Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm to bling a chalk reboarding, and we are moving
Speaker 1: right along with our look at Civil War espionage. And
Speaker 1: the last time we talked about Alan Pinkerton, who was
Speaker 1: a famous private detective who organized the first Union espionage.
Speaker 1: And so this time around we're switching sides and genders
Speaker 1: to talk about a Confederate spy who belonged to what
Speaker 1: you could consider maybe a spy subgroup that existed around
Speaker 1: this time, and that's female spies. And this may come
Speaker 1: as a surprise to those who picture Civil War era
Speaker 1: women in the US is wearing these gone with the
Speaker 1: wind style big dresses and grasping their smelling salts, just
Speaker 1: waiting tearfully for loved ones to come home. But during
Speaker 1: the years leading up to the war, gender roles were
Speaker 1: actually starting to evolve a little bit thanks to industrialization
Speaker 1: in the North and the rising feminist and abolitionist movements,
Speaker 1: and the war in some cases just really instigated that
Speaker 1: change even more quickly, causing many women to stray from
Speaker 1: their normal lives in order to work in hospitals, enlist
Speaker 1: in the army sometimes or even spy, as we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about today. Yeah, so our podcast subject today, Belle Boyd,
Speaker 1: was no exception to this sort of changing role for
Speaker 1: women and eventually turning to spying. She wanted to help
Speaker 1: out the Confederacy for several reasons, as we'll see, and
Speaker 1: spying was just one way that felt natural for her.
Speaker 1: She was known for using her feminine wilds to get information,
Speaker 1: and Boyd consequently picked up some nicknames including LaBelle Rebel
Speaker 1: and Cleopatra of the Succession, and she became famous for
Speaker 1: her work as a spy both during and after the war.
Speaker 1: But we've got to also look at how her efforts
Speaker 1: helped the Confederate cause, because you can spy, but it
Speaker 1: all comes down to the quality of the information you get.
Speaker 1: But before we talk about that, let's take a look
Speaker 1: at how she got her start in espionage in the
Speaker 1: first place. Well, she was born in May ninety four
Speaker 1: in Martinsburg, Virginia, which is now part of West Virginia.
Speaker 1: And from there, much like with Pinkerton's story, some of
Speaker 1: the details that we found our up for debate, and
Speaker 1: that's because a lot of what's been passed down over
Speaker 1: the years about Bell's story came from her, and she
Speaker 1: supposedly had a little tendency to exaggerate sometimes, which we'll
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about later. I think a
Speaker 1: spy just has to have a murky background. It's not
Speaker 1: right if if he or she doesn't. We do know, though,
Speaker 1: that Bell came from a good southern family with Scottish roots,
Speaker 1: and her parents were Mary Glenn Boyd and Benjamin Reid Boyd,
Speaker 1: and she was the oldest of eight kids and apparently
Speaker 1: grew up quite a tomboy. She'd climb trees, she'd ride horses,
Speaker 1: she was headstrong, she was determined, and apparently her parents
Speaker 1: didn't really do that much to check her behavior. She
Speaker 1: was kind of indulged. No. For an example, there's the
Speaker 1: story in Peggy Caravan to his book Petticoat Spies, Six
Speaker 1: Women Spies of the Civil War about how she once
Speaker 1: crashed a parent's dinner party when she was only eleven
Speaker 1: years old. Apparently they told her that she was not
Speaker 1: old enough to go to this dinner party, so she's
Speaker 1: not happy about that, and at the end of the
Speaker 1: dinner party, people are just starting to get up and
Speaker 1: she rushes into the room on her horse in the
Speaker 1: dining room. Her parents are really angry, of course, but
Speaker 1: they don't punish her because the rest of the guests
Speaker 1: are so amused by this. Yeah, it would make a good,
Speaker 1: good story to go home and tell your family. But
Speaker 1: she was still even though she was this sort of tomboy,
Speaker 1: she was still raised to be a refined Southern Bell,
Speaker 1: and at age twelve, her parents sent her off to
Speaker 1: Mount Washington Female College in Baltimore to complete her formal education,
Speaker 1: and four years after that, she made her debut in
Speaker 1: Washington Society in eighteen sixty. But that's kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting year to make your debut because just one year later,
Speaker 1: the Civil War started, and said eighteen year old Bell
Speaker 1: had to go back home to Martinsburg to help raise
Speaker 1: money for the Confederacy and eventually serve as a nurse too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and her father left to volunteer for service in the
Speaker 1: Southern Army as well, so he wasn't at home on
Speaker 1: July three, eighteen sixty one, when Federal troops occupied Martinsburg,
Speaker 1: and the very next stay July four, if the Yankee
Speaker 1: troops started loading houses and generally just vandalizing in the town,
Speaker 1: destroying things and the soldiers had heard that Bell in particular,
Speaker 1: had decorated her room with rebel flags, so a squad
Speaker 1: of them went over to the Boyd House and their
Speaker 1: intention obviously was to take down those flags and raise
Speaker 1: a Union flag instead over the house. So they get
Speaker 1: over there, they start ransacking the place looking for the flags.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, the family servant is getting rid
Speaker 1: of all the flags. She's taken them down and burns
Speaker 1: them just before they get to Bell's room on the
Speaker 1: second floor. But a soldier is angry anyway about the situation,
Speaker 1: kind of embarrassed, Yeah, and he's deciding any exactly, and
Speaker 1: he decides he wants to ho hoist a flag anyway.
Speaker 1: So Belle's mom at this point says, and then every
Speaker 1: member of this household will die before that flag is
Speaker 1: raised over us. So pretty strong words here, definitely fighting words.
Speaker 1: So at that point the soldier apparently cursed at her
Speaker 1: and used some pretty filthy language, and Belle was just outraged.
Speaker 1: She wrote later quote, I could stand it no longer.
Speaker 1: My indignation was aroused beyond control. My blood was literally
Speaker 1: boiling in my veins. So she pulled out a gun
Speaker 1: and shot the guy and the soldier died soon after that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she got arrested, as you might imagine, soon after this.
Speaker 1: An investigation followed, but a Union commander actually ruled that
Speaker 1: it was a justifiable homicide and that she had quote
Speaker 1: done perfectly right and placed a detail around their house.
Speaker 1: It's kind of unclear to me. Different sources say different things.
Speaker 1: Some say that he placed the detail around their house
Speaker 1: to protect them, Others say that it was to prevent trouble.
Speaker 1: But many say that it's year while she was becoming
Speaker 1: acquainted with the soldiers and the detail placed around her
Speaker 1: house that Bell actually got her start as a spy,
Speaker 1: just basically flirting with them, chatting them up. That's where
Speaker 1: she was able to overhear Union plans and get them
Speaker 1: to divulge important pieces of information that she been quote
Speaker 1: regularly and carefully committed to paper and at any opportunity
Speaker 1: sent by secret dispatch and trustee messenger to Confederate officers. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: by eighteen sixty one, Bell's position got a little more official.
Speaker 1: She joined the Confederate Intelligence and General's PGT. Beauregard and
Speaker 1: Thomas J. Jackson Stonewall. Jackson used her as a courier
Speaker 1: and she was really good at this because she knew
Speaker 1: the Shenandoah Valley really well and she had excellent horsemanship skills.
Speaker 1: So in those early days, though she wasn't quite careful
Speaker 1: that that part of the spies tool set hadn't really
Speaker 1: developed yet. She didn't use code, she didn't try to
Speaker 1: disguise her handwriting, and so in late eighteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: the Union started to notice her. They started to catch
Speaker 1: on when they found a message in her handwriting signed Bell.
Speaker 1: Pretty obvious. Yeah, So they picked her up and they
Speaker 1: read her the Articles of war at Union headquarters and
Speaker 1: told her that the penalty for spine was death, which
Speaker 1: she probably knew. But then they released her after that,
Speaker 1: and according to Kravants, they didn't think that a seventeen
Speaker 1: year old girl could do any harm, so, as we'll
Speaker 1: see later, they probably should have thought better at that.
Speaker 1: But after that incident, Belle's mom was a little worried.
Speaker 1: She sent her to stay with relatives in front Royal, Virginia,
Speaker 1: which was forty miles to the south of Martinsburg, so
Speaker 1: she basically thought Bell would be safer there. You might
Speaker 1: think that her mother would have gotten a little worried
Speaker 1: after Bell killed a man, but I guess the last
Speaker 1: straw you're very You're very sharp there. But regardless, she
Speaker 1: thought she'd be better off in front Royal. That wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily the case, though. After a relatively quiet winter there,
Speaker 1: Bell was up to her old tricks again, gleaning info
Speaker 1: from soldiers and aunt Royal, who were smitten with her.
Speaker 1: I mean, she was at this time considered to be
Speaker 1: a great beauty, and so they would write poems for her,
Speaker 1: bring her flowers. According to American History, she said of
Speaker 1: one captain quote, I am indebted for some very remarkable effusions,
Speaker 1: some withered flowers, and last but not least, for a
Speaker 1: great deal of very important information which was carefully transmitted
Speaker 1: to my countryman. So she's a flirtatious spy. But it
Speaker 1: was supposedly one of those gullible guys who she flirted
Speaker 1: with who tipped her off on a Union Council of
Speaker 1: War that was going to be held in the drawing
Speaker 1: room of her aunt's old house in the spring of
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty two, and Bell, the former tomboy that she was,
Speaker 1: knew that there was a hole in the floor of
Speaker 1: the bedroom closet right above the drawing room where these
Speaker 1: men would be meeting, and so she's snuck in there
Speaker 1: to eavesdrop, and while she was in there, she learned
Speaker 1: that General James Shields planned to take most of his
Speaker 1: troops out of the Front Royal to aid an assault
Speaker 1: on Richmond. And she eventually passed this information onto her
Speaker 1: side in a coded report. She's sort of getting a
Speaker 1: little smarter about that type of thing by now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so by now she's passed on some info on maybe
Speaker 1: the number of troops and some of their plans. And
Speaker 1: this is significant because at the time, Jackson was on
Speaker 1: what became known as his Snandoah Valley campaign, basically fighting
Speaker 1: for control of the Shenandoah Valley and hoping to distract
Speaker 1: Union troops from attacking the Confederate capital of Richmond. But
Speaker 1: it's tough to say how much Bell's work really influenced
Speaker 1: Jackson's decisions here. However, the next move she made is
Speaker 1: generally considered her biggest success in intelligence work. Specifically, on
Speaker 1: May eighteen sixty two, as Jackson's forces were approaching, Bell
Speaker 1: happened to speak to a Union officer and she learned
Speaker 1: that Shields and his men were planning to burn the
Speaker 1: Front Royal Bridges as they withdrew from town to slow
Speaker 1: the Confederates pursuit of their army. Yeah, so Bell realized
Speaker 1: that Jackson would have to speed up his attack if
Speaker 1: he was going to make it across those bridges and time,
Speaker 1: and she tried to get somebody to ride out to
Speaker 1: hit Jackson's camp and tell and pass on this vital information,
Speaker 1: but no one was willing to risk riding out between
Speaker 1: the two armies, so Belle decided to just do it herself.
Speaker 1: She grabbed her white sunbonnet and ran across the gap
Speaker 1: with bullets just whizzing past her while she was going,
Speaker 1: and by the time she finally reached the Confederate side,
Speaker 1: she was gasping for air, but managed to get out
Speaker 1: her message to Stonewall and Jackson and his troops attacked
Speaker 1: quickly after after they got this news and managed to
Speaker 1: save the front Royal bridges so they save their means
Speaker 1: of access, and also captured some enemy weapons and supplies
Speaker 1: while they were at it, and this consequently forced the
Speaker 1: Union troops to retreat and position the Confederates to move
Speaker 1: on Winchester behind the Union army. So it was a
Speaker 1: pretty valuable piece of information. That produced a big result. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Jackson wrote Bell a note later that said quote,
Speaker 1: Miss Bell Boyd, I thank you for myself and for
Speaker 1: the Army, for the immense service you've rendered your country
Speaker 1: today hastily. I am your friend T. J. Jackson. So
Speaker 1: she got a personal thank you note from Stonewall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a big deal. So with that big success behind her,
Speaker 1: an approval from this great officer of the Confederate Army,
Speaker 1: Bill continued to work as a career slash spy after that.
Speaker 1: But in July eighteen sixty two, at the age of eighteen,
Speaker 1: she was still really young, then she was arrested for
Speaker 1: espionage on the orders of the Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.
Speaker 1: And she'd been arrested several times by this point of record. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she got arrested a lot of times, but she was
Speaker 1: usually able to kind of talk herself out of it.
Speaker 1: But this time she ended up going to Old Capitol
Speaker 1: Prison in Washington. She actually didn't have such a bad
Speaker 1: time there though. She was kind of treated as a
Speaker 1: v I P. Admirer sent her special food and things
Speaker 1: like that, and she was released in a month as
Speaker 1: part of an exchange of prisoners. So I mean, I
Speaker 1: think her health deteriorated a little bit. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: like paradise or anything. But she was as bad as
Speaker 1: it could have been. It wasn't she was treated differently
Speaker 1: from other prisoners because of her celebrity status. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: by July eighteen sixty three, she was again sent back
Speaker 1: to Old Capital Prison, this time for six months, and
Speaker 1: it was worse this time. She did get sick with
Speaker 1: typhoid fever, and when she was released to Richmond, she
Speaker 1: got a warning not to be caught within federal lines again.
Speaker 1: So it seems like the Union is finally taking this
Speaker 1: girl pretty seriously. Yeah, But it also means because they
Speaker 1: are taking her seriously, she's not as effective as a
Speaker 1: spy in Northern Territory anymore. So she decided to serve
Speaker 1: the South by carrying messages to Southern sympathizers in England instead,
Speaker 1: so pretending that she was going to go on a
Speaker 1: trip to improve her health, she set sail on a
Speaker 1: blockade running ship called the Greyhound in May eighteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: but a Union gunboats stopped and boarded them before they
Speaker 1: had even crossed the international border. Fortunately for Belle, though
Speaker 1: the commanding officer is a young Union man named Samuel Harding,
Speaker 1: and his commission is to take the ship back to
Speaker 1: US Port. But before they reached the port, Bell had
Speaker 1: worked her magic again and Harding had fallen in love
Speaker 1: with her and switched his allegiance and even allowed the
Speaker 1: Greyhounds Confederate captain to escape. And consequently, harding superiors were
Speaker 1: not pleased by this change of allegiance. He was court martialed,
Speaker 1: and rather than go to prison, Belle asked and was
Speaker 1: granted permission to go to Canada, with the understanding that
Speaker 1: if she ever was caught on US soil again, she'd
Speaker 1: be shot. But she's not in Canada for very long. No,
Speaker 1: After just a few months, she sails to England and
Speaker 1: her service to the South has pretty much been as
Speaker 1: she meets with a Confederate agent and she gets there
Speaker 1: and says that she destroyed the message she was supposed
Speaker 1: to be carrying when her ship got boarded, and so
Speaker 1: it's done at that point. Yeah, I guess she took
Speaker 1: it out last threat pretty seriously. But the rest of
Speaker 1: Bell's life was pretty fascinating too. It could really be
Speaker 1: a separate podcast. Harding followed her to London, after the
Speaker 1: Navy dismissed him and the two of them got married.
Speaker 1: Wasn't a relationship that was going to last very long though, No.
Speaker 1: Soon after the wedding, Harding returns to the US, planning
Speaker 1: to run the Union blockade and actually work for the Confederacy.
Speaker 1: But he's caught and imprisoned and falls very ill. So
Speaker 1: he's allowed to return to England, but dies after a
Speaker 1: few months, leaving bell a pregnant widow at the young
Speaker 1: age of twenty. Yeah, so she's got a daughter now
Speaker 1: to support Grace, and so she writes a two volume
Speaker 1: book called Belle Boyd in Camp in Prison to sort
Speaker 1: of support herself and her her young family. And it
Speaker 1: suggested that a lot of this volume was in Bella.
Speaker 1: She was trying to sell copies after all. And then
Speaker 1: after that she embarked on a theatrical career and told
Speaker 1: her experience, told about her experience as a spy on
Speaker 1: the stage, again laying it on pretty thick, creating this
Speaker 1: character of Belle Boyd that was something a little bigger
Speaker 1: than she had even been in life. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: some sources suggest that a lot of the details that
Speaker 1: she put out there, her bravery and the dangerous element
Speaker 1: to her missions. A lot of that was exaggerated, and
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people think that when she
Speaker 1: was supposed to be carrying the message to England, there
Speaker 1: really was no message. She just she was just going
Speaker 1: to She was just going to England. Um. So you know,
Speaker 1: we may never know some of those details. But in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six, after she embarked on this uh theatrical career,
Speaker 1: she and her daughter were allowed to return to the US,
Speaker 1: where she continued her stage career under the name Nina Benjamin.
Speaker 1: And she remarried twice, once in eighteen sixty nine to
Speaker 1: a wealthy businessman and former union officer. A second husband
Speaker 1: who was a former union officer, which I think is interesting.
Speaker 1: She seemed too um and she had three kids with him.
Speaker 1: They divorced fifteen years later, though they didn't really have
Speaker 1: a very happy marriage. But just six weeks after that,
Speaker 1: she married again to a poor twenty four year old
Speaker 1: actor named Nathaniel Ruhai Jr. And she was forty one
Speaker 1: at the time, so there was a huge age difference there,
Speaker 1: and she had to start working again since he didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of money, So she started giving dramatic
Speaker 1: speeches about her experiences during the war, and it was
Speaker 1: while she was on one of those speaking tours that
Speaker 1: she died of a heart attack on June top nineteen
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin. She was buried there. She's still there and
Speaker 1: a long way from home. Yeah, definitely Confederate spy. She
Speaker 1: was buried in Wisconsin. Yeah, in the Wisconsin Dells, I think.
Speaker 1: And her grave was actually unmarked for a while. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was unmarked because I think they thought that her
Speaker 1: people in Virginia were going to send for her because
Speaker 1: she was so well known there, and they never really did.
Speaker 1: So other people paid for her to have a headstone.
Speaker 1: And I bet this is a factor. Are Wisconsin listeners
Speaker 1: are gonna like we learned recently in the King of
Speaker 1: Beaver Island up though, that people from Wisconsin are pretty
Speaker 1: into hearing their state talked about on the podcast. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: if anyone has been to Bell Boyd's grave or knows
Speaker 1: anymore about this area or any of the activities that
Speaker 1: go on here around the Moorial Day, because I hear
Speaker 1: they kind of honor her around Memorial Day every year,
Speaker 1: let us know, send us a picture. Yeah, But before
Speaker 1: we totally sign off on the spell Boyed episode. I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting to point out that in her later years,
Speaker 1: when she was giving these talks, these speeches, she'd start
Speaker 1: to emphasize the union of the North and the South
Speaker 1: more and more. She would end her speeches with the
Speaker 1: quote one God, one Flag, one people forever. So in
Speaker 1: the end she actually ended up winning the approval of
Speaker 1: both sides. Yeah, so she was the LaBelle rebel when
Speaker 1: she's a young person, but she ends up being kind
Speaker 1: of a patriotic American in her in her older years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she even became really popular with UM Union veterans. So
Speaker 1: while we're talking about the Civil War and the Confederate
Speaker 1: sy in particular, we might as well read a listener mail.
Speaker 1: So this email is from Zach and he wrote in
Speaker 1: after our little shipwreck mini series we did a while back.
Speaker 1: He said, good afternoon, ladies. I just listened to part
Speaker 1: two of your Shipwrecked mini series and heard you talk
Speaker 1: about the Huntley. Well that is amazing because just recently
Speaker 1: I interviewed one of the archaeologists who has been working
Speaker 1: on the Hunley since it was pulled out of the
Speaker 1: waters here in Charleston. He agreed to be interviewed for
Speaker 1: my podcast called Our List. The archaeologist agreed to be
Speaker 1: on the show and share his top five turning points
Speaker 1: in history, but the interview about his work on the
Speaker 1: Hunley in archaeology in general was so interesting we dedicated
Speaker 1: two episodes to him. Some interesting tidbits. The officer in
Speaker 1: charge had been shot in the leg a few months
Speaker 1: prior at Antietam, I think, and his legs would have
Speaker 1: been more damaged and amputated, but a coin in his
Speaker 1: pocket saved him. That coin was found in the Hunley,
Speaker 1: dented and with the date he was wounded etched in it.
Speaker 1: A little memento there. And his next point was before
Speaker 1: the Hony was discovered, there was much discussion about what
Speaker 1: it actually looked like and even how many people were inside.
Speaker 1: Once they saw it, they discovered it looked very much
Speaker 1: like a famous painting made at the Honley before its
Speaker 1: last mission. For years no one knew if that painting
Speaker 1: was accurate or not, but found that it was very
Speaker 1: detailed and had even helped them figure out what a
Speaker 1: few of the exterior parts would have looked like new.
Speaker 1: So thanks for these sort of Hunley insider tidbits from
Speaker 1: an archaeologist involved in its excavation. Good to know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so many cool stories surrounding the Hunley and and the
Speaker 1: people who died inside it and discoveries that have been
Speaker 1: made since. So definitely thank you for sending that in.
Speaker 1: So if you have any more Civil War spies you
Speaker 1: want to hear about, We've had a lot of fun
Speaker 1: talking about Pinkerton and Belle Boyd and I'm sure there
Speaker 1: are so many more out there, or just other Civil
Speaker 1: War stories you want to hear. As you know, we're
Speaker 1: sort of continuing a leisurely civil War series since we
Speaker 1: just hit that big anniversary this year. Uh, let us
Speaker 1: know by email or at history podcast at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Can also find us on Facebook or
Speaker 1: on Twitter at myston History. And if you want to
Speaker 1: work on your own spy skills a little bit, we
Speaker 1: have a great article on our website called how Spies Work.
Speaker 1: You can look it up by visiting our homepage and
Speaker 1: typing in spies at www dot how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
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