Evening Star Newspaper, March 17, 1929, Page 89

ILLUSTRATED Part 7—8 Pages MAGAZINE SECTION he Sunday Star, WASHIN GRON, D O SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 17, 1929 - FICTION T AND amous Woman Spy of the Confederacy “Going Home” to Dixie The old Capitol Prison in Washington, D. C., where Belle Boyd was inca before being sent South in an exchange of prisoners General “Stonewall” Jackson, who was able to surprise General Banks at Strasburg and rout the Federal troops by acting on information supplied him by Belle Boyd 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. HE body of Bélle 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 ker 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 soldlers 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 & school- girl, but later she became the most widely talked of woman to play & part | in_the war between the States. | Before Beile was 20 she had killed | 8 Union soldier, had braved the cross-, fire between the Blue and the Gra 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 times 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 { their cause, And she virtually turesque war career Yankee naval officer. * % % JHE must have been quite a problem to the authorities in Washington. It was the Victorian era, the age of sentiment, when women were coquettes and men were 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 been 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 heautiful woman in distress, in spite of the damage she did to the Union cause. She came from a distinguished family Yiving in the Valley of Virginia at Mar- tinsburg, and was related to many of ended her pic- by marrying a * the outsanding families in the South.|gain much important information as to | 0f the ju If she had been a modern miss, we should say that Belle had “It.” She wrote 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.” 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- cruits for the Union Army the State seceded and Belle's father immediately enlisted for service under the Stars and Bars. For a while she contented herself with doing what she could in the way of preparing tempting boxes of food and clothing for the Southern soldiers, but she soon found this “too tame and | monotonous to satisfy my tempera- | ment,” she confessed. Soon, however, the Confederates re- treated from above Martinsburg and the! Federal forces 00 strong, poured ' into the little ci They immediately | began drinking and roistering about. and more than once Belle appealed to - the officers for protection from insult 10 herself and other women and against the destruction of their homes. When | 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. “Meanwhile, my residence within the | Federal lines and my acquaintance with | 5o many of the officers enabled me to rcerated for some weeks Eventually of these notes into the hands of the Union au- thorittes 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 quictly, made a low bow, and with a s ic “Thank you, gentiemen I departed; not in peace, one She was a lithesome blonde, and behind | the position and designs of the enemy. | however, for my little ‘rebel’ heart was her was the romantic glamour of plantation life. Somehow through all her experiences, from her manner and | Whatever I heard I regularly and care- | fully committed to paper, and whenever | an opportunity offered I sent my secret bearing she managed to refain her reputation. Like many Southern ‘women of her day, she knew the subtle art of bringing men under her sway. dispatch by a trusty messenger to Gen. J. E. B. Stuart or some brave officer in command of the Confederate troops,” Belle wrate, on fire and I indulged in thoughts and plans of vengeance” And she was only 16 “From this hour,” she says. “I was a suspect and all the mischief done to the Federal cause was laid to my charge, and it is with unfeigned joy and fell f 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 |aunt was living in a smaller house in the yard. Upon her arrival Belle im- mediately sent her card to Gen. Shields, who answered it in person with true courtly courtesy, and introduced Belle her “remarkable effusions,” as called them, and ggve her some with- ered flowers. From them she says she true | obtained “a great deal of very impore tant | - that Jackson, | before he ‘A ‘Brady photograph of Belle Boyd when she was the idol of the Confederacy. In those chivalrous days her spying was only lightly punished, but according to World War customs, she might have heen executed information which was carefully transmitted to my countrymen.” Gen. Shields was “about to whip Gen. so he taunted Belle. The night vas to put his plans into exe- cution he held a council of war in_the drawing room of the big house. ! knew that there was a hole in the floor | of a closet in the room above the draw- ing room, so as soon as the officers were assembled she stole softly upstairs and by lying down on the floor of the closet |and putting her ear over the hole she heard every word of the conversation |in_the room below. 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- to his susceptible Irish aides, who, from | mation into the hands of Col. Ashby| time to umL’. paid Belle court, wrote to | himself and then got back home before she | daylight. | It all sounds a little improbable and |some historians say that not much of claim Belle As soon as_the Before she was 20 years old, the picture of » young and eeautiful woman in distress, Belle Boyd had killed a Union soldier and had braved the cross-fire between the Blue and the Gray to \urry valuable informatin to General “Stone- = wall” Jackson 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 Ro 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 white sunbonnet, she ran as fast as she could out over the lopen fields toward the Confederate lines, which were rapidly advancing. The Federal artillery soon spied her 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 ground for protection against the flying missiles. Then on again she ran until she reached the Confederate lines. Acting on the information, Gen. Jack- son was able to surprise Gen. Banks at Strasburg and brought about the com- plete rout of the Federal forces at that point, £ i JROM that time on Belle was a | %" marked woman. The Northern | journals vie with one another in pub- | lishing extravagant accounts of her e: ploits ang heaped the worst of vituper- erate armie: 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. 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 bastile. Belle was 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 ation uj her character, It was in- of Belle's s true, She evi.|evitable, as the Federal and Confed- South. Again Belle journeyed to the Far swept back and forth over | 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 |50 made her arrangements for sailing on 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 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 clase of the war she joined him, but his) health was broken by the h-mmr b had undergone and he died in