BOYD, BELLE
Boyd, Belle
(May 9, 1844–June 11, 1900)
Confederate Spy
V
ivacious Belle Boyd
was the most cele-
brated Confederate
intelligence agent of the
Civil War. Equal parts
Southern charm and fe-
male audacity, she dar-
ingly gathered military in-
formation and passed it
along to Southern author-
ities for three years.
Maria Isabelle Boyd
was born near Martins-
burg, Virginia (now West
Virginia), on May 9, 1844,
the daughter of a store
owner. She was educated
at the Mount Washington
Female College in Balti-
more; an ardent South-
erner, she returned home
after the Civil War com-
menced in April 1861 to
raise funds for the Con-
federacy. Her activities
turned a dramatic corner the following July
when Union troops occupied Martinsburg.
Several soldiers decided to hang the Union
flag outside the Boyd residence, and when
Mary Boyd, Belle’s mother, protested, she was
vulgarly accosted by a Union officer. This so
infuriated the 17-year-old Belle Boyd that she
shot and killed him. The local high command
exonerated her for defending her property,
declaring she had “done perfectly right,” and
Boyd commenced her long career as an intel-
ligence agent. That fall the patriotic teenager
gained official recognition by becoming a
courier for Gens. Pierre G.T. Beauregard and
Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. This en-
tailed slipping past Union guards and patrols
at regular intervals, at great risk of being
caught. Put simply, Belle seemed to thrive on
danger, and it spurred her
on to greater activity.
Over the intervening
months, Boyd operated
as an unofficial spy, be-
friending Union officers
and using Southern charm
and feminine guile to ex-
tract useful information
from them. Having gath-
ered this intelligence, she
initially employed none-
too-subtle means of deliv-
ering them to nearby Con-
federate headquarters—
usually on horseback, for
she was a skilled rider.
Boyd’s inexperience also
manifested in her use of
uncoded, unciphered mes-
sages that she either de-
livered in person or
through a courier. She
was caught in the spring
of 1862 and received only
a reprimand, as social honor would not per-
mit the execution of a female spy. Unper-
turbed, Boyd continued her espionage activi-
ties, was arrested again, and spent several
days at a Baltimore jail. She was released
after another brief detention, admonished,
and allowed to live with her aunt at Front
Royal, Virginia, then under Union control.
By May 1862 Boyd perfected her eaves-
dropping to the point where she regularly
overheard Union staff meetings held by Gen.
James Shields. On one occasion, she spurred
her horse at midnight, galloped 15 miles
through Union picket lines, and delivered in-
formation to Col. Turner Ashby. Soon after,
she learned of Union plans to destroy several
bridges over which the advancing Confeder-
ate army would have to pass. As the troops ofBelle Boyd
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