Women Spies of the Civil War

Hundreds of women served as spies during the Civil War. Here’s a look at six who risked their lives in daring and unexpected ways

By Cate Lineberry May 09, 2011 (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Women-Spies-of-the-Civil-War.html#ixzz1WX0wqYB4)

Harriet Tubman, Union Spymaster The former slave known for leading more than 300 people—including After the war, Tubman tried to collect $1,800 for her service but was her elderly parents—to freedom as a conductor on the Underground unsuccessful. Due to the service of her late husband, she did receive a Railroad was also a Union spy. Born in Maryland around 1820, widow’s pension of $8 per month beginning in June 1890. The Tubman volunteered for the Union as a cook and a nurse before she government authorized a payment of $25 a month to Tubman was recruited by Union officers to establish a network of spies in beginning in January 1899, but Tubman only received $20 per month South Carolina made up of former slaves. until her death in 1913, when she was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, . Tubman became the first woman in the country’s history to lead a military expedition when she helped Col. James Montgomery plan a In 2003, after students at the Albany Free School brought the issue of night raid to free slaves from rice plantations along the Combahee Tubman’s remaining pension to the attention of New York Senator River. On June 1, 1863, Montgomery, Tubman and several hundred Hilary Rodham Clinton, Congress authorized a payment of $11,750 to black soldiers traveled up the river in gunboats, avoiding remotely- the Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn. detonated mines that had been placed along the waterway. When they reached the shore, they destroyed a Confederate supply depot and freed more than 750 slaves.

Pauline Cushman, Union Spy Born in , Pauline Cushman was a struggling 30-year-old by the Confederates and was arrested. She was sentenced to hang but actress in 1863. While performing in Louisville, Kentucky, she was was saved by the unexpected arrival of Union forces at Shelbyville. dared by Confederate officers to interrupt a show to toast Jefferson Because of the attention she received, Cushman was forced to stop her Davis and the Confederacy. Cushman contacted the ’s work. local provost marshal and offered to perform the toast as a way to ingratiate herself to the Confederates and become a federal intelligence After the war, Cushman tried acting again and gave monologues on the operative. The marshal agreed, and she gave the toast the next evening. war, sometimes while wearing a uniform. As the public’s interest in Cushman faded, she supported herself as a seamstress but became The Union immediately sent Cushman to federally occupied Nashville, addicted to morphine after an illness. She died of an overdose at the where she began her work with the Army of the Cumberland. She age of 60 and was buried with military honors by the Veterans of the gathered information about enemy operations, identified Confederate Grand Army of the Republic in their cemetery in San Francisco. spies and served as a federal courier before she came under suspicion

Belle Boyd, Confederate Spy One of the most famous Confederate spies, Belle Boyd was born to a In July 1862, Boyd was arrested by Union forces and sent to Old prominent slaveholding family near Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. She was released a month later Virginia), in 1843. At the age of 17, she was arrested for shooting a and deported to Richmond, but she was soon caught behind federal Union soldier who had broken into her family’s home and insulted her lines and imprisoned for three more months. In 1864 she was arrested mother. Though Union officers investigated and cleared her of all again while trying to smuggle Confederate papers to England. She fled charges, they watched her closely after that. Young and attractive, the country and a few months later married Samuel W. Hardinge, one Boyd used her charms to get information from the officers, which she of the Union naval officers who had detained her. Hardinge returned passed along to the Confederacy. briefly to the and was imprisoned as a suspected Southern spy. He died soon after his release. After repeated warnings to disengage in covert activities, Boyd was sent by Union officials to live with family in Front Royal, Virginia. Boyd, now a widow, wrote her two-volume memoir, Belle Boyd in Soon after her arrival, she began working as a courier between Camp and Prison, in 1865 and embarked on an acting career, often Confederate generals Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson and P.G.T. telling of her clandestine experiences during the war. She remarried Beauregard. Jackson credited the intelligence she provided with twice and died in Wisconsin in 1900. helping him win victories in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862.

Rose O'Neal Greenhow, Confederate Spy Rose O'Neal Greenhow was a popular Washington socialite, a widow Confederate President sent Greenhow on her next in her 40s and an impassioned secessionist when she began spying for mission to Britain and France to help gain support for the the Confederacy in 1861. Using her powerful social connections, Confederacy. While in Europe she published her memoir, My Greenhow obtained information about Union military activity and Imprisonment, and the First Year of Abolition Rule at Washington. passed coded messages to the Confederates. One of her most important messages, hidden in her female courier’s hair, helped Gen. P.G.T. In September1864, Greenhow returned to the South aboard the Beauregard gather enough forces to win the First Battle of Bull Run. Condor, a British blockade-runner, carrying $2,000 in gold. A Union gunboat pursued the ship as it neared the North Carolina shore, and it Suspicious of Greenhow’s activities, Allan Pinkerton, head of the ran aground on a sandbar. Against the captain’s advice, Greenhow federal government’s newly formed Secret Service, gathered enough tried to escape in a rowboat with two other passengers. The boat evidence to place her under house arrest. But Greenhow continued to capsized and she drowned, presumably weighed down by the gold she get information to her contacts. In January 1862, she was transferred, carried around her neck. Her body washed ashore the next day and was along with her 8-year-old daughter, to Old Capitol Prison. Several buried by the Confederates with full military honors. months later she was deported to Baltimore, Maryland, where the Confederates welcomed her as a hero.

Mary Elizabeth Bowser (a.k.a. Mary Jane Richards), Union Spy Mary Elizabeth Bowser, likely born Mary Jane Richards, was a slave of women and men, white and black, all drawn from Richmond’s of the Van Lew family in Richmond, Virginia. When John Van Lew clandestine Unionist community to help her. The most noteworthy of died in September 1843, his will stipulated that his wife, Eliza, could these individuals was Bowser, who had married a free black man not sell or free any of the family’s slaves. Eliza and her daughter named Wilson Bowser in 1861 and taken his name. Elizabeth Van Lew were against slavery and seem to have secretly granted their slaves, including Bowser, freedom. In the fall of 1865, Bowser gave an address in Brooklyn alluding to her infiltration of the Confederate White House during the war. Though When the Civil War broke out, the Van Lews brought food, medicine the story has been difficult to document, Bowser’s willingness to risk and books to Union soldiers at nearby Libby Prison. Elizabeth her life as part of the Richmond underground is certain. conveyed messages between the prisoners and Union officials and helped prisoners escape. To do this, she relied on an informal network Details of Bowser’s life after the war are unknown.

Antonia Ford, Confederate Spy Born to a wealthy Virginia family, Antonia Ford was 23 when she Ford was soon arrested. While being held, she was found with provided military intelligence to Confederate cavalry general J.E.B. smuggled papers. Stuart. Ford gathered information from Union soldiers who occupied her hometown of Fairfax Court House, which was halfway between After several months at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C., Washington, D.C. and Manassas, Virginia. In October 1861, Stuart Ford was released due to the petitioning of Union major Joseph C. rewarded Ford with a written honorary commission as aide-de-camp Willard—one of her captors. Willard resigned from the Union Army, and ordered that she “be obeyed, respected and admired.” and he and Ford married in March 1864; Ford took an oath of allegiance to the United States. In March 1863, Stuart’s commission was used against Ford when she was accused of spying for John Singleton Mosby. Mosby’s partisan The couple stayed in Washington, D.C. and had three children, but rangers had captured Union general Edwin H. Stoughton in his only one survived infancy. Their son, Joseph Edward Willard, later headquarters—one of the most famous cavalry raids of the war. The became lieutenant and United States ambassador Secret Service suspected Ford was involved in planning the attack in to Spain. part because Stoughton and Ford had spent time together. The Secret Service sent a female operative, pretending to be a Confederate Ford died on February 14, 1871, at the age of 33. Her husband never sympathizer, to meet with Ford, who showed her Stuart’s commission. remarried.