The American Civil War coincided with the Victorian era, one of the most morally repressive eras in history for women. Everything from a woman’s clothing to her upbringing was strictly restricted by the social mores that governed all of her actions.
These Victorian values that Civil War-era women respected were certainly not set aside with the coming of war; a woman’s contribution to the war effort was supposed to begin, and usually end, in the home. However, as the war dragged on and more and more men left their jobs, homes and lives for the war effort, women found themselves running farms, working in stores, teaching schools and taking over. of the men who had gone to war.
However, many women refused to limit their assistance to their country to what could be achieved close to home. These became nurses, worked to raise supplies for their troops, or even worked in gun shops. Several of these women supported their country in a more dangerous and scandalous way: they became spies.
Espionage was considered a dishonorable activity for a man during the Civil War era. For a woman, espionage was tantamount to prostitution. However, as the war escalated, women in both the North and South flaunted the Victorian morality of the day to provide their country with the intelligence it needed to make tactical and practical decisions.
Easily the most infamous spy of the Civil War or the 19th century, Belle Boyd. A Confederate spy, “La Belle Rebelle” as she came to be known, Boyd’s espionage activities during the war, not to mention her ability to escape unscathed from difficult situations, brought her fame and a modicum of fortune both during and after the war. war.
-Belle Boyd
Born Maria Isabella Boyd, Belle Boyd began spying for the Confederacy when Union troops invaded her home in Martinsburg, Virginia, in 1861. When one of the Federal soldiers roughed up her mother, Boyd shot and killed him. Exonerated for the soldier’s death, an emboldened Boyd managed to befriend the Union soldiers who stayed behind her to protect her and she used her slave Eliza to pass on the information the soldiers entrusted to the Confederate officers. Boyd was caught in her first attempt to spy on her and threatened with death, but she did not stop her activities; rather, she vowed to find a better way.
Boyd’s break came at his father’s hotel. He eavesdropped on conversations the Union officers staying at the hotel had on military matters and learned enough to inform General Stonewall Jackson of his regiment and his activities. This time, Boyd delivered his intelligence firsthand, moving through Union lines and reportedly getting close enough to the action to return with bullet holes in his skirt. The information he provided allowed the Confederate army to advance on the Federal troops at Fort Royal.
However, Boyd’s daring acts of espionage came to a halt when a suitor turned her over to Union authorities in 1862. She was held in the Old Capitol prison in Washington for a month, then released, but found herself back in jail. . Once again, she managed to be released and traveled to England, where she married a Union officer.
Boyd was not the only female spy operating in Virginia. In the Confederate capital of Richmond, Elizabeth Van Lew, known as “Crazy Bet,” was providing intelligence to the Union while she allowed her Confederate neighbors to consider her insane.
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Van Lew, born into a wealthy and prominent Richmond family, was educated by Quakers in Philadelphia. She returned to Richmond as an outspoken abolitionist, even going so far as to convince her mother to free the family’s slaves.
His espionage activity began shortly after the start of the war. To the anguish of his neighbors, he openly supported the Union; he soon concentrated his efforts on helping federal prisoners at Libby Prison, bringing them food, books, and paper. He soon began smuggling information about the prisoners’ Confederate activities to Union officers, including General Ulysses S. Grant.
To hide her activities from her Confederate neighbors, Van Lew behaved strangely: she would dress in old clothes, talk to herself, refuse to do her hair, strangely enough people began to think she was crazy and called her “Crazy Bet”. Far from being mad, Van Lew was hailed by Grant as the provider of some of the most important intelligence gathered during the war. One of Van Lew’s more ingenious strategies involved a code he developed to hide information, which he often sent to Union officers in shelled eggs. He also used ex-slaves in a spy ring, one of whom, Mary Elizabeth Bower, worked at the Confederate White House.
Belle Boyd and Elizabeth Van Lew are just two of the many women who helped their respective countries during the Civil War through espionage. These women took a risk they knew had long-standing ramifications; many of those who were outed as spies, such as Van Lew, found themselves shunned in polite society after the war. Her controversial efforts not only helped the war effort, but helped advance women for years to come.