Belle had often visited there when she was younger, and delighted in the beautiful town, nestled in the Shenandoah mountains like a baby in its mother’s arms. As Front Royal was only about forty miles from Manassas, the local hospital was filled with ailing Confederate soldiers. Belle took a break from her espionage—there were no Union officers around to beguile into passing off secrets anyway—to aid the nurses and doctors.
As soon as she stepped into the hospital room, with the long rows of cots filled with wounded or ill men and the smells of rotting wounds and death filling the air, Belle knew that she was not cut out to be a nurse. She looked away as a doctor dressed the stumped elbow of an amputee. A boy covered with small rose-colored spots lying on top of a dining room table beckoned Belle. She started toward him, but the man next to him began going into convulsions and every able-bodied person in the room rushed to his bedside. Belle, feeling like she was in the way, decided to back away. As she started toward the door, she felt something soft under her foot, and glancing down, she saw that she had stepped on the hand of an amputated arm. And then everything went black.
When Belle opened her eyes, she found she was outside. She felt as though a horse had run over her body and something was preventing her from speaking.
“The fresh air did ya good.” An older woman kneeled beside Belle to retrieve the rag that had been stuffed into her mouth.
Belle flexed her stiff jaw before saying, “I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right. We couldn’t save the man, anyway. And I don’t think whoever’s hand you tramped over minded neither.”
Belle shuddered, thinking of that room full of death and decay. “How can you do this every day?”
The woman stood up and held out an arm to Belle. “We all do what we can.”
As Belle rose, she couldn’t help thinking that she would help her country in any way, save for nursing.
The next day, against her mother’s and aunt’s wishes, Belle went to visit her uncle, who was a lieutenant in the 12th Virginia, under the command of Stonewall Jackson himself. She blithely informed him that she would like to become a spy for the Confederacy.
Her uncle spit out the chicory coffee he’d been drinking. “You? A girl?”
“Cousin William could use me for the missions. I can ride a horse better than most of the boys here,” she cast her arm around camp, “and I’ve been shooting guns since I was a toddler—”
“All right.” Her uncle held up both hands. “You do know your way around the Valley. And I suppose the Yanks would be less suspicious of a woman riding among their lines. I will pass your name on to Colonel Ashby.”
And so Belle began acting as a Confederate courier. She rode Fleeter throughout the Valley, passing information regarding army movements back and forth between Stonewall Jackson and General Beauregard. Her uncle taught her the countersigns that were needed in order to pass through the Southern, and sometimes, enemy lines. The signals involved hand gestures such as throwing up her arm or taking off her bonnet and placing it over her chest. Unfortunately, at least in Belle’s mind, the excitement of being a part of the Confederacy’s underground railroad of information soon wore off as the soldiers became accustomed to her and let her pass easily. Her base was her aunt’s home in Front Royal, although she sometimes stayed at her parents’ home in Martinsburg, telling her mother she was making deliveries for her aunt as an excuse.
She changed outfits frequently, occasionally dressing in her father’s overcoat, her face void of make-up to complete the man disguise. Sometimes she would wear a dress tied with a Confederate tassel belt and a headband decorated with seven stars—one for each of the initial Confederate states. She never ceased to do anything required for the Southern Cause: even sneaking into Union camps in the middle of the night to steal sabers and pistols. She hid the contraband in abandoned barns or buried it, waiting until it was safe to inform other members of the Underground of their presence. One bowie knife did not make it to a hiding spot; Belle was particularly fond of its pearl handle and tied it to her own belt.
Chapter 12
Loreta
August 1861
While it didn’t result in immediate independence, The Battle of Manassas confirmed the view of most Southerners that the Confederacy was far superior to the Union army. Consequently, a multitude of rebels received permission to go on leave. Loreta headed to Richmond, where she found that money was plentiful and the food was good. The drinking saloons, gambling houses, and other places of ill-repute were packed. But Manassas had whetted Loreta’s appetite for war and she longed to show more prowess as Harry Buford. She soon became restless with the inaction the continual festivities precipitated. She applied for a pass to head west and got as far as Leesburg, Virginia when she met up with a few men from General Bee’s regiment. They convinced Harry to accompany them to Front Royal, assuring her that the Federals were making their way to that part of Virginia.
Front Royal was in a state of celebration throughout the summer of 1861. Loreta was determined to keep up appearances and frequented the saloons with her newfound friends, although she usually stuck to cider and cigarettes while the other soldiers drank whiskey and smoked cigars.
Major Bacon proved to be quite the ladies’ man, and Loreta herself would have found his combination of dark hair, red beard, and blue eyes extremely attractive had she not been acting the part of Harry Buford. After all, Loreta was still a woman and was not immune to a handsome man. In fact, Major Bacon reminded Loreta in a small way of her late husband, William, who had been killed when his weapon had fired accidentally during a training demonstration.
One day Major Bacon and Loreta were purchasing new hats when the major introduced her to a friend of his, Miss Belle Boyd, a strangely dressed woman with a knife fixed to her belt.
“Pleased to meet you,” Loreta stated as she extended her hand.
“Oh my,” Miss Boyd replied. “Your skin is so smooth.”
Major Bacon clamped Loreta on the back. “That’s Lieutenant Buford for you. The dandiest dandy of them all.”
Miss Boyd batted her eyelashes. Loreta recognized the move as something she used to do before she was married and had to admit that Miss Boyd had the art of flirtation down to a science, which made up for the fact that she was not conventionally beautiful. “Will you call on me later?” she asked Loreta.
Loreta cast her eyes at Major Bacon, who gave her an encouraging nod. A few of her comrades had asked her if she had a lady friend, but she had always declined to answer. At camp, she was always one of the only ones not to pull out a tintype and speak longingly of a fiancé or wife back home. Miss Boyd might do wonderfully for my cover. Loreta pasted a smile onto her face and agreed to meet Miss Boyd later that day.
“She’s a real strumpet, that Miss Boyd,” Major Bacon commented once the lady had left the store.
“Strumpet?”
“She’ll latch on to anyone she thinks has money.” Bacon let out a hearty laugh. “And she seems to have fixed her attentions on you!”
Miss Boyd’s servants had set up tea in the garden in the back of the house. A large, handsome black woman poured the tea and then sat heavily in a chair nearby, sewing.
“My chaperone,” Miss Boyd told Loreta.
Loreta nodded. Miss Boyd was even more friendly than she had been at the store. She asked numerous questions: where Harry hailed from, who his parents were, where he’d attended school. Loreta told half-truths, creating the rest of Harry’s story as she went along: that her father had been an envoy to the Spanish embassy when he met Loreta’s mother, the daughter of a French naval officer and an American heiress. “The blood of Spanish Castilian nobles flows through my veins,” Loreta informed Miss Boyd. “One of my ancestors was the Spanish Conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar who conquered Cuba under the Spanish flag and was governor of the island for many years.”
“You must have inherited his sense of adventure,” Belle stated.
“Indeed.” Lore
ta had always thought that it should not go to waste just because she was born female. “My father fought in the Mexican War, although on the wrong side. When he lost, our plantation became part of the United States.”
“And now you are fighting against them.”
“Yes. Fighting for the rights of the Southern sovereignty.”
“But you didn’t join the army per se.”
“No. I’m paying my own way. I don’t like to have people tell me what to do.” That part was definitely true. Even though Loreta had loved her husband, she had chafed when he told her she could not accompany him when he went off to war. “If I remain independent, I can go where I need to. That’s how I was able to fight at Manassas.”
Miss Boyd stirred her tea and sat back. “My, you’ve led an exciting life thus far.”
“Indeed.” Loreta was careful not to disturb Harry’s glued on mustache as she took a sip.
Miss Boyd leaned forward and put her hand over Loreta’s. “Pa says the war should be over before the year’s end. Do you think you’ll stay on in Front Royal on a permanent basis?”
Loreta was taken aback at the woman’s forwardness. Evidently her servant was too, as she snorted loudly, causing Miss Boyd to draw her hand back.
Loreta straightened her pant leg before asking, “Why do you take such a fancy to me when we have just met? There must be many elegant, accomplished, and equally wealthy young men in Front Royal with whom you have been acquainted.”
“It won’t be hard for us to become better acquainted,” Miss Boyd stated with another flutter of eyelashes.
Loreta was quite sure that none of the other debutantes back in New Orleans had ever been so bold as this one. “I’m sorry, Miss Boyd. I don’t want to deceive you, but you should know that I’m as good as married already.”
Miss Boyd’s restless lashes were now blinking back tears, and Loreta immediately regretted hurting her. An uncomfortable silence descended upon the couple and Loreta felt the need to fill the lull in conversation. “I am betrothed to a woman of my parents’ choosing.”
Miss Boyd looked up from her hankie. “You do not wish to marry the girl?”
Loreta shrugged. Miss Boyd’s face held the same expression that Loreta’s roommate at boarding school, Nellie, had years ago when Loreta had stated that her parents had arranged for her betrothal to Raphael, a handsome Spaniard who lived in New Orleans, and that she would be married when she graduated in two years.
“You cannot be serious,” Nellie had replied. “Are your parents from a hundred years ago?”
Loreta shook her head. “It’s customary in the part of Europe that my father is from. They say that young people often fancy themselves in love when they do not know what love is.”
“Well, no one will tell me who to marry, convenient or not,” Nellie had declared. “This is, after all, a free country. No one could ever forbid me to marry William.”
After that, Loreta had made it her mission to win her rival’s dashing soldier beau.
Now Loreta spoke the same words to Miss Boyd that she had told William after they eloped when Loreta was eighteen. “My father said if I don’t abide by his wishes, I should consider myself ‘repudiated and disinherited.’”
“Oh my,” Miss Boyd replied. “I guess you have no choice, then.”
“Not if I expect to inherit my father’s fortune.”
“Don’t you think that some things are worth giving up?” Miss Boyd asked with another bat of her eyelashes.
“No,” Loreta replied resolutely. “Money can make probable what you think is impossible. The Confederate government knows that—why else do you think we are fighting this war, or any war, for that matter? As much as we fought against sovereignty in the Revolutionary War, King Cotton has been the benefactor that allowed the United States to become the great power that it is.”
Miss Boyd gave a clap of her hands. “I wholeheartedly agree. And it will remain so, however fractioned the Union becomes.”
“Indeed.” Loreta rose and placed a hand briefly on Miss Boyd’s shoulder. “I must wish you good evening now, miss.”
Miss Boyd buried her head in her hands. When she looked up, she was rather pitiful with her red face and wet eyes. “Will I ever see you again?”
“Perhaps, if I am not killed in battle.”
“Oh, do be safe. God willing you will survive.”
Loreta nodded and, once again, bid her adieu. She expected that Miss Boyd would soon recover from the heartbreak of Harry T. Buford and set her eyes on another, hopefully more consenting, beau.
As she made her way back to the hotel, she reflected on what she’d told Miss Boyd about Harry’s background. Though the estrangement of her family had caused Loreta considerable grief, it was a small price to pay to have won William from Nellie.
Loreta had always had a penchant for battle and occupied the long hours when her husband was training by studying past military tactics. After Lincoln was elected and South Carolina seceded, Loreta figured it would not be long before the fighting started. She’d eagerly scan the papers every day, making a notch in a leather belt as state after state left the Union. When Texas finally seceded, she threatened to forsake William if he dared raise his sword against the South.
The night after William informed her he’d reluctantly resigned his commission as a Union officer, Loreta surprised him by dressing in one of his old army uniforms, adding a drawn-on mustache to convince him she’d make an excellent Confederate soldier. The shocked William had been adamant that no wife of his would be accompanying him to war.
But then William had gone and killed himself accidentally even before he had seen battle and Loreta had no choice but to avenge his death by taking up arms.
Chapter 13
Belle
August 1861
Belle watched Lieutenant Buford as he walked out of the garden. Although she still found him somewhat dashing, there was something definitely odd about him, from his thin figure, to the obviously fake mustache, to that wild tale about his Spanish ancestors. He had said his father was a Spanish envoy and inherited a large estate in Mexico, but the name “Buford” didn’t exactly sound Castilian. In fact, Bouffard in French translated to “blowing.” While his last name didn’t match his story, it certainly fit his inflated sense of self-importance, the sort of arrogance not usually found in a Southern gentleman. Belle suddenly sat up in her chair, wondering if perhaps the lieutenant was really a Yankee spy in disguise. She chided herself to be more careful as she went back into the house.
A few days later, her resolution to undertake more caution forgotten, Belle delivered stolen Union weapons to General Beauregard’s camp. The Confederate soldiers there were even more gallant than Lieutenant Buford, and Belle attempted to win their favor by bragging about how she had killed one of the enemy.
“I doubt that’s true,” one man replied. He was large, with an unruly rust-colored beard. “But I’ll be more inclined to believe you if you brought any whiskey along with those guns.”
Belle’s lip curled. She knew that the soldier could be punished for drinking, but she also knew that Mother could use the money. “Two dollars.”
“One,” the man responded.
“Forget it,” Belle said, standing.
“Not so fast.” The man pulled at Belle’s belt and then put his hand under her skirt. Belle grabbed her pearl-handled knife as the man, finding a bottle of whiskey hidden underneath her hoops, uncapped it and began to chug.
“Sir!” Belle shouted but the man paid no attention as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then tucked the bottle into his coat pocket.
Belle pointed her blade at the man’s chin and tried to hold both the knife and her voice steady. “Give it back.”
The man got to his feet, towering over Belle. Her knife was now level with his chest. “What are you going to do, little rebel?” he asked.
As she heard the words, “We’re with you, Miss Boyd,” Belle glanced backward. Several
men stood behind her. She recognized the man who had spoken as Private Winfried; he was from Martinsburg and had known Belle since she was a girl.
Other men gathered behind the soldier who had stolen the whiskey. The two parties of men faced each other, wondering, like Belle, what would happen next. The large man pulled out Belle’s pilfered bottle and took another drink.
That was enough for Belle. She charged forward, knife pointed. The man reached his hand out and planted it on Belle’s forehead. She shouted and swung her knife, but he kept her at bay and the knife only connected with air. The soldiers behind her fell into action and clashed with their comrades defending the large man. Belle, realizing the danger, headed for the hills, watching the fight she had started from a safe distance.
Chapter 14
Mary Jane
August 1861
The fighting between Mr. John and Miss Mary, which had been almost constant before the war, grew everlasting. She frequently accused Mr. John of being a Union sympathizer, or, in her words, an “enemy of the Great State of Virginia,” an accusation she often extended to Miss Lizzie and their mother, the widow Mrs. Van Lew. Miss Mary had been born into the prestigious Carter family, who had long ties to Virginia. She considered the entire Van Lew family to be nouveau riche trash while she was a full-blue blood of the Old Dominion.
When Mrs. Mary called Mary Jane a “nigger” for accidentally spilling wine on the tablecloth in front of her, Mary Jane began referring to her as Witch Mary in her head. Mary Jane had been called a nigger very few times in her life, and she resolved to not stand for such a low blow coming from a guest in Miss Lizzie’s house. Not to mention Mary Jane had more intellect in one little finger than Witch Mary had in that tiny brain of hers.
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