Isabella Maria Boyd (May 9, 1844The date in the Boyd Family Bible is May 4, 1844 (), but Boyd insisted that it was 1844 and that the entry was in error. () See also . Despite Boyd's assertion, many sources give the year of birth as 1844 and the date as May 10 (, ) – June 11, 1900), best known as Belle Boyd (and dubbed the Cleopatra of the Secession or Siren of the Shenandoah, and later the Confederate Mata Hari) was a Confederate spy in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. She operated from her father's hotel in

Front Royal Front Royal is the only incorporated town in Warren County, Virginia, United States. The population was 15,011 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Warren County. History The entire Shenandoah Valley including the area to become ...

, Virginia, and provided valuable information to Confederate General

Stonewall Jackson Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, considered one of the best-known Confederate commanders, after Robert E. Lee. He played a prominent role in nearl ...

in 1862.

Early life

Maria Isabella "Belle" Boyd was born on May 9, 1844, in

Martinsburg, Virginia Martinsburg is a city in and the seat of Berkeley County, West Virginia, in the tip of the state's Eastern Panhandle region in the lower Shenandoah Valley. Its population was 18,835 in the 2021 census estimate, making it the largest city in the ...

(now part of

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

). She was the eldest child of Benjamin Reed and Mary Rebecca (Glenn) Boyd. She described her childhood as idyllic. After some preliminary schooling in Martinsburg, she attended finishing school at the

Mount Washington Female College Mount Saint Agnes College was a Catholic women's college located in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. It opened in 1890 and was operated by the Sisters of Mercy. In 1971, Mount Saint Agnes merged with nearby Loyola College ...

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

in 1856 at age 12.

Southern spy

Boyd's espionage career began by chance. According to her highly fictionalized 1866 account, a band of Union army soldiers heard that she had Confederate flags in her room on July 4, 1861, and they came to investigate. They hung a Union flag outside her home. Then one of the men cursed at her mother, which enraged Boyd. She pulled out a pistol and shot the man, who died some hours later. A board of inquiry exonerated her of murder, but sentries were posted around the house and officers kept close track of her activities. She profited from this enforced familiarity, charming at least one of the officers whom she named in her memoir as Captain Daniel Keily, She wrote in her memoir that she was indebted to Keily "for some very remarkable effusions, some withered flowers, and a great deal of important information." She conveyed those secrets to Confederate officers via her

slave Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

Eliza Hopewell, who carried them in a hollowed-out watch case. Boyd was caught on her first attempt at spying and told that she could be sentenced to death. General James Shields and his staff gathered in the parlor of the local hotel in mid-May 1862. Boyd hid in the closet in the room, eavesdropping through a knothole that she enlarged in the door. She learned that Shields had been ordered east from Front Royal, Virginia. That night, she rode through Union lines, using false papers to bluff her way past the sentries, and reported the news to Colonel

Turner Ashby Turner Ashby Jr. (October 23, 1828 – June 6, 1862) was an American officer. He was a Confederate cavalry commander in the American Civil War. In his youth, he organized an informal cavalry company known as the Mountain Rangers, which beca ...

, who was scouting for the Confederates. She then returned to town. When the Confederates advanced on Front Royal on May 23, Boyd ran to greet

's men, avoiding enemy fire that put bullet holes in her skirt, as according to her memoir. She urged an officer to inform Jackson that "the Yankee force is very small ..Tell him to charge right down and he will catch them all." Jackson did and wrote a note of gratitude to her: "I thank you, for myself and for the army, for the immense service that you have rendered your country today." For her contributions, she was awarded the Southern Cross of Honor. Jackson also gave her captain and honorary aide-de-camp positions. Boyd was arrested at least six times but somehow evaded incarceration. By late July 1862, detective

Allan Pinkerton Allan J. Pinkerton (August 25, 1819 – July 1, 1884) was a Scottish cooper, abolitionist, detective, and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in the United States and his claim to have foiled a plot in 1861 to a ...

had assigned three men to work on her case. She was finally captured by Union officials on July 29, 1862, after her lover gave her up, and they brought her to the

Old Capitol Prison The Old Brick Capitol in Washington, D.C., served as the temporary Capitol of the United States from 1815 to 1819. The building was a private school, a boarding house, and, during the American Civil War, a prison known as the Old Capitol Priso ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

the next day. An inquiry was held on August 7, 1862, concerning violations of orders that Boyd be kept in close custody. She was held for a month before being released on August 29, 1862, when she was exchanged at Fort Monroe. She was arrested again in June 1863, but was released after contracting typhoid fever. In March 1864, Boyd attempted to travel to England, but she was intercepted by a Union blockade and sent to Canada where she met Union naval officer Samuel Wylde Hardinge. The two married in England. and had a daughter, Grace. Boyd became an actress in England after her husband's death to support her daughter. Following the death of her husband in 1866, she and her daughter returned to the United States. Boyd assumed the stage name Nina Benjamin to perform in several cities, eventually ending up in New Orleans where she married John Swainston Hammond in March 1869, a former British Army officer who fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. They had two sons and two daughters; their first son died as an infant. Boyd divorced Hammond in 1884 and married Nathaniel Rue High in 1885. She subsequently began touring the country giving dramatic lectures of her life as a Civil War spy.

Postwar years and death

Boyd published a highly fictionalized narrative of her war experiences in the two-volume ''Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison''. She died of a heart attack in Kilbourn City, Wisconsin ( Wisconsin Dells) on June 11, 1900, at age 56. She was buried in the Spring Grove Cemetery in Wisconsin Dells, with members of the

Grand Army of the Republic The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army (United States Army), Union Navy (U.S. Navy), and the Marines who served in the American Civil War. It was founded in 1866 in Decatur, Il ...

as her pallbearers. For years, her grave simply read: :BELLE BOYD :CONFEDERATE SPY :BORN IN VIRGINIA :DIED IN WISCONSIN :ERECTED BY A COMRADE

In popular culture

* Boyd's life inspired the silent film series ''

The Girl Spy ''The Girl Spy'' films are an American silent film series produced by Kalem and shot in Jacksonville, Florida. The films in the series were directed by Sidney Olcott and all starred American filmmaker and actress Gene Gauntier who was also the ...

''. * ''The Smiling Rebel'' is Harnett Kane's 1955 novel about Boyd. * Boyd is a main character in

Cherie Priest Cherie Priest (born July 30, 1975) is an American novelist and blogger living in Seattle, Washington. Biography Priest is a Florida native, born in Tampa in 1975. She graduated from Forest Lake Academy, a Seventh-day Adventist boarding school ...

's 2010 steampunk novel ''Clementine'' and its 2013 sequel ''Fiddlehead.'' * Boyd appears as a master-spy in the Firaxis computer game Civilization 4 ''Beyond The Sword''

References

External links

Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison. In Two Volumes. Vol. I.
London: Saunders, Otley, and Co., 1865.

London: Saunders, Otley, and Co., 1865.
Belle Boyd: Siren of the South By Ruth ScarboroughBelle Boyd in ''Encyclopedia Virginia'' Belle Boyd, Wisconsin Historical Society
Retrieved June 14, 2009 *Michals, Debra
"Belle Boyd"
National Women's History Museum. 2015. {{DEFAULTSORT:Boyd, Belle 1844 births 1900 deaths Actresses from West Virginia American Civil War spies 19th-century American memoirists American spies Burials in Wisconsin Female wartime spies People of West Virginia in the American Civil War People from Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin Women in the American Civil War Writers from Martinsburg, West Virginia American women memoirists 19th-century American women writers 19th-century American actresses American stage actresses People from Front Royal, Virginia