Belle Boyd, Part 1

I have always enjoyed reading about Belle Boyd, a cool Confederate spy. Maybe that's because she reminds me of my character, Isabella! Even though she was for the south, she led a very interesting life. But here is the start of a big long thing about her:

Belle Boyd, Cleopatra of the Secession
Belle Boyd played the role of spy as if the war were a lighthearted game of charades. And she lived as if she were fashioning her days into the plot of a romantic story. During her lifetime she could have read about herself in at least two historical novels, although neither did justice to her dashing exploits. The zestful Miss Boyd became an espionage agent when she was seventeen, and served the Confederacy throughout the war, in Dixie, the North, and England as well. She matched the boldness of any man, galloping headlong into the dark with cipher messages, or creeping into rooms to eavesdrop on Union Army conferences. On at least one occasion (when she could persuade none of the men to do it for her), she daringly entered battle lines to carry back important information. But Belle Boyd was above all overwhelmingly feminine; she made good use of her womanly appeal, of which she had an enormous amount. Unlike others who impersonated the inconspicuous female and made themselves up as a drab housewife or dowdy traveler, this spy played her own personality to the hilt, with a dramatic air and sweeping gestures, wearing rich reds and greens and feathers in her hat. Belle had a "joyous recklessness," as one reluctant admirer phrased it. She looked at men through her long lashes, assuring them that she had no intentions hostile to the North, while she stole whatever secrets were at hand and filched others practically from their pockets. Belle possessed at least one additional asset--perhaps the best pair of legs in the Confederacy. Even a lady must get in and out of a carriage or with a flurry of petticoats dismount from a home; at such times Miss Boyd showed a pretty confusion, and very fine ankles. Her actions were puzzling to her opponents, for at times she seemed cunning, at others naive. Always an individualist, she spied "by ear," after her own special fashion. Belle obviously did not believe in the virtues of silence, for what she thought, she generally said. Despite her failings, she proved a remarkably good agent. Belle Boyd loved the South passionately. After the war she said she had never "had a consciousness that I was a spy. I only wanted to help my people." Nevertheless, as Carl Sandburg has observed, she could have been "legally convicted and shot at sunrise on the basis of the evidence against her. Yet Belle had critics among Southerners themselves. She traveled alone, to the horror of more conventional women. A "brilliant talker," she conversed easily with anyone she met, and her lack of self-consciousness in the company of men was unusual in a woman of her class. She shocked her conservative friends by visiting camps, calling on generals and colonels in their tents, and accepting carriage rides in the warm afternoons. She even danced and flirted with Northerners as well as Southerners. When she bothered to defend herself, Belle said that it was necessary for her to be on good terms with both sides. Yet, there was no doubt that Miss Belle liked the boys in blue as well as those in gray. And she obviously liked spying; she performed her duty to the South and had a nice time, too. She could always rely on a hidden weapon--male gallantry. When Federal commanders discovered that she had given information to the South that might wreck their plans, she would look sad, speak half gaily, half pathetically, and Northern chivalry would prove as strong as Southern; they would release her. Before she reached twenty-one this Virginian had been imprisoned twice, "reported" nearly thirty times, and arrested six or seven. In one romantic feat she persuaded her Northern captor to marry her and switch sides. Nearly everybody liked Belle or enjoyed hearing about her. In Piccadilly, English crowds hailed her as if she were a Sir Walter Scott heroine. French newspapers termed her "La Belle Rebelle." It can be surmised that she approved the title...

This thing is quite long, so I will post it all in peices. Sorry!


Source: "Spies For the Blue and Gray" by Harnett T. Kane