Belle Boyd: Siren of the Shenandoah
She was called the ‘Siren of the Shenandoah’ and the ‘Joan of Arc of the South,’ by her beloved Confederacy. To the North, she was ‘The Most Overrated Spy,’ and ‘The Camp Follower.’ The French called La Belle Rebelle. By the time of her 18th birthday, Belle Boyd had pulled a pistol on a Union soldier who had threatened her mother (he died but to everyone’s surprise, Belle got off), used her feminine wiles to find out information on Union troop movements which she passed along to Stonewall Jackson and been arrested and imprisoned as a Confederate spy who fell in love with her captor. Maria Isabella Boyd was born in 1844, the oldest of three surviving children. Her father managed a small tobacco farm and country store in the town of Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia). In her memoirs, she wrote that she came from a tightly knit family who were responsible and protective of one another. Headstrong and charming, she managed to get her own way most of the time. “I passed my childhoo...