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Four Women Undercover in the Civil War
by Abbott Kahler
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She had the quickest answers in class at Mount Washington Female College (where, using a diamond ring, she carved her name in a window of the Octagonal Room); the most graceful curtsy at her debutante ball in Washington, DC; and a distinguished lineage comprising politicians and Revolutionary War heroes. When Belle was eleven, her parents declared she was too young to attend their dinner party, given for a group of Virginia officials. Instead of pleading or protesting, she went to the stable, saddled up her horse, Fleeter, and rode him into the dining room, interrupting the second course. Fleeter whinnied and sidestepped. A startled servant dropped a tray. Sweetbreads skittered across the floor, and pigeon soup splattered across the walls.
Belle looked down on everyone, watching her mother's mouth gape, her hand rising to cover it. She yanked at the reins and cleared her throat.
"Well," she said, "my horse is old enough, isn't he?"
In a dry, tight voice her mother ordered her to return the horse to the stable and head directly to her room. But a guest intervened.
"Surely so high a spirit should not be thoughtlessly quelled by severe punishment!" he exclaimed, and turned to Mrs. Boyd. "Mary, won't you tell me more about your little rebel?"
And for the rest of the evening Belle seized the spotlight, redirecting its focus anytime she sensed it veering away. She scarcely knew herself without it, neither then nor now.
Her Negro maid, whom she called "Mauma Eliza," now stood poised at the bottom of the parlor stairs, holding Belle's Confederate flag in her arms, properly and respectfully folded. Belle would love Eliza even if she didn't own her; at night, in secret, she defied the law and taught her to read and write. "Slavery, like all other imperfect forms of society, will have its day," Belle believed, "but the time for its final extinction in the Confederate States of America has not yet arrived." Eliza was thirty-three and had raised Belle from birth, protecting her and soothing her and tolerating her nonsense. Without being asked, she hurried up to Belle's room and hid the flag under her bed before returning to her mistress's side. In an adjacent chamber five other slaves huddled with Belle's three younger siblings; Belle had urged them to lock the doors. From the corner of her eye she spotted her mother sitting tense and alert on a velvet settee, and Belle could trace the course of her thoughts: four of her eight children had died within the span of five years, from 1846 to 1851, and she was terrified of losing another. She always told Belle she was too "saucy" for her own good.
The air hung thick and unstirred. The wooden floors were warped from the heat. Belle wore nine items of clothing, all assembled by Eliza every morning—chemise, pantalettes, corset, corset cover, crinoline, petticoat, a two-piece dress, silk stockings, and side-button boots—and drops of sweat crept down her back, soaking through the layers. She tried to hold her body still. She heard the clatter of gun carriages, the fervent thud of drums. Fine china quivered behind the doors of a rococo hutch. And here they came, a massive serpent of blue and steel. There were gunshots and splintering glass, doors being hacked off hinges. Chairs and tables soared into the street. The warbled refrain of "John Brown's Body" mingled with the sound of children's screams. They were just one door away.
Belle caught a swatch of blue blurring past the window. There was a thundering of fists. The front door gave way and there was no divide now. She saw tracks in their dirty faces carved by falling sweat. Mary Boyd jumped from the settee. Eliza stayed put by the stairs, gripping the banister.
One of the soldiers, "a great big Dutchman"—a common term for a German—focused his gaze on Belle. She could tell he'd been drinking.
From Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy by Karen Abbott Copyright © 2014 by Karen Abbott. Reprinted courtesy of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
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