by Karen Abbott
Citizens formed a volunteer Home Guard: Berkeley County Historical Society, “Martinsburg,” 2.
“too tame and monotonous”: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 60.
“fond vows”: Ibid., 61.
“War will exact its victims”: Ibid., 62
avoid the “sin of being surprised”: Rable, God’s Almost Chosen Peoples, 133.
“Be very careful what you say”: Louis Sigaud to Colonel John Bakeless, January 11, 1962, Sigaud Papers.
Yankee Doodle: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 69.
John O’Neal: Wood, History of Martinsburg, 28.
rebel troops had destroyed: New York Times, June 26, 1861; Berkeley County Historical Society. “Martinsburg, West Virginia,” 5.
quarrying native limestone: Martinsburg Journal, February 14, 2010.
Colt 1849 pocket pistol: Simens, historical gun expert and dealer (historicalarms.net), e-mail to author, March 2011.
“an uprising of the Negroes” and “Northerners were coming down to murder us”: Coffin, Stories of Our Soldiers, 43.
“I am tall”: Belle Boyd to her cousin, Willie Boyd, July 22 (no year), Boyd Papers.
she carved her name: Scarborough, Siren of the South, 7.
“my horse is old enough”: Sigaud, Belle Boyd, 2.
“Surely so high a spirit”: Ibid.
“Mauma Eliza”: Coffin, Stories of Our Soldiers, 44.
she defied the law: Hammersla, e-mail; Martinsburg News, June 22, 1951.
“Slavery, like all imperfect forms”: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 54.
five other slaves: 1850 US Census slave schedule for Benjamin R. Boyd.
four of her eight children had died: Benjamin Reed Boyd Jr. died in April 1846 at thirteen months; Anna Boyd died in April 1849 at age three; Fannie Boyd died in December 1849 at fourteen months; and Annie Boyd died in March 1851 at seven months. All of the children are buried in Green Hill Cemetery in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
“saucy”: Coffin, Stories of Our Soldiers, 44.
“a great big Dutchman”: Ibid.
“Are you one of those damned rebels?”: Ibid.
“every member of my household will die”: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 73.
“very handsome woman”: Coffin, Stories of Our Soldiers, 44.
“prettiest girl in Baltimore”: Augusta (GA) Daily Constitutionalist, July 19, 1861.
“too inhuman and revolting to dwell upon”: Carolina Observer, June 10, 1861.
“Let go my mother!”: Coffin, Stories of Our Soldiers, 44.
looked up at her and grinned: Ibid.
“roused beyond control”; “literally boiling”: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 73.
the force of her shot: Word of the shooting spread quickly among residents of the Shenandoah Valley. Elizabeth Lindsay Lomax, the mother of Confederate general Lunsford Lindsay Lomax, mentioned it in her diary on July 12, 1861, as did Letitia Blakemore of Front Royal, Virginia, on July 24, 1861. The July 7, 1861, issue of the American Union (a newspaper briefly published in Martinsburg by the Federal army) reported the death of Private Frederick Martin of Company K, Seventh Pennsylvania Volunteers; I speculate that he was Belle’s victim. Elizabeth Lindsay Lomax and Letitita Blakemore, diary entries, Sigaud Papers.
“Only those who are cowards”: Coffin, Stories of Our Soldiers, 47.
Our Woman
he posed the question to God: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 18.
suffering from diphtheria: Ward, Burns, and Burns, Civil War, 39.
“You have pretty good health”: Wiley, Life of Billy Yank, 23.
“two or three little sort of ‘love taps’”: Stillwell, Story of a Common Soldier, 5.
“what sort of living”: Dannett, She Rode with the Generals, 52.
“Up to the present”: Ibid.
“for the defense of the right”: Fort Scott Monitor, January 17, 1884.
Emma was one of fifty thousand Union soldiers: Furgurson, Freedom Rising, 116.
some came with pieces of rope: Klingaman, Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, 108.
Soldiers lounged on the cushioned seats: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 28.
Runaway slaves from Virginia and Maryland: Klingaman, Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, 109.
“dress the line”: Wright, Language of the Civil War, 95.
“The first thing in the morning is drill”: Davis and Pritchard, Fighting Men of the Civil War, 38.
Members of the Seventh New York Infantry: Ward, Burns, and Burns, Civil War, 39.
Many of the immigrant regiments: Ibid., 40.
“silver mounted harness”: Fort Scott Monitor, January 17, 1884.
“our woman”: Dannett, She Rode with the Generals, 247.
Emma could be arrested or jailed: Dempsey, Michigan and the Civil War, 49.
“this great drama”: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 18.
Some even turned in wearing coats and boots: Blanton and Cook, They Fought Like Demons, 47.
took care of “the necessaries”: Ibid., 46.
stop her menstrual cycle: Ibid.
scoured it with dirt: Wiley, Life of Billy Yank, 47.
As many as four hundred women: Tendrich Frank, Encyclopedia of Women at War, 146.
one couple even enlisted together: Eggleston, Women in the Civil War, 77.
twelve-year-old girl who joined as a drummer boy: Blanton and Cook, They Fought Like Demons, 35.
$13 per month for Union soldiers, $11 for Confederates: Varhola, Life in Civil War America, 127.
“slavery was an awful thing”: Blanton and Cook, They Fought Like Demons, 41.
“shoulder my pistol and shoot some Yankees”: Ibid., 25.
“magnetic power”: Fort Scott Monitor, January 17, 1884.
illnesses that would ultimately kill twice as many: Cathy Wright, curator of the American Civil War Museum (formerly Museum of the Confederacy), e-mail to author, December 2011.
“Bowels are of more consequence than brains”: Davis and Pritchard, Fighting Men of the Civil War, 188.
“a little eau de vie to wash down the bitter drugs”: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 282.
“the stranger”; scene of Emma at home: Dannett, She Rode with the Generals, 37–41.
“FORWARD TO RICHMOND!”: New York Tribune, June 25, 1861.
didn’t even possess a map of Virginia: White, Lincoln, 431.
“This is not an army”: Detzer, Donnybrook, 85.
“You are green, it is true”: McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 336.
thirty-seven thousand Union recruits: Ward, Burns, and Burns, Civil War, 53.
“many, very many”: Edmonds, Memoirs of a Soldier, 32.
A Shaft in Her Quiver
“within easy rifle range of the White House”: Furgurson, Freedom Rising, 126.
Bettie Duvall background and mission: Duvall, Recollections of the War by Grandmama.
“McDowell has certainly been ordered”: The piece of paper featuring Beauregard’s name is located in the National Archives, RG 59, but the message accompanying it is lost. For a discussion of the value of Rose Greenhow’s contributions to the First Battle of Bull Run, see Fishel, Secret War for the Union, 59; Blackman, Wild Rose, 305–7.
“reliable source”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 15.
Another source provided her with a map: Ibid., 233.
Rose had been the head: Tidwell, April ’65, 60.
“the same kind of intimacy”: McKay, Henry Wilson, 152; Nevins, Hamilton Fish, 609.
“indispensable to the peace and happiness”: Calhoun, Speeches, 630.
“positive good”: Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist, 439.
“the best and wisest man of this century”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 59.
“glorious as a diamond”: New York Times, April 12, 1858.
“is no more”: Blackman, Wild Rose, 165.
“confidential relations”: Frémont, Letters, 504.
money she lost speculating in stocks: Blackman, Wild Rose, 12.
compared R
ose to the notorious Peggy O’Neale Eaton: Ross, Rebel Rose, 7.
“hunted man with that resistless zeal”: Tidwell, April ’65, 58.
“one of the most persuasive women”: Keyes, unpublished autobiography, 330–31.
“Believe me, my dear”: Joseph Lane to Rose O’Neal Greenhow, undated, Greenhow, seized correspondence.
“You know that I do love you”: Henry Wilson to Rose O’Neal Greenhow, Greenhow, seized correspondence. Historians have long debated the exact nature of Rose Greenhow’s relationship with Wilson. Ernest McKay (Henry Wilson, 154) wrote that the official clerk of the Military Affairs Committee was a young man with the initials “H. W.”—Horace White—and that his penmanship was similar to that in the love letters. On the other hand, Hamilton Fish, who served with Wilson in the senate and was Ulysses S. Grant’s secretary of state while Wilson was his vice president, was among those who later claimed that Wilson and Rose had a romantic relationship; Leech, Reveille in Washington, 137.
cipher of the type used in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Gold-Bug”: David Gaddy, retired CIA code breaker, e-mail to author, December 2011.
Thomas J. Rayford: Thomas Jordan to Judah P. Benjamin, October 29, 1861, OR, ser. 1, 5:928.
“Infantry” was two parallel lines: Greenhow Papers, North Carolina State Archives.
Jordan pointed out that the upper windows: Burger, Confederate Spy, 66.
forced to take seamstress jobs: Blackman, Wild Rose, 7.
“I am so much worried about the latest news”: Florence Moore to Rose O’Neal Greenhow, June 23, 1861, Greenhow, seized correspondence.
“beasts of the field”: Greenhow, “European Diary,” 9.
“every capacity with which God has endowed me”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 193.
less than 3 percent: Mitchell, Maryland Voices of the Civil War, 9.
barely 1 percent: Holzer, Lincoln President-Elect, 42.
“smack of sympathy”: Leech, Reveille in Washington, 136.
in the habit of eavesdropping outside the Cabinet room doors: Bakeless, Spies of the Confederacy, 5; Morrow, Mary Todd Lincoln, 51.
The Confederate government had no fund set aside: Gaddy, e-mail, February 2013.
“a railroad man willing to undertake”: Bakeless, Spies of the Confederacy, 16.
If a scout was captured: Gaddy, “Lee’s Use of Intelligence.”
Her group included a lawyer: Ross, Rebel Rose, 154–55.
Battery Martin Scott: Cooling and Owen, Mr. Lincoln’s Forts, 142.
“beautiful young lady”: Davis, Battle at Bull Run, xi.
“TRUST BEARER”: Williams, P. G. T. Beauregard, 76.
“order issued for McDowell”: Ibid.
“This must go thro’”: Tidwell, April ’65, 64.
relay system designed for maximum efficiency: Ibid., 65.
“Let them come”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 16.
As If They Were Chased by Demons
“a bristling monster lifting himself”: Eicher, Longest Night, 92.
considered the best cure for diarrhea: Flannery, Civil War Pharmacy, 128; Smith, “Polite War.”
wrestle beehives from stands: Haydon, For Country, Cause and Leader, 52.
boots that didn’t distinguish right from left: Ward, Burns, and Burns, Civil War, 220.
“By the left flank, march!”: Detzer, Donnybrook, 286.
As she cupped and lifted his head: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 40.
“We’ve whipped them!”: Wheeler, Voices of the Civil War, 36.
currently detailed as a clerk: Muster roll record for Benjamin Reed Boyd, 2nd Regiment Virginia Infantry, May 11, 1861.
she would later claim he took a bullet: Coffin, Stories of Our Soldiers, 47.
“Look, there is Jackson”: The origin of Jackson’s nickname was widely reported, including in Beauregard’s recollection of First Bull Run. Jackson’s hometown paper, the Lexington Gazette, did not print stories of his earning the nickname “Stonewall” until August 25, more than a month after the battle.
One private from the 4th South Carolina: This Bible is on display at the American Civil War Museum.
Union shells tore through the wall: Davis, Battle at Bull Run, 37.
“There is nothing like it”: Kagan and Hyslop, Eyewitness to the Civil War, 152.
“Hoo-ray! Hoo-ray!”: Dew, Yankee and Rebel Yells, 955.
“In reckless disorder the enemy fled”: Brock Putnam, Richmond During the War, 62.
Every angle, every viewpoint, offered a fresh horror: New York Times, July 24, 1861; Harper’s Weekly, August 17, 1861; Wilson, Sufferings Endured, 24–25. Throughout the war both the North and the South exaggerated the atrocities committed by the enemy, and it’s difficult to determine which incidents were real and which were apocryphal (although there is strong documentation that Confederates unearthed Yankee graves and devised creative uses for the bones). Such atrocities may have been more common early in the war because soldiers feared it would be over soon, and that they would not have many chances to acquire a macabre souvenir; Wright, e-mail, May 2012.
“great skedaddle”: Bulla and Borchard, Journalism in the Civil War Era, 45.
“Many that day who turned their backs”: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 41.
“Our President and our General”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 18.
“got shorn”: Ward, Slaves’ War, 59.
Never as Pretty as Her Portrait Shows
“palpable state of war”: Elizabeth Van Lew, “Occasional Journal,” Van Lew Papers, New York Public Library. The original journal papers are out of order and lack page numbers.
“hooted at and insulted him”: Speer, Portals to Hell, 23.
“stirring up the animals”: Norwich (CT) Morning Bulletin, August 29, 1861.
“What did you come here for?”: Ibid.
“never as pretty as her portrait shows”: Anne B. Hyde to India Thomas, November 6, 1957, courtesy of Cathy Wright.
a pedigree that prevented her: For a discussion of Richmond society during wartime, see Furgurson, Ashes of Glory, 74–77.
“It was my sad privilege”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
“Left the Tredegar Iron Works”: Richmond Dispatch, July 24, 1861.
“is arrogant—is jealous and intrusive”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
“Good Miss Van L. could not refrain”: Bremer, Homes of the New World, 509–10.
standing in the Van Lew family pew: For details about Elizabeth Van Lew’s family background and espionage operation I consulted Bart Hall, the great-grandson of Elizabeth’s niece, Annie Van Lew Hall.
the stipulation that she was not to sell or free: Will of John Newton Van Lew, signed October 2, 1843, Local Records Collection, Library of Virginia.
system of “hiring out”: For a discussion of this practice, see Varon, Southern Lady, Yankee Spy, 27–28.
“From what I have seen of the management”: Testimony of George Watt, August 1, 1864, Letters Received by the Confederate Adjutant and Inspector General, RG 109, Entry 12, Box 9, Folder 3, National Archives.
“Loyalty was called treason”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
“butchery, rape, theft, and arson”: Richmond Dispatch, September 13, 1861.
“damned rascally”: Coulter, Confederate States of America, 90.
“kill as many Yankees as you can for me”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
“I longed to say to them”: Ibid.
“Mr. Lincoln’s head or a piece of his ear”: Ibid.
“offended and disgusted”: Watt, testimony.
sewed a representative star: Bart Hall, e-mail to author, February 2012.
“calm determination and high resolve”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
“Keep your mouth shut”: Elizabeth’s childhood notebook is on display in the “Sisterhood of Spies” exhibit in the International Spy Museum, Washington, DC.
When the war broke out, Lieutenant Todd: Speer, Portals to Hell, 162–63.
“violent appearance”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
“I would like to be made hospital nurse”: Ibid.
“You are the first and only lady”: Ibid.
“Trial of the Ploughs”: Alexandria Gazette, November 2, 1854.
succumbing to the yellow fever epidemic: Hall, e-mail, September 2013.
“Let me see the prisoners”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
“I could not think of such a thing”: Ibid.
“Once I heard you at a convention”: Ibid.
when a projectile struck a nearby soldier: Welsh, Medical Histories, 237.
great regret: Blakey, General John H. Winder, 8.
Winder’s oldest son, William: Ibid.
“alien plug-uglies”: Ibid., 51.
“Your hair would adorn the temple of Janus”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
“I should be glad to visit the prisoners”: Ibid.
“I can flatter almost anything”: Blakey, General John H. Winder, 53.
“Two ladies, a mother and a daughter”: Richmond Examiner, July 29, 1861.
“They are Yankee offshoots”: Richmond Dispatch, July 31, 1861.
Alien Enemies Act: OR, ser. 2, 2:1370.
“These ladies were my mother and myself”: Clipping, Van Lew Papers, NYPL.
hoping to be made governor of Virginia: Ely, Journal, 236; Carolina Observer, December 2, 1861.
“Poor Calvin Huson”: Charleston Daily Courier, October 19, 1861.
hanging boldly on her entry parlor wall: Photo in the Eleanor S. Brockenbrough Archives, American Civil War Museum.
Little Rebel Heart on Fire
Private Frederick Martin: The official Pennsylvania records confirm his existence but not his death or burial (Bates, History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 69). War Department records confirm his death (cause unknown) but omit the place of burial; Sigaud, Belle Boyd, 15. As previously mentioned, the American Union of July 7, 1861, reported Martin’s death and named Martinsburg as the place of his burial.
a violation that would degrade and declass: Harper, Women During the Civil War, 220.
“one shadow of remorse”: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 72.