“Extry—a Herald!”: Linden, Voices from the Gathering Storm, 197.
“hates the Yankees”: Chesnut, Diary from Dixie, 48.
“domestic insurrection”: Jones, Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, 12.
“Down with the Old Flag!”: Brock Putnam, Richmond During the War, 18.
“many a bitter experience”: Sandburg, Lincoln: The War Years, 3:253.
backing up orders with violence: Harper, Women During the Civil War, 341.
“It merely looks unbecoming”: Heidler, Heidler, and Coles, Encyclopedia of the American Civil War, 2143.
“Wear these, or volunteer”: Ibid.
“the fastest girl in Virginia”: Sperry Papers, 72.
fifteen thousand of them: There were 14,344 men in the Department of Pennsylvania, but only 3,500 made it across the river to fight at Falling Waters before the Confederates withdrew. US War Department, The War of the Rebellion: Official Records (hereafter cited as OR): ser. 1, 2:187; Gary Gimbel, “The End of Innocence: The Battle of Falling Waters,” Blue & Gray, Fall 2005.
a few as young as thirteen: Wiley, Life of Billy Yank, 299.
“romantic spot”: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 63.
four cannon and 380 boys of his own: Harper’s Weekly, July 20, 1861; OR, ser. 1, 2:187. Colonel Thomas Jackson (he was not yet a general nor nicknamed “Stonewall”) reported that 380 men engaged at the battle. In most instances, for the sake of simplicity, I use “General” regardless of a character’s specific rank at the time.
twenty-one wounded and three Yankee dead: Gary Gimbel, president of the Falling Waters Battlefield Association, e-mail to author, October 2011. These numbers differ from both the Union and the Confederate official reports. “The object of North and South,” Gimbel explains, “was to both raise the morale at home by exaggerating the damage to the enemy and by overstating the size of the opposing forces to hopefully receive more support in men and material.”
enlisted as a private in Company D: Muster roll record for Benjamin Reed Boyd, 2nd Regiment Virginia Infantry, May 11, 1861.
a general sadness and depression: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 59.
voted three to one against secession: Phillips, “Transfer,” 16–17; Keith Hammersla, director of information services at Martinsburg Public Library, e-mail to author, November 2011.
five for the Confederacy and two for the Union: West Virginia Public Affairs Reporter (Bureau for Government Research, West Virginia University) 19, no. 4, Fall 2002, 7.
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.
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.
“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 Rose 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.
“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.
“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.
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.
“left no stain”: Ibid.
“insult and outrage”: Ibid., 73.
Washington was still practicing appeasement: Sigaud, Belle Boyd, 16.
“plucky girl” and “do it again”: Coffin, Stories of Our Soldiers, 47.
any soldier who insulted a lady: Boston Post, July 15, 1861.
“The old ass thinks he can starve us out”: Richmond Dispatch, May 18, 1861.
Merchants reopened for business: Berkeley County Historical Society. “Martinsburg, West Virginia,” 10–11. Gold and silver were scarce by 1862.
“thronged the streets in perfect security”: New York Times, July 6, 1861.
They operated on varying levels of importance and authenticity: Gaddy, e-mail, June 2013.
“did a little spying”: Bakeless, Spies of the Confederacy, 130.
slipping questions between the pauses: Belle left no record of the exact questions she posed to her guards, but on July 5 a Martinsburg correspondent reported a rumor that McClellan’s column was “two days’ march from us”; New York Times, July 6, 1861.
although she kept the pistol that killed him: New York Times, July 20, 1862.
lettres de cachet: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 78.
“lovely girl” named Sophia B.: Ibid.
“a loud, coarse laugh”: Sigaud, Belle Boyd, 100; Sandburg, Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years, 504.
She summoned the bravery: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 77.
Ward Hill Lamon . . . had intervened on her behalf: Sigaud, Belle Boyd, 19. If President Lincoln intervened, it would have been at Lamon’s behest.
“Thank you, gentlemen of the jury”: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 78.
“My little ‘rebel’ heart”: Ibid.
“Miss D. was a lovely”: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 91.
“intrepidity and devotion”: Ibid., 92.
Her first cousin . . . was a spy himself: Louis Sigaud, “William Boyd Compton, Belle Boyd’s Cousin,” Lincoln Herald 67 (Spring 1963): 22–23.
“at home on a horse’s back”; “a good deal of boy myself”: Coffin, Stories of Our Soldiers, 44.
where Confederate soldiers engraved their names: Miller, Kartcher Caverns, 24.
She even trained her beloved horse: Sigaud, Belle Boyd, 25.
she began riding as a courier: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 83.
expected to deliver it orally: Gaddy, e-mail, March 2013.
the challenge being “Stonewall”: Ibid.
“We have the same old signal”: Reid Hanger, Diary, October 20, 1861.
one, a boy exactly her age: Clarksville (TX) Standard, July 27, 1861.
“Where are you going?”: Coffin, Stories of Our Soldiers, 49.
exchanges detailing a coordinated effort: OR, September 7, 1861, ser. 1, 5:587.
“I have no papers”: Dialogue from Coffin, Stories of Our Soldiers, 49.
“One case I can never forget”: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 46.
“simply eyes, ears, hands”: Ibid., 58.
“I was not in the habit”: Ibid., 60.
its most depressing form: Ibid., 55.
Greeley removed the “Forward to Richmond!” banner: Foote, Fort Sumter to Perryville, 85.
“On every brow sits sullen”: Ward, Burns, and Burns, Civil War, 60–61.
“grace and dignity”: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 61.
“hatred of male tyranny”: Fort Scott Monitor, January 17, 1884.
able to bend a quarter: Ward, Burns, and Burns, Civil War, 61.
“By some strange operation of magic”: Eicher, Longest Night, 101.
“The army under McClellan began to assume”: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 61.
“perfect pandemonium”: McClellan’s Own Story, 67.
all work would be suspended on the Sabbath: Vermont Journal (Windsor, VT), September 14, 1861; New York Times, September 8, 1861.
“utmost decorum and quiety”: Vermont Journal, September 14, 1861.
splendid: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 61.
watching the festivities from a carriage: Ward, Burns, and Burns, Civil War, 61.
“They received him with loud shouts”: Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 8:133.
“Under the auspices of the ‘Young General’”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 35.
infested by maggots and weevils: Billings, Hardtack and Coffee, 115.
“the President is nothing more than a well-meaning baboon”: quoted in McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 364; Sears, Young Napoleon, 132.
“If the men pursue the enemy”: Haydon, For Country, Cause and Leader, 4.
she could be arrested for prostitution: Blanton and Cook, They Fought Like Demons, 124. Commanding officers were likely to have feared censure from superiors for allowing a woman to serve.
“one of the inmates of a disreputable house”: Ibid.
“implacable enemy” of her sex: Fort Scott Monitor, January 17, 1884.
“going down the line”: Wright, City Under Siege, 129.
names of brothels: Lowry, Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell, 63–64.
An estimated fifteen thousand black, white, and mulatto streetwalkers: Furgurson, Freedom Rising, 207.
“handle a gun”: Lowry, Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell, 24.
“truly wife-like in their tented seclusion”: Wiley, Life of Johnny Reb, 52.
“Almost all the women are given to whoredom”: Clinton, Public Women and the Confederacy, 18.
“Oh, how my heart has ached”: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 64.
“was in the habit of eating rebels”: Dannett, She Rode with the Generals, 209.
“cow-bell dodge”: New York Times, September 25, 1861.
trading tobacco and newspapers and buttons from their coats: Philadelphia Inquirer, October 21, 1861.
Munson’s Hill: Charleston Daily Courier, September 23, 1861.
With Emma leading the way: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 62.
offal rotting three feet deep: Leech, Reveille in Washington, 102.
whole situation amusing: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 39.
every movement and act: “H” to Rose Greenhow, Greenhow seized correspondence.
“The Southern women of Washington”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 39.
“Ape” Lincoln: Tagg, Unpopular Mr. Lincoln, 73.
“touching simplicity”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 49.
“a short, broad, flat figure”: Ibid., 201.
gaudy flowers: Ibid., 202.
“I don’t think”: Ibid., 202.
“It gives a quaint look”: Chesnut, Diary from Dixie, 167.
$40,000, likely in donations from private citizens: Tidwell, April ’65, 60.
three gunshots from the provost marshal’s office: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 37.
“thereby creating still greater confusion”: Ibid., 38.
“expects to surprise you”: These letters were pieced together from fragments after Rose’s arrest. Proceedings of the Commission Relating to State Prisoners, Records of the Department of State, RG 59, E962, National Archives.
“Tonight, unless Providence has put its foot”: “H” to Rose O’Neal Greenhow, Greenhow, seized correspondence.
“information on the movements”: Mortimer, Double Death, 36.
“Chief of the United States Secret Service”: Fishel, Secret War for the Union, 54.
“In operating with my detective force”: Pinkerton, Spy of the Rebellion, 247.
“a sort of synonym for ‘detective’”: Ibid., 156.
“bland gentleman with distinguished black whiskers”: Taft Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father, 139–40.
“What’s wrong with Mrs. Greenhow?”: Ibid.
“Very well”: Ibid.
“That is treason”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 29.
“My remarks were addressed”: Ibid.
“Madam, if he insults”: Ibid., 30.
“Oh, never mind”: Ibid.
“beware”: Ibid.
“McClellan is vigilant”: Proceedings of the Commission Relating to State Prisoners.
“his manner of polishing”: Waugh and Greenberg, Women’s War in the South, 37.
“Lt. Col. Jordan’s compliments”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 55.
she showed it to Senator Wilson: Ibid.
“McClellan is very active”: Proceedings of the Commission Relating to State Prisoners.
“an occasional and useful visitor to my house”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 38.
The Confederate States of America had established a Post Office Department: Wright, e-mail, December 2011.
“McClellan’s excessive vigilance”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 38.
“always very sorry that no opportunity”: Ibid.
“Do not talk with anyone about news”: Proceedings of the Commission Relating to State Prisoners.
a customary closing among the betrothed: Gaskell, Compendium of Forms, 233.
“I was slow to credit”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 40.
She began urging secessionist friends: Ibid., 57.
fastening a pearl-and-ivory tablet: Martha Elizabeth Wright Morris, “Memories,” diary, Wright Morris Papers.
background on Calvin Huson: Albany Evening Journal, October 19, 1861; Philadelphia Inquirer, October 19, 1861; US Census, 1860.
“aid and comfort” to a “Black Republican enemy”: Ely, Journal, 166.
enemas consisting of oil of turpentine: Beach, American Practice of Medicine, 402.
In tears, she told Congressman Alfred Ely: Ely, Journal, 166.
“You dare to show sympathy”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
moved into her home: Ibid.
Salt, which used to sell: Coulter, Confederate States of America, 220.
placed ads seeking hunting dogs: Ibid.
stamped with figures of lions: John Albree notes, Box 1, Folder 6, Elizabeth Van Lew Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William & Mary.
“not a man of much intellect”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
“I would give my right arm”: Ibid.
background on Mary Carter West Van Lew: Hall, e-mail, October 2011.
“niggers”: Hall, e-mail, March 2013.
“The Negroes have black faces”: Albree notes, Elizabeth Van Lew Papers, College of William & Mary.
which had been built: Hall, e-mail, March 2013.
Mary Jane had married another Van Lew servant: Varon, Southern Lady, Yankee Spy, 166.
They began sleeping in separate chambers: Hall, e-mail, March 2013.
the escape of eleven prisoners: Gibbs to Winder, September 7, 1861, OR, ser. 2, 3:718.
usually horse or mule meat: Speer, Portals to Hell, 125.
“I should have perished for want”: Testimony of Lewis Francis, US Congress, Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 477–78.
“The custard was very nice”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal”; Wheelan, Libby Prison Breakout, 87.
“God help us”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
somehow slipped past their guards: Norwich (CT) Morning Bulletin, August 29, 1861.
several soldiers from New York: New London (CT) Daily Chronicle, October 12, 1861.
distinguished by a bit of red ribbon: San Francisco Bulletin, October 11, 1861.
the secret room: Albree notes, Elizabeth Van Lew Papers, College of William & Mary.
“dread and fear the Yankee”: Brock Putnam, Richmond During the War, 102.
he could leave Church Hill and work: Hall, e-mail, March 2013.
an ad in the Richmond Dispatch: Richmond Dispatch, August 14, 1861.
“get suitable servants”: Silber, Landmarks of the Civil War, 38.
Mary Jane was highly educated: Historians have long debated the role Mary Jane Richards/Mary Jane Bowser (often called Mary Elizabeth Bower) played in Elizabeth Van Lew’s espionage ring. In 1910 Elizabeth’s niece, Annie Randolph Van Lew Hall, gave an interview in which she named Bowser and described her as a “favorite” servant of the Van Lews. During the war, she said, “Mary sort of disappeared” from the Van Lews’ home, a disappearance that coincided with her employment at the Confederate White House. Bart Hall, Annie’s great-grandson, told me that he heard about Mary Bowser from his grandfather (Annie’s son), an army captain during World War I: “Because of my grandfather’s interest in intelligence, his mother [Annie, then in her early seventies] conveyed to him the information [about the ring] she had learned from her aunt when visiting her in Richmond in the 1880s and early 1890s.” In 1867 Reverend Crammond Kennedy, the secretary for the American Freedmen Union Commission, wrote in the American Freedman that Bowser, “while appearing as a slave, was in the secret service of the U.S. She could write a romance from her experience in that employment.” In an 1867 letter to a Freedman’s Bureau official, Bowser herself wrote of “having been in the service . . . as a detective”; John Reynolds interview with Annie Hall, William Gilmore Beyer Papers, UTA; Hall, e-mail, November 2011; Mary Richards to G. L. Eberhardt, April 4, 1867, Frank Wuttge Jr. Research Files, Schomburg Center, New York Public Library. For a discussion of Mary Bowser’s identity and various aliases, see Varon, Southern Lady, Yankee Spy, 165–68. I use “Mary Jane” in the text to distinguish her from Mary Van Lew, Elizabeth’s sister-in-law.
three of his best detectives: Mortimer, Double Death, 103.
Pinkerton strolled its perimeter: Scene of the stakeout based on Pinkerton, Spy of the Rebellion, 253–66.
he flipped the slats of the blinds until the parlor: Ibid., 256. Rose’s home probably had operable louver bifold shutters, which were popular with the middle class by the mid-nineteenth century. Wright, e-mail, September 2011.
Captain John Elwood: Rose’s visitor was most likely Captain Elwood, Fifth Infantry. Pinkerton uses a pseudonym, “Captain Ellison,” in his memoir Spy of the Rebellion. Bakeless, Spies of the Confederacy, 39; Van Doren Stern, Secret Missions, 61; Louis A. Sigaud, “Mrs. Greenhow and the Rebel Spy Ring,” Maryland Historical Magazine 41–42 (1946): 177.
In reality the Confederate troops numbered: McPherson, Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom, 296.
“by the sound of gongs”: Sears, Young Napoleon, 164.
“the panic is great”: Proceedings of the Commission Relating to State Prisoners.
plum-sized swellings: Lowry, Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell, 104.
“black wash”: Bumstead, Pathology and Treatment of Venereal Diseases, 418.
“Wash as fast as you can”: Marten, Civil War America, 116–17.
“plain-looking” and modestly dressed: Brown, Dorothea Dix, 303.
“To me, nothing in the whole of human actions”: Jerome Robbins, journal, Robbins Papers.
“I felt as if an angel had touched me”: Fort Scott Monitor, January 27, 1884.
“had no higher ambition”: Ibid.
“In our family the women were not sheltered”: Ibid.
“I had a very pleasant conversation”: Robbins, journal.
“if there were instances of it in the Bible”: Dannett, She Rode with the Generals, 20.
“I visited my friend Thompson this evening”: Robbins, journal.
“a pretty little girl”: Fort Scott Monitor, January 27, 1884.
“I arose greatly refreshed”: Robbins, journal.
“I revere as a blessing”: Ibid.
“I can do it all”: Sears, Young Napoleon, 125.
“a delicious morsel for our thirsty souls”: Robbins, journal.
“My time is greatly eased”: Ibid.
“the only young lady correspondent”: Ibid.
told Jerome she didn’t feel well: Ibid.
The want-ad columns in newspapers: Van Doren Stern, Secret Missions, 318.
A Doctor Line: Hartzler, Marylanders in the Confederacy, 52.
A Postmaster Line: Hastedt, Spies, Wiretaps, 193.
met at the home of a Mrs. Jack Taylor: Bush, Louisville and the Civil War, 77.
The proprietor of a nearby boardinghouse: Ibid.
“could take hints quickly”: Pavlovsky, “Riding in Circles,” 272.
she reached into her purse and produced a white dog skin: Atlanta Constitution, October 10, 1919.
“Some of the old and ugly ladies”: George Cadman to Esther Cadman, May 24, 1862, Cadman Papers.
“Some of the boys met the woman Belle Boyd”: Marvin, Fifth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers, 144–45.
At other times she wore a rebel soldier’s belt: New York Tribune, June 4, 1862.
she could recite the names of every general: Ibid.
seized twenty-one thousand bushels of wheat: Long and Long, Civil War Day by Day, entry for October 16, 1861.
“My dear Beauty”: A copy of this note, in Belle’s handwriting, belonged to Sue Stribling Snodgrass, a longtime Martinsburg resident whose sisters were Belle’s childhood playmates. Sue’s great-granddaughter, Lyn Snodgrass, kindly shared the note with me.
One day the 28th Pennsylvania: Bates, History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 419.
“I had been confiscating and concealing”: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 77.
Some merchants accepted sewing pins: Wright, e-mail, December 2013.
newspapers printed suggestions for ersatz brews: Augusta (GA) Daily Chronicle & Sentinel, August 25, 1861.
Powers Weightman and Rosengarten Sons: Flannery, Civil War Pharmacy, 99–100.
A farmer named Thomas A. Jones: Taylor, Signal and Secret Service, 20.
some of them conducted by nine-year-old Robert Fitzgerald: Guardian, September 18, 2007.
Some male agents used an acorn-shaped brass contraption: Cathy Wright told me that a visitor brought in this “anal acorn,” which had belonged to her Civil War veteran ancestor.
One woman managed to conceal: Pryor, Reminiscences, 223.
Another found a functioning pistol: Royce, Genteel Spy, 41–42.
Mothers packed quinine in sacks of oiled silk: The American Civil War Museum owns two such dolls.
offering to deliver letters to Richmond for $3 each: Newark Daily Advertiser, July 30, 1862.
“as grand a flirt as ever lived”: Hassler, Colonel John Pelham, 53.
The army was experiencing daily desertions: Harrisburg Patriot, November 14, 1861.
Alcohol was at times rationed out to the men: Hambucken and Payson, Confederate Soldier, 63.
Beauregard served special guests: Williams, P. G. T. Beauregard, 99.
“bloody fracas”: Leavenworth (KS) Daily Times, November 23, 1861.
more than twice the number of casualties: New York Times, November 24, 1861.
“by no means a person of sharp”: Washington Evening Star, December 4, 1862.
the widow shared Rose’s secessionist sympathies: National Aegis, December 13, 1862.
At least, she thought, she would enjoy even greater access: Greenhow, seized correspondence.
“A number of prominent gentlemen”: E. J. Allen (Pinkerton) to Brigadier General Porter, November 1861, OR, ser. 2, 5:566–69.
“Tell me what to send you”: Greenhow, seized correspondence.
“a distinguished member of the diplomatic corps”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 53.
“Those men will probably arrest me”: Ibid.
“The fate of some of the best and bravest”: Ibid., 54–55.
“a German Jew”: Ibid., 203.
“Is this Mrs. Greenhow?”: Ibid., 54.
“I have no power”: Ibid.
“That would have been wrong”: Ibid.
“Mother has been arrested!”: Taft Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father, 62.
“Take charge of this lady”: Mortimer, Double Death, 105.
unlettered scribblings: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 56.
concerning his “feebleness”: Greenhow, seized correspondence.
“Wants to see Mrs. G very much”: Ibid.
“a beautiful woman”: Mortimer, Double Death, 105.
“winning way”: Ibid.
“If I had known who you were”: Ibid.
“The revolver has to be cocked”: Ibid.
“one of those India rubber dolls”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 62.
“I began to realize”: Ibid., 65.
“I did not know what they had done”: Ibid., 58.
“slaves of Lincoln”: Mortimer, Double Death, 106.
“nice times”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 65.
house on fire: Ibid., 66.
beneath her mattress: Ibid., 68.
“allowed the clue to escape them”: Ibid., 77.
“so noble a lady”: Ibid., 70.
“I led Pat a dance”: Ibid., 71.
“sublime fortitude”: Ibid.
“know that you had forgiven me”: Ibid.
“Little Bird”: Ibid., 110. Family members later suspected the intermediary Rose called “Little Bird” to be Little Rose; Blackman, Wild Rose, 194.
invariably peering inside: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 72.
to send an armada: Ibid., 110.
known derisively as the Mosquito Fleet: Wright, e-mail, June 2011.
“Tell Aunt Sally that I have some old shoes”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 92.
“for a clever woman”: Ibid.
“artillery is constant and severe”: Proceedings of the Commission Relating to State Prisoners.
“I have signals”: Ibid.
corresponding with the enemy: Blackman, Wild Rose, 193.
“complimented as being equal to”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 81.
after taking an oath of allegiance: William H. Seward to Col. Martin Burke, OR, ser. 2, 2:597.
“fashionable woman spies”: McCurry, Confederate Reckoning, 100.
“The ‘heavy business’ in the war of spying”: Albany Evening Journal, October 5, 1861.
calls to condemn her to the ducking stool: Weekly Wisconsin Patriot, September 7, 1861.
“Let it come”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 96.
“I felt now that I was alone”: Ibid., 101.
“she had had too much of my teachings”: Ibid., 134.
“Your whole bankrupt treasury”: Ibid., 83.
“beyond a woman’s ken”: Ibid., 120.
“cruel and dastardly tyranny”: Wallenstein and Wyatt-Brown, Virginia’s Civil War, 126.
“almost irresistible seductive powers”: E. J. Allen (Pinkerton) to Brig. Gen. Andrew Porter, OR, ser. 2, 2:567.
“I crushed down the impulse”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 166.
“a party well known to the government”: Ibid., 210.
“But the doctor must be consulted”: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 60.
“a mixture of awful consternation”: Walt Whitman’s Civil War, 25.
“brilliant beyond description”: Lesser, Rebels at the Gate, 239.
“For God’s sake heed this”: Jordan to Beauregard, OR, ser. 1, 5:1038.
“No living man ever made such a desperate effort”: Ibid.
Mary Todd Lincoln had donated all unsolicited gifts: Harvey Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln, 186.
“Nothing is so hideous”: Richmond Dispatch, August 14, 1861.
John and Elizabeth refused to entrust their education: Hall, e-mail, April 2013.
“If one Confederate soldier kills 90 Yankees”: Wiley, Life of Johnny Reb, 123.
“I will try to do the best I can by her”: Varon, Southern Lady, Yankee Spy, 30.
first-class cabin instead of steerage: Ibid. Elizabeth’s request was not honored.
“perambulating the streets”: Ibid.
earned $137 per year: Lebergott, “Wage Trends, 1800–1900,” 453.
“trumpery”: Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis, 576.
Every evening before bed: Allen, Jefferson Davis, 292.
dark skin and “tawny” looks: Richmond Dispatch, December 11, 1861.
calling her a mulatto and a “squaw”: Cashin, First Lady of the Confederacy, 119.
most men “dressed right”: Wright, e-mail, June 2013.
“half-breed Yankee on one side”: Cashin, First Lady of the Confederacy, 299.
“harbinger of gladness in the future”: Richmond Whig, December 2, 1861.
how fortunate that her injuries weren’t grave: Richmond Enquirer, October 5, 1861.
“an excellent house servant”: Dorothy Lewis Grant, “Lady of Refinement,” Torch Magazine, Spring 1997, 23. Van Lew’s descendant Bart Hall suggests that Elizabeth didn’t place Mary Jane in the Confederate White House with the specific intention of conducting espionage, and that her servant’s role as a spy evolved over time. Considering that Rose Greenhow and female spies in general were national news at the time Elizabeth visited Varina Davis, I believe Mary Jane’s placement was intentional. In 1905, Varina Davis wrote a letter to Isabelle Maury, regent of the Confederate White House Museum, denying that she had ever employed “an educated negro woman whose services were ‘given or hired by Miss Van Lew’ as a spy in our house during the war. . . . My maid was an ignorant girl born and brought up on our plantation who, if she is living now, I am sure cannot read, and who would not have done anything to injure her master or me if even she had been educated. That Miss Van Lew may have been imposed upon by some educated negro women’s tales I am quite prepared to believe.” Eleanor S. Brockenbrough Library, American Civil War Museum.
Martinsburg’s law against traveling faster than at a canter: Wood, History of Martinsburg, 9.
busy building earthworks fortifications along its perimeter: New York Evening Post, January 2, 1862.
“She is quite a favorite with me”: Sigaud, “More About Belle Boyd,” 176.
“Not what I call a beauty”: James Webb Papers, #760, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.
She also had a brief romance with one Dr. Cherry: Susan Earle Glenn (Belle Boyd’s aunt) to “Nat,” January 10, 1962, Sigaud Papers.
“perils and its pleasures”: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 215.
serenades from a regimental brass band: Richmond Examiner, January 4, 1862.
“I am in great distress”: Hansen, Civil War, 174.
“I beg your pardon”: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 84–86. Most Union forces in the vicinity of Martinsburg were in Hancock, about twenty-five miles away and too far for the purposes of Belle’s story. It is possible, however, that a Union cavalry unit had sent out patrols, pickets, and scouts, extending its actions and awareness in that general area, and that Belle had come into contact with some of those officers. Gaddy, e-mail, November 2013.
“If this Valley is lost”: Tanner, Stonewall in the Valley, 36.
blankets freezing: Selby, Stonewall Jackson, 232; Wright, e-mail, December 2013. Some of the luckier soldiers had waterproof sheets.
“when, all of a sudden”: Coffin, Stories of Our Soldiers, 47.
“sorrowfully upon me”: Boyd, In Camp and Prison, 272.
“I was dumb or I should have spoken”: Ibid.
“‘It is time for us to go’”: Ibid.
more scarecrow than human: Commire, Historic World Leaders, 376.
His horse, Fancy: Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, 230.
rode him with his feet drawn up: Ibid., 300.
“O my god!”: Greene, Wherever You Resolve to Be, 88.
“out of balance”: Davis, Civil War, 126.
A partial deafness in one ear: James I. Robertson Jr., “Stonewall in the Shenandoah: The Valley Campaign of 1862,” Civil War Times Illustrated, May 1972, 4–49.
he self-medicated with a variety of concoctions: Robertson, Stonewall Jackson, 85.
“My afflictions”: Ibid., 90.
Twice a day, rain or shine: Addey, Stonewall Jackson, 233–34; Corsan, Two Months in the Confederate States, 101.
“my little dove”: Ward, Burns, and Burns, Civil War, 115.
“He would have a man shot”: Ibid.
“Very commendable”: Ibid., 234.
“Really, ladies”: Chase, Story of Stonewall Jackson, 442; Hall, Patriots in Disguise, 101. There is a record of such an incident with Stonewall Jackson at Ramer’s Hotel in Martinsburg on September 11, 1862. The diary of Susan Nourse Riddle, of Martinsburg, Virginia, includes the following entry: “September 11 (1862)—I had scarcely gotten home with a dreadful headache when the Rebels began to come in, and before dinner the whole army was here. The girls all went to see General Jackson at Mr. Ramer’s and stripped his coat of its buttons.” Belle Boyd specified that her first meeting with Jackson occurred before First Manassas, when he was still a colonel and not yet known as “Stonewall.” Either there were two separate such incidents, or Belle incorrectly recalled the timing of her encounter. Thanks to Keith Hammersla, director of information services at the Martinsburg Public Library, for sending the Riddle diary excerpt.
“won’t you give me a button?”: Coffin, Stories of Our Soldiers, 47.
“He did not look old”: Ibid.
She yanked the cake from the platter: Boston Daily Adviser, January 3, 1862.
“I trust that in the future”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 206.
real means of communication: Ibid., 216.
“same strange fancy of the eye”: Ibid., 207.
barred with wood latticing: Davis, “‘Old Capitol,’” 206–34.
a farm called Conclusion: Blackman, Wild Rose, 59.
the final e was dropped from the family name: Ross, Rebel Rose, 3.
a particular taste for: Blackman, Wild Rose, 60.
thrown from his horse and lying on the ground: Ibid., 61.
the “extra” ones: Ibid., 68.
occasional lessons in a classroom: Tidwell, April ’65, 58.
“She was a celebrated belle and beauty”: Blackman, Wild Rose, 72.
“kindest and best friend”: Calhoun, Papers, 26:366.
“short, ugly, and slovenly in his dress”: Davis, “‘Old Capitol,’” 211.
“You have one of the hardest little rebels here”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 207.
“Rose, you must be careful”: Ibid.
“dirty enough”: Ibid., 213.
located across the prison yard: James I. Robertson Jr., “Prison for the Capital City,” UDC Magazine, August 1990, 18–19.
“she will fool you out of your eyes”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 214.
“not to shoot the damned Secesh woman”: Ibid., 218.
“Massa Lincoln”: Ibid., 220.
“The tramping and screaming”: Ibid., 222.
“indomitable rebel”: Ibid., 230.
“Oh Mamma, never fear”: Ibid., 216.
“Oh Mamma, the bed hurts”: Ibid., 222.
“To-day the dinner for myself and child”: Ibid., 217.
“round chubby face, radiant with health”: Ross, Rebel Rose, 171.
one of every seven Confederates serving in northern Virginia had contracted measles: McArthur, Burton, and Griffin, A Gentleman and an Officer, 54.
“unless it be the intention of your Government”: Greenhow, My Imprisonment, 244.
“Cyclops”: Ibid., 260.
“I command you to go out” to “It was farcical in the extreme”: Ibid., 245–46.
an involuntary jerking of the head: William Preston Johnson wrote to his wife that Greenhow “looked nervous and careworn. . . . Her eyes have a dim and somewhat faded look . . . and her head has a jerking motion, which the President says was not her manner, before her imprisonment.” Papers of Jefferson Davis, 8:245.
“vivacity is considerably reduced”: New York Times, April 15, 1862.
pried loose a plank in the floor: Beymer, On Hazardous Service, 158.
“as a soldier, Frank Thompson was effeminate looking”: Edmonds, pension file.
“The mail was even more heartily received”: Dannett, She Rode with the Generals, 93.
“I will bring you now”: Sears, Young Napoleon, 166.
It would take three weeks: Ward, Burns, and Burns, Civil War, 95.
“stride of a giant”: Kagam and Hyslop, Eyewitness to the Civil War, 132.
“a fair specimen of Virginia mud”: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 75.
“black as midnight”: Ibid., 74.
“Why should blue eyes and golden hair”: Ibid., 73.
“rebel vixens of the slave states”: Ibid., 90.
which lasted up to two and a half years: Schroeder-Lein, Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine, 81.
“To what fortunate circumstance”: The scene between Emma and the “rebel vixen” is depicted in Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 90–94.
he had staged a performance of Othello: Settles, John Bankhead Magruder, 41.
a masterly display of special effects: Eicher, Longest Night, 216.
“making balloon reconnaissances”: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 90.
“It seems clear I have the whole force”: Sears, Young Napoleon, 178.
“I think you had better break”: McClellan’s Own Story, 265.
“The President very coolly telegraphed me”: Sandburg, Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years, 287.
“No one but McClellan”: Catton, This Hallowed Ground, 138.
“I know of a situation I could get”: Edmonds, Nurse and Spy, 105.
“The subject of life and death”: Ibid.
“I suffer a double death”: Richmond Examiner, April 30, 1862.
“designing men in this City”: W. S. Ashe to Jefferson Davis, February 28, 1862, Letters Received by the Confederate Secretary of War, 1861–1865, RG 109, National Archives.
the arrest of thirty suspected Northern sympathizers: Speer, Portals to Hell, 20.
“It is the universal conviction”: Richmond Examiner, March 4, 1862.
“If you are going to imprison”: Ibid., March 3, 1862.
disloyalty and giving aid: Mortimer, Double Death, 179.
“die like a man”: Pinkerton, Spy of the Rebellion, 552.
“poor agonized creature”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
“desperate brigand looking villain”: Ibid.
winning three matches against full-grown bears: Speer, Portals to Hell, 94.
“The body of Webster has been brought back”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
oddly polite tone: Ibid.
was even picked as a juror: Richmond Whig, April 29, 1862.
a washer and ironer and a seamstress: Richmond Dispatch, August 7, 1862.
In an attempt to secure it further: Wheelan, Libby Prison Breakout, 32.
The place was overrun with vermin: Ibid., 45.
“sporting for Yankees”: Speer, Portals to Hell, 91.
“To ‘lose prisoners’ was an expression”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
“utter depravity”: Glazier, The Capture, 45.
kicking dying prisoners: Speer, Portals to Hell, 91.
threatened to shoot if he didn’t get up: Ibid.
“He never called the rolls”: Parker, Chatauqua Boy, 54–64.
She stationed two more of her bravest: Ibid.
he refused to allow her into Libby Prison: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
Most escapees had cut their blankets into thirds: Casstevens, George W. Alexander, 89.
“I think I’ll have a look”: Horan, Desperate Women, 134.
“You have been reported several times”: Van Lew, “Occasional Journal.”
“I wish to tell you something”: Ibid.
“Nothing of that sort”: Ibid.
“Let me board here”: Ibid.
“We have to be watchful and circumspect”: Ibid.
A few days later she saw the same man: Ibid.; Furgurson, Ashes of Glory, 246.