Isabella Maria "Belle" Boyd was born on May 9, 1844, in Martinsburg, West Virginia to a prosperous family. She operated her Father's hotel and at age 17, began her career as a Rebel Spy. She often entered Union camps, flirted with Union soldiers, and gathered intelligence. She even eavesdropped through a peephole on a Council of War. She was arrested at least a half a dozen times and finally incarcerated in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D. C. in 1862. She was released but arrested again. She was known to wave Confederate flags outside the windows of the prison. She was released once again in December 1863 after contracting typhoid fever and banished to the South. However, in 1864 she was arrested again while trying to sail for England. A Union blockade intercepted her and sent her to Canada. She later married a Union naval officer, Samuel Wylde Hardinge, and had a daughter named Grace. After the death of her husband, she remarried John Swainston Hammond. She later divorced Hammond and married Nathaniel Rue High in 1885. She passed away on June 11, 1900, in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

Belle Boyd Confederate Spy