La Belle Rebelle: A short story of (West) Virginia’s Civil War spy Belle Boyd

GHENT, WV (WVNS) — How much do you know about female spies?

What about female spies of the American Civil War? Figures like Rose O’Neal Greenhow and Elizabeth Van Lew often come to mind when this topic is brought up, but did you know that the Mountain State (or at least what would become part of the Mountain State) lays claim to a prominent Confederate female spy?

Maria Isabelle “Belle” Boyd, born in Martinsburg, Virginia (Now West Virginia) on May 9, 1844, was a bit of a firecracker in terms of personality, according to records. Even prior to her first formal act of espionage, she courted controversy after she shot and killed a Union soldier in her family home, records stated.

On July 4, 1861, Federal troops, drunk and causing trouble, decided to storm the Boyd home and attempt to remove any rebel flags that may have been on the property and raise a Union flag as a sign of submission. When Belle’s mother began to protest, the soldiers insulted her, sparking a fury within 17-year-old Belle. Outraged, she picked up a pistol and fired upon the men, hitting and killing one member of the group. The American Battlefield Trust writes that her initial thoughts on the clash with the soldier were as follows:

[He] addressed my mother and myself in language as offensive as it is possible to conceive. I could stand it no longer… we ladies were obliged to go armed in order to protect ourselves as best we might from insult and outrage.

Belle Boyd

According to The American Battlefield Trust , from then on, she began to involve herself heavily in espionage activities in support of the Confederacy. According to Larry Eggleston, author of Women in the Civil War , Boyd began “sewing [messages] into the soles of shoes, packing them inside loaves of bread, in hollowed-out fruit and the heads of dolls, and writing them on eggs which could only be read by holding them up to a coal oil lamp.”

Records showed that she played a pivotal role in the Battle of Front Royal, providing information to General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson that allowed them to take Front Royal with ease, which in turn led Jackson to let down his guard and trust her. According to Eggleston, his response after the battle was “I thank you, for myself and for the army, for the immense service that you rendered your community today. Hastily, I am your friend, T.J. Jackson, C.S.A.”

Belle couldn’t avoid capture forever, unlike some of her peers undertaking espionage in the period. She was imprisoned for a month in July of 1862, released in August, and forbidden to return to Union territory. According to The American Battlefield Trust, Eggleston noted that almost a year later, in June 1863, she was arrested for being within Union lines visiting her sick mother in Martinsburg, now part of West Virginia. In July, Boyd was placed under arrest and was not released until December.

La Belle Rebelle was no stranger to violating the rules at this point. At the age of 20 in 1864, she set out on a mission for Jefferson Davis. The plan was for her to use the $500 supplied to her by Confederate President Davis to sail to England and make connections with Confederate contacts. This would, yet again, not be successful. The ship was captured by Union forces and brought back to Fortress Monroe.

After her arrest and being sent to Boston, she was banished from the United States, forced to go to Canada. If she came back, the penalty would have been death. Eggleston states that although she destroyed the messages prior to her arrest, she committed them to memory and relayed them to the English connections after her departure from Canada.

At the end of the war, Belle released her book, Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison in 1865. She declared with pride that she was “Cleopatra of the Secession,” but she was hailed by others in England and America as “The Rebel Joan of Arc” and the “Siren of the Shenandoah,” nicknames that are still commonly associated with her.

Belle passed away in 1900 at the age of 66 in Wisconsin. Her determination and bravery by participating in the war is often awe-inspiring to some, as women were not afforded many avenues of political participation in the nineteenth century. Belle Boyd certainly left behind an incredible legacy that deserves remembrance, regardless of political ideology.

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