Stealing Secrets: How a Few Daring Women Deceived Generals, Impacted Battles, and Altered the Course of the Civil War

327 Pages·2010·3.64 MB·English

by  H. Donald Winkler

Copyright © 2010 by H. Donald Winkler Cover and internal design © 2010 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
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www.sourcebooks.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Winkler, H. Donald Stealing secrets : how a few daring women deceived generals, impacted battles, and
altered the course of the civil war / by H. Donald Winkler.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Participation, Female. 2. United States—History—
Civil War, 1861-1865—Women. 3. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Secret service. 4.
United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Biography. 5. Women spies—United States—Biography.
6. Women spies—Confederate States of America—Biography. I. Title.

E628.W57 2010
973.7082—dc22

2010025638

Printed and bound in the United States of America.
VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my friend
Robert T. Redd,
a Virginia gentleman
and a beloved educator
For a spying enterprise that requires real finesse, a woman will be likely to
accomplish far more than a man. She is quicker-witted, less easily imposed
upon, and can more easily deceive other people.
—Loreta Velazquez, Confederate Spy
C
ONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Rebel Queen of Washington Spies: Rose Greenhow
2. Vanished without a Trace: Sarah Slater
3. “Singing as Sweetly as Ever”: Olivia Floyd
4. Grant’s Most Valuable Richmond Spy: Elizabeth Van Lew
5. The Spy Who Saved Ships: Elizabeth Baker
6. Double Trouble Sister Act: Ginnie and Lottie Moon
7. The Perils of Pauline: Pauline Cushman
8. The Heroine of Winchester: Rebecca Wright
9. A Glorious Consummation: Harriet Tubman
10. A Teenage Terrorist: Nancy Hart
11. “No Sacrifice Too Great”: Antonia Ford and Laura Ratcliffe
12. Mosby’s Merry Christmas: Roberta Pollock
13. A Secesh Cleopatra: Belle Boyd
14. The Clever Masquerader: Emma Edmonds
15. Trapped in a Sting Operation: Clara Judd
16. Sarah’s Deadly Revenge: Sarah Lane Thompson
17. Hired to Find Herself: Loreta Velazquez
18. Beyond the Call of Duty: More Heroines
19. Did She Die for Their Sins?: Mary Surratt
Selected Sources
About the Author
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Iam indebted to a number of individuals and institutions for hard-to-find
information about and photographs of several spies featured in this book.
The chapter on Antonia Ford and Laura Ratcliffe could not have been written
without the assistance of Karla and Charles W. Vernon III of Vienna, Virginia;
Susan Inskeep Gray, curator and visitor services manager for the Fairfax
Museum and Visitor Center; and Bill Etue, a Civil War tour guide. Mrs. Vernon
studied the life of Antonia Ford intensely for a year and coproduced the 2009
docudrama, “Spies in Crinoline.” She provided me with magazine articles and
news clippings, information from the Willard Family Papers at the Library of
Congress and from the City of Fairfax Historic Collection, and Civil War–era
photographs of Antonia Ford, Joseph Willard, the Willard Hotel, the original
Fairfax Courthouse, and the Gunnell House, among others. Her husband,
Charles, shared his expertise of Washington divorce law in the 1860s and his
recent discovery of adultery charges against Joseph Clapp Willard, the man
Antonia married.
Thanks, too, to Charles V. Mauro, for permission to reproduce his
photograph of the cover page of the album that Jeb Stuart gave to Laura
Ratcliffe, and to photographer Susan Bock at www.art2die4.net for her tinted
photograph of Jeb Stuart.
For information on Lottie and Ginnie Moon, I thank Valerie E. Elliott, head
of the Smith Library of Regional History in Oxford, Ohio, the hometown of the
Moon family. She also provided rare photographs of the Moon sisters and of the
Oxford Female Institute.
For material on Nancy Hart, I am grateful to Terry Lowry, historian of the
West Virginia State Archives and History Library, who provided numerous
newspaper and magazine clippings.
For the excellent photograph of the dining room at the Confederate White
House, I am indebted to Ann Drury Wellford, manager of photographic services
for the Museum of the Confederacy, and photographer Katherine Wetzel.
No spies were more difficult to document than Olivia Floyd and Sarah
Slater. And no one could have exceeded the helpfulness given to me by two
special ladies: Anita Warnes, circulation manager of the Library of the College
of Southern Maryland at La Plata, and Sheila R. Smith of the Society for the
Restoration of Port Tobacco. Ms. Warnes provided copies of two lengthy articles
written by historian James O. Hall for the Maryland Independent in 1975 and
extensive information from the files of the Southern Maryland Studies Center
and the Historical Society of Charles County (the latter with the assistance of its
president, Joyce B. Candland). Ms. Smith mailed to me a never-before-published
photograph of young Olivia Floyd and other materials that answered several
questions I had about her. Two other photographs for the chapter about Olivia
came from A. J. McDonald, director of the St. Albans Museum in Vermont.
To all of the above, I am deeply appreciative of their willingness to go far
beyond the call of duty to respond to my numerous questions and requests.
Special thanks also go to Betty Webb of the Anna Porter Public Library in
Gatlinburg, Tennessee. She provided scores of books through the interlibrary
loan program, including some that were more than a hundred years old.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not thank my wife, Azile, for always being
available when I needed her help and advice. She has been my best critic and my
staunchest supporter.