a bit too beady to be considered the conventional kind of pretty so valued in the South. However, she had never wanted for male attention. She’d made an effort to dress in the latest fashions; her figure was fine and the Virginia sun lent a reddish tint to her brown hair. She knew how to flirt and use her long lashes, framing dark blue eyes, to command men to do her bidding. Her wit was quick, her cunning daring, and she possessed the most graceful curtsy in all of western Virginia. As much as she hated watching her future prospects leave for the front, Belle was eager to do her own part for the war effort. Belle joined the sewing circles composed of cousins, friends, and other debutantes to make clothing for the troops.

  Her mother, having never spent any significant amount of time away from her husband, grew unbearably needy. Belle tried reassuring her—explaining that it was destined to be a quick skirmish, one sure to end in the South’s favor, and it would be only a matter of time before the men of Martinsburg returned home to resume their customary duties of shopkeepers, millers, and farmers—to no avail. Consequently, Belle escaped to go visiting among her friends as much as possible.

  One day, as she walked back from such a visit, Belle came upon an old schoolmate, Benjamin Hearst. “Why Ben, have you already been granted a furlough?” she asked.

  “No.” Ben shuffled his feet. “You know that mother is very ill.”

  Belle placed a hand over her mouth in shock before removing it to say, “Do you mean to tell me that you have not enlisted?”

  Ben met her eyes. His contained more than a hint of defiance. “Yes, that is right, Miss Boyd. As I have said, Mother is sick and needs someone to look after her.”

  “Is that not what your slaves are for—to take care of domestic duties? Yours is to fight for your country.”

  Ben tapped his hat. “Good day, Miss Boyd.”

  Belle watched him shuffle down the street with narrowed eyes. How dare he linger about his daily life when the other boys and men of the town were risking theirs for the South! Upon arriving at home, she went to the attic to dig through boxes until she found a petticoat that no longer fit. She wrapped it in parcel paper and attached a note addressed to Mr. Benjamin Hearst, declaring that he should enlist immediately rather than join the ranks of the petticoat warriors. Belle did not receive a reply, but the next time her mother paid a visit to Mrs. Hearst, the old lady was in mourning over the fact that Benjamin had joined the Union army

  In early July, Belle was dismayed to see men clad in Union blue march down Queen Street. Belle’s Negro maid, Mauma Eliza, joined her at her bedroom window, mirroring an equally disdainful expression.

  “Look at them, Mauma. Why does their flag still contain thirty-four stars? It should only be twenty-three now.”

  Mauma Eliza’s eyes narrowed as she watched one soldier spit on the street. “Them Yankees have no respect. No respect at all.”

  Belle silently agreed as her eye caught a familiar figure. “Why that’s Ben Hearst. How dare he come marching through his town wearing that despicable uniform? He would have been better off in the petticoat I gave him.”

  “No respect at all,” Mauma Eliza muttered again as she turned away from the window and began pulling the bedclothes off Belle’s bed. “Indeed,” she harrumphed to herself as she left Belle’s room, her arms full of dirty sheets.

  Two days later, on the 4th of July, Belle was disappointed to hear of the Confederacy’s defeat at Falling Waters, a beautiful spot just eight miles away. Only three Yankees had met their maker as a result of that battle and now Martinsburg was under Union control. That, combined with the date, was enough to make Belle’s blood boil. Only one year ago her family had picnicked at Falling Waters in celebration of the holiday. Now Belle had come to hate the holiday and the archaic Yankee traditions it brought with it. What would the Founding Fathers have thought if they knew their precious Union had willingly let 11 of their states secede?

  Belle grimaced and backed away from the window as the men below began singing “Yankee Doodle.” She reached for the blinds and yanked on the cord. The thin wood did little to drown out the drums
, bugles, and fifes, however.

  The men were celebrating both America’s eighty-fifth birthday and their recent victory, and soon became belligerent with drink, terrorizing the Confederate citizens of their new dominion. Belle could hear the shouting and screaming before she caught sight of the blue-coated men stomping the grounds just outside her bedroom window.

  She ignored her racing heart and picked up her father’s Colt pistol, opening the barrel to check that the bullets hadn’t mysteriously disappeared. She descended the stairs and then began counting to ten in an effort to slow the canter of her heartbeat. On five, a pounding on the front door commenced. At eight, the Yankees burst into her parents’ home, the broken door practically falling at the feet of Mauma Eliza.

  Mother jumped up from her nervous perch on the settee. There were four of them, and Belle could smell the whiskey on their breath from across the room. Instead of fearing the soldiers, she felt only hatred—what right did they have to invade her home? She had heard of the barbarism the Union soldiers had inflicted upon their Southern neighbors, plundering homes and violating women. It had gotten so bad that Confederate husbands and fathers were demanding that Jefferson Davis appoint contingencies to protect their helpless women. But never once in Belle’s seventeen years had she felt helpless, and she was not about to start now. She tightened her grip on the gun.

  The biggest one cast his eyes around the parlor and then settled on Belle. “Are you with the Union or are you one of those damned rebels?” he asked in a heavy German accent.

  Belle folded both hands, including the one with the pistol, behind her back, and matched his disdainful tone. “I happen to be a secessionist.”

  The sneer on his face grew larger. “So you are. And do you have any Reb flags hidden in your dwelling?”

  Belle didn’t answer, not wanting him to know that a Confederate emblem spanned the wall in her room directly across from the window. Out of the corner of her eye, Belle watched Mother sink back into the couch before giving the most imperceptible nod at Mauma Eliza. The slave crept back upstairs, unnoticed.

  The tallest of the other three soldiers stepped forward. “With the Confederate loss at Falling Waters, this town is now under federal command. We intend to hoist a Union flag above your house as soon as possible.”

  This was too much for Mother to bear. She rose to her feet, her voice void of its customary lilt as she stated, “Every person in my household will die before you dare raise that flag over our heads.”

  Belle gasped as the German man marched over to her mother. Time seemed to slow as Belle watched him stare her mother down before grabbing her waist and pulling her close to him. Mother’s struggles to get free were no match for her captor’s brawny arms. The man paused as he took in her brown eyes and well-rounded figure. His big, ugly lip curled outward as he bent toward her. Her head flinched in time and the soldier’s lips met empty air. This threw the soldier off balance, and he dispatched a slew of obscenities directed at both Belle’s mother, whom he had been forced to let go of, and the Confederacy in general.

  The blood coursing through Belle’s veins was as hot as a boiling kettle as she saw the German’s hands again seize her mother’s waist before everything in her sight disappeared into a haze of crimson. It took her nearly a full second before she realized that the voice shrieking, “Let go!” over and over was hers. She lifted her arms and squinted her eyes to block out the redness, aiming the gun square at the German. Her intent was to frighten him into releasing her mother; she wasn’t aware that her finger had coiled around the trigger until she heard the gunshot and sensed the recoil in her arms.

  At first Belle felt only numbness, no anguish for the blue devil lying prone on the parquet floor, no remorse over what she had done. The still smoking pistol was warm in her hands and, as she carefully set it on the armchair beside her, she felt bile rise in her throat. Surely there would be repercussions from the fallen man’s comrades.

  Mauma Eliza had reappeared and both her and Mother’s mouths were open, but Belle barely heard their screams. Her concentration was gathered on the other three soldiers who were approaching her, guns raised. She let her gaze fall to the Yankee’s motionless body before holding up her arms. She had never seen so much blood before but she refused to let the Yanks see her fear. Steadying her voice as best she could, she declared, “Shooting a woman is an act of a cowardly man.” She met the eyes of the tallest man. “Are you a coward?”

  He returned her stare as the other men rushed to their fellow soldier hemorrhaging on the floor and hoisted him in their arms. Mauma Eliza’s screams had turned into earsplitting shrieks as the tall man finally broke Belle’s gaze. He holstered his own pistol before snatching the one Belle had used. Without a word, he left the house to follow his men with the dead Yankee in their makeshift stretcher, leaving the women alone to clean up the mess.

  Chapter 5

  Loreta

  July 1861

  Lieutenant Harry T. Buford was fixin’ for a fight. He had traveled to Virginia with his slave, Bob, determined to prove that he was as honorable as the scores of men who had taken up arms for the Southern cause. He was not afraid to die in battle—the only true fear that Harry had to contend with was missing the action, as people were saying that the war would be over in no time. The last thing Harry wanted was to return to New Orleans without ever having shot a Yankee.

  Harry hadn’t joined a regiment, knowing he’d have more freedom to follow the action as an independent soldier. He’d arrived at the station near Manassas Junction on a train from Richmond. He’d left that city to a cheering crowd, a Confederate cockade—a gift from an admiring female—pinned to his uniform.

  For the past three days, Harry had been participating in skirmishes with the enemy outside Blackburn’s Ford, near the muddy Bull Run Creek. One of the Yankee generals must have thought that the road to Centreville was clear through and began to advance. General Longstreet’s men, with whom Harry had currently taken up arms, commenced firing. To Harry, it was more like a series of duels between enemy soldiers and not a true battle. He’d exchanged gunshots with a few Yanks, but did not wound anyone seriously, despite having picked up and fired a dead man’s musket at a fleeing Federal.

  “Hah!” a fellow soldier commented as the Yanks started to retreat. “Those blue devils thought they’d march right into the South to take our property, set the niggers free, and drag us back into the Union by our kickin’ feet. How wrong were they!”

  “Serves them right for thinking they could force us back under their will!” Harry agreed. He joined in the gleeful shouting of insults at the Federal soldiers before the men were compelled to participate in another institution of war—the burial of the dead. There seemed to be only a few boys lost, yet they toiled under the July sun for hours, digging three-foot holes in the ground and then depositing the next poor fellow in, clothing, shoes, and all, accompanied by a short prayer, until both Harry and his darkey Bob were exhausted. Harry was sorry for the loss of his comrades; some of those boys who lost their lives at the dawn of the war were very young, never having a chance to prove themselves. He wondered if they had a family at home, or, like him, had no family to speak of anymore.

  Despite the afternoon’s drastic circumstances, Harry slept well. In the short time that had elapsed since he became a soldier, he’d learned to sleep as soundly on the cold hard ground as he once did on the expensive couch in his ma’s living room. When he rose at four the next morning, he felt sore from the previous day’s exertions.

  Harry marched with the brigade through Ashby’s Gap, reaching the small town of Piedmont, located on the Manassas Railroad. They were ordered to halt there. Over the next few days, more Southerners came with various regiments. The talk of the army was of the impending Federal attack on the 21st. According to one of Brigadier General Barnard Bee’s men, the Confederates had ample knowledge of the Union army’s movements.

  “How did they get that information?” Harry asked him.


  The soldier shrugged. “They say that there is a Confederate woman in Washington City who uses her…” he cleared his throat, “powers of persuasion on high-ranking Union men. She sends messages to our leaders through an underground network.”

  Harry smiled to himself, picturing a courageous seductress in the Federal Capital, ferreting out reports on troop movements from unsuspecting Yankee scamps.

  The soldier continued. “We’ll be able to defeat them Yanks with one blow and then this war will be over just as fast as it started. Everyone knows that one Confederate is worth five Yankee men.”

  Harry nodded, hoping that it would not be finished before he had a chance to show his worth. The previous day’s skirmishes had only served to provoke his desire for a real battle. He’d dreamed about such an adventure his whole life. He’d read every book about soldiers, kings, or adventurers he could get his hands on, and, as a child, begged his father to tell him about his exploits as an officer in the Mexican-American War. Like Harry, his father had fought against the United States, but he had been a much more reluctant soldier.

  On the night of the 20th, Harry assumed he might be too excited to get a good night’s rest, but he fell asleep right away, the bare ground being a welcome coolant for his sunburned face.

  July 21, 1861 dawned bright and clear. Harry arose with the sun and shrugged on his uniform, smoothing down his mustache and combing back his hair. In his excitement, he found it almost impossible to keep still.