This Southern lady from Martinsburg, Virginia (later known as West Virginia) always spoke her mind and did as she desired, including riding horses and firing a gun with great precision. Belle Boyd was her public name but she was born Isabella Marie Boyd in 1844. At the young age of 17 and the start of America’s Civil War in 1861 she found herself thrust in the center of military camps and soldiers.
In Support of the Confederacy
It was July 1861, when drunken Union soldiers entered her parents’ home and tried to display a Union flag. When one of the soldiers pushed her mother, Mary Boyd, Isabella grabbed a gun and shot the soldier dead. At an inquiry she was not charged with any crime as it was felt she was justified in her reaction. However military guards were posted by the house to watch her movements.
Isabelle got to know the guards very well, especially Union Capt. Daniel Keily who provide a good deal in military information to her. Being a strong Confederate supporter she had slave, Eliza Hopewell, deliver the messages to Confederate officials. The written messages were placed in a watch case that Eliza carried. The first message was discovered by the Union officials and so was Isabella. But she was not imprisoned or punished for this spying activity, just warned not to do it again.
Making Espionage Almost Honorable
She not only continued with her messages in code form but delivered needed medical supplies and confiscating weapons from Union soldiers. Isabelle had a natural gift to charm men using her womanly wiles. Most would do and say anything to her just by her merely requesting. At five foot five inches tall in height with hair of a reddish golden color and her fantastic personality Isabelle made espionage almost honorable.
In mid-May 1862, Isabelle eavesdropped at her father’s hotel in Fort Royal on a conversation with Union General James Shields about troop movements out of Fort Royal. She rode that night through Union lines to Col. Turner Ashley to give him the news. By May 23rd the Confederate troops marched on Fort Royal and Isabella was there to greet General Stonewall Jackson and his troops. She was given the Southern Cross of Honor for her work. General Jackson also gave her an honorary aide-in-camp position. Messages also sent to J.E. B. Stuart. Her skills of riding horses and handling a gun served her well as she continued dispatching messages to Ashley, Jackson and J. E. B. Stuart using her favorite name ‘Belle Boyd’.
By July 29, 1862, Union Capt. Daniel Keily turned her in as a spy and she was arrested. This time she was taken to Washington, D. C. and placed in the Old Capital Prison. After a month of inquires she was released on August 29, 1862. Isabelle continued her special missions when in June 1863 she was arrested a 3rd time. She was soon released due to her suffering from typhoid fever.
Banished from the United States But Married to a Union Officer
In the new year of 1864, she was attempting to transport military messages while on board a blockade runner ship. She was captured and this time banish by President Lincoln in early 1864 to England. Her guard was Union naval officer, Samuel Wylde Hardinge, whom she easily converted to the Confederate cause. Isabelle was sent onto England and Samuel Hardinge was dishonorable discharged. He joined Isabelle in England and they married in August 1864. They had daughter, Grace Hardinge born in England about 1865. Samuel Hardinge returned to the United States to also work as a Confederate spy and died very shortly thereafter.
The Actress and Writer
As a widow and with the end of the Civil War, Isabelle began performing as an actress on the English stage especially in Manchester, England. She also wrote and published her memoir book, Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison, Publisher Blelock, in 1865, telling her experiences as a Confederate spy.
By 1869 she returned to the United States and married in March 1869 Col. John Swainston Hammond, a businessman in New Orleans. They had four children; Arthur Hammond (born 1870), Byrd Hammond (born 1874), Marie Hammond (born about 1878) and John E. Hammond (born 1881). They lived in several locations across the United States but did live several years in Dallas, Texas. After they divorced in November 1884, Isabelle quickly married an actor, Nathaniel Rue High in January 1885.
Touring the United States
A year later, in 1886, Belle Boyd began touring the country giving dramatic lectures of her life as a Civil War spy. As she recounted her Civil War escapades she wore a Confederate uniform many times. At one point after becoming very ill she was in an insane asylum in California. Once her health improved she was on tour again. She was very popular speaker with the GAR - Grand Army of the Republic conventions and gatherings.
While on tour on June 11, 1900, she died of a heart attack in Kilbourne City, Wisconsin. She was to speak to the Grand Army of the Republic there. Her death and life story was written up in numerous newspapers across the country from the New York Times to Fort Wayne Sentinel. She was buried in Wisconsin Dells at the Spring Grove Cemetery.
Belle Boyd was a remarkable woman, determined her whole life to do as she saw fit, no matter what the consequences, good or bad. She will truly always have the title a woman who mastered manipulation of males.
Sources:
Belle Boyd, Confederate Spy by Louis A. Sigaud; The Dietz Press, Incorporated, 1944.
Belle Boyd.- Siren of the South by Ruth Scarborough; Mercer University Press, 1983.
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