Biography Of Belle Boyd

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Belle Boyd was actually named Isabella Marie Boyd. People started calling her “La Belle Rebelle” which led to the nickname Belle. She was born on May 9, 1844 and was the first of eight children. Her father and mother were Benjamin Reed and Mary Rebecca Boyd. Belle Boyd and her family moved to Martinsburg State when she was ten. They had six slaves and one was named Eliza Corsey. She was Belle Boyd’s good friend and Belle taught Eliza how to read and write even though it was against the law. Boyd was a tomboy who loved climbing trees and playing with her relatives. Her family didn’t have much money, but she still received a good education. At age 12, she received some preliminary schooling then went to Mount Washington Female College in Baltimore, Maryland. She finished college when she was 16. war involvement A little while after she returned home, on July 4, 1861, Boyd killed a Union soldier when he was harassing her mother. The soldier was in their house because he was trying to hang up a Union flag. She didn’t like the way he was harassing her mother so she shot him. Even though Boyd was not considered to be doing any wrong, sentries and officers were to keep watch over her. This worked well for her future of spying. She flirted with the officers and they started telling her military secrets (she used this a lot and it usually worked). She delivered secrets to Confederate Generals Pierre Beauregard and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. One day she was caught by union troops and was told she would sentenced to death, but she wasn’t. Boyd wrote “This didn’t scare me. It only taught me that I needed to find a better way to communicate.” There are many documented occasions of her spying and delivering secrets. It is said that one day wh... ... middle of paper ... ...oyd. She started acting again to tell the story of her spying. She died on stage because of a heart attack. She died at age 56. women in the war… female spies Female spies were a great help in the war. Men did not expect innocent women to be involved in such dangerous activities so they often were not found out at first. Men easily trusted the women spies and told them important military secrets. The spies would get information then write it on paper or material and sew it into their clothes or put it in their hair. With bigger stuff they would attach it to the hoops on their skirts and hide the stuff in dolls. People started to suspicious when the women spies started to do “inappropriate” actions “such as allowing men into their homes at all hours of the night, arranging meetings with men in various locations and riding on horses and in buggies unaccompanied.”

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