Isabella Maria Boyd (May 9, 1844 - June 11, 1900), best known as Belle Boyd , and Cleopatra of Secession and Siren from Shenandoah , is a Confederate spy in the American Civil War. He operated from his father's hotel in Front Royal, Virginia, and provided valuable information to Confederate General Stonewall Jackson in 1862.
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Isabella Maria Boyd was born on May 9, 1844, in Martinsburg, Virginia (now part of West Virginia). He is the eldest son of Benjamin Reed and Mary Rebecca (Glenn) Boyd. Boyd would describe his childhood as idyllic, live a care-free life, a reckless tomboy, who climbed trees, ran across the forest, and dominated brothers, sisters, and cousins. Although his family lacked money, Boyd received a good education. After several preliminary schools, he attended Mount Washington Female College in Baltimore, Maryland.
Maps Belle Boyd
Southern Spy
Boyd's espionage career started out by chance. According to his 1866 account, on July 4, 1861, a group of Union soldiers heard he had a Confederate flag in his room, and they came to investigate. They hung Union flags outside their homes. This made him quite angry, but when one of them cursed his mother, he was very angry. Boyd pulled out a gun and shot and killed the man. A board of investigators released him, but the guards were stationed around the house and the officers continued to monitor his activities. He benefited from this forced intimacy, capturing at least one of the officers, Captain Daniel Keily, "To him," he wrote later, "I am indebted to some amazing effusions, some withered flowers, and a lot of important information." Boyd conveys secrets -the secret to the Confederate officers through his slave, Eliza Hopewell, who carried the messages in a perforated watch box. In his first attempt to spy, he was caught and told he could be sentenced to death, but not. She is not afraid and realizes that she needs to find a way to communicate better.
One night in mid-May 1862, General of the Armed Forces James Shields and his staff gathered in the hotel's local living room. Boyd was hiding in the closet in his room, eavesdropping through a large, enlarged hole in the door. He knew that Shields had been ordered east of the Royal Front, Virginia. That night, Boyd climbed through Union lines, using fake documents to bluff past the guards, and reported the news to Colonel Turner Ashby, who was looking for Confederate members. He then returned to town. When the Confederates advanced on the Royal Front on May 23, Boyd ran to greet the Stonewall Jackson men, dodging enemy fire that put a bullet hole in his skirt. He urged an officer to inform Jackson that "the Yankees are very small, tell him to get down and he'll catch them all." Jackson did so and the evening wrote a thank-you note: "I thank you, for myself and for the army, for the wonderful service you have given your country today." For his contribution, he was awarded the Southern Cross of Honor. Jackson also gave the captain and aide-de-camp honorary aide position.
After her beloved surrender, Belle Boyd was arrested for the first time on July 29, 1862, and taken to the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C., the next day. The investigation was held on August 7, 1862, on violation of orders that Boyd was kept under close surveillance. Boyd was held for a month before being released on August 29, 1862, when he was exchanged at Fort Monroe. He was arrested again in June 1863, but was released after contracting typhoid fever.
In March 1864, he attempted to go to England, where he was intercepted by the Union blockade and sent to Canada. There he met Union naval officer Samuel Wylde Hardinge. The two then married in England. Both had one child, a daughter, and Boyd became an actress in England after the death of her husband to support her daughter. After the death of her husband in 1866, she returned to the United States on November 11, 1869. She married John Swainston Hammond in New Orleans. After the divorce in 1884, Boyd married Nathaniel Rue High in 1885. A year later, he began to tour the country by giving a dramatic lecture about his life as a Civil War spy.
Post-war years and death
Boyd published a very fictional narrative of his war experiences in a two-volume book entitled Bell Boyd in Camp and Prison. As he toured the United States (he went to the address of a GAR post member), he died of a heart attack in Kilbourn City (now known as Wisconsin Dells), Wisconsin, on June 11, 1900. He was 56 years old. She is buried at the Grove Grove Cemetery in Wisconsin Dell, with Local GAR members as bearers of her corpse. For years, his grave just read:
- BELLE BOYD
- CONFEDERATE SPY
- BIRTH IN VIRGINIA
- LEAVE AT WISCONSIN
- DELETED BY COMRADE
In pop culture
The Smiling Rebel is Harnett Kane's 1955 novel about Belle Boyd.
His hand full of bullets is an artefact displayed on the episode of Legends of the Hidden Temple .
The Shenandoah Spy, by Francis Hamit, a 2008 fact-based novel about the activities of Belle Boyd in 1861 and 1862 as spy and reconnaissance for Stonewall Jackson
Belle Boyd is the main character in the steampunk 2010 Cherie Priest Clementine .
He Will Not Give Up is the James Kendricks novel in 1960 for Monarch Books about Belle Boyd.
He appeared as a character in book 3 of James Reasoner's Civil War Series.
References
See also
- American Civil War spy
- Hattie Lawton
- Kate Warne
Further reading
- Abbott, Karen (2014). Liar, Temptress, Warrior, Spy: Four Women Undercover in Civil War . HarperCollins. ISBN: 9780062092892. OCLCÃ, 878667621. Ã,
- Without a talent, John. Confederate Spy. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1997.
- Boyd, Belle. Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison. New York: Blelock, 1867.
- Harnett Thomas Kane, The Smiling Rebel (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1955).
- Hay, Thomas Robson (1975). "Boyd, Belle". In James, Edward T.; et al. Famous American Women, 1607-1950: Biography dictionary . 1 . Cambridge. Massachusetts: Belnlknap Press from Harvard University Press. Ã,
- Sigaud, Louis A. (1944). Belle Boyd, Spy Confederation . Richmond, Virginia: Dietz Press. OCLCÃ, 425072.
External links
- Belle Boyd at Camp and Jail. In Two Volumes. Vol. I. London: Saunders, Otley, and Co., 1865.
- Belle Boyd at Camp and Jail. In Two Volumes. Vol. II. London: Saunders, Otley, and Co., 1865.
- Belle Boyd: Siren from the South By Ruth Scarborough
- Belle Boyd in Encyclopedia Virginia
- Belle Boyd, Wisconsin Historical Society
- Official Records Retrieved 14 June 2009
- Belle Boyd in the Search of the Mausoleum
- Michals, Debra. "Belle Boyd". National Women's History Museum. 2015.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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