Belle Boyd, In Camp and Prison, by Belle Boyd. Volume I of II

Published: London; Saunders, Otley, and Co., 1865

Note: Born 1844, Martinsburg, Virginia, at 16 she took up the cause of
the C.S.A. during the Civil War, and became the famous La Belle Rebelle

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                BELLE BOYD,
                                    IN
                             CAMP AND PRISON.
                           With an Introduction
                         BY A FRIEND OF THE SOUTH.

                              IN TWO VOLUMES.
                                  VOL. I.

                                  LONDON:
                         SAUNDERS, OTLEY, AND CO.,
                         66 BROOK STREET, W. 1865.
                          [All rights reserved.]




                                  LONDON
                  WILLIAM STEVENS, PRINTER, 37 BELL YARD,
                              LINCOLN'S INN. 




CONTENTS OF VOLUME THE FIRST.

INTRODUCTION . . . . . 1 

CHAPTER I. Home - Glimpse at Washington City . . . . . 33 

CHAPTER II. Political Contest - Commencement of the Great Struggle in 
America - Secession of the Southern States - We hear of the Fall of 

Page vi

Fort Sumter - Call for Troops - The Stars and Bars - Volunteers - 
Enlistment of my Father - Patriotism of the Southern Women - Harper's 
Ferry - Visit to Camp Picnics, Balls, &c., &c., . . . . . 43 

CHAPTER III. Fourth of July - The Yankee Flag is hoisted in Martinsburg - 
Great Excitement - My first Adventure - An Article of War is read to 
me - - Miss Sophia B.'s Walk . . . . . 62 

CHAPTER IV. Battle of Manassas - Establishment of a Hospital at Front 
Royal (Virginia) - A Runaway Excursion - Capture of Federal Officers . . . 
. . 76 

CHAPTER V. Advance of the Federal Army - I leave Home 

Page vii

with my Father - Battle of Kearnstown - I am Arrested and carried Prisoner 
to Baltimore - Released and sent to Martinsburg - I attempt to go South to 
Richmond - Shields' Army at Front Royal - Incidents, &c., &c. . . . . . 93 

CHAPTER VI. My Prisoner - Battle of 23rd May - My Share in the Action - 
The Federals Fire upon me - The Little Note once more - The Confederates 
are Victorious - Letter from General "Stonewall" Jackson. . . . . 122 

CHAPTER VII. Tone of the Northern Press towards me - General Banks refuses 
to pass me South - How I procure Passes - The two Confederate Soldiers - I 
write to "Stonewall" Jackson - Novel Method of conveying Information - My 
Letter 

Page viii

is Intercepted - I am warned to depart South without delay - I prepare to 
leave . . . . . 146 

CHAPTER VIII. I am Arrested by order of Mr. Stanton, Federal Secretary of 
War - My Room and Trunks are closely searched - Yankee disregard for the 
rights of Personal Property - My Departure for Washington - My Escort - I 
arrive at General White's Head - quarters in Winchester. . . . . 157 

CHAPTER IX. A false Alarm - Arrival at Martinsburg - My Mother and Family 
visit me - Departure for Washington - My Reception at the Dépot - The "Old 
Capitol" - My Prison Room - My Treatment - Interview with the Chief of 
Detectives - Offers of Liberty - My Reply - A Pleasing Reminiscence of my 
Captivity . . . . . 181 

Page ix

CHAPTER X. My First Night in Prison - The Secret Telegraph - An Incident 
in connection with President Davis's Portrait - I am punished for my 
Indiscretion - I am permitted to walk in the Prison Yard, where I meet 
with a Relation - I am informed I am to be exchanged - Departure from 
Washington . . . . . 207 

CHAPTER XI. Arrival at Fortress Monroe - Passage up the James River - 
Arrival at Richmond - "Home again" - Interview with General "Stonewall" 
Jackson - A Refugee once more - Review of the Confederate Army under 
General Lee - I receive my Commission - Flying Visit to my Home - Letter 
from "Stonewall" Jackson - My Reception by the People of Knoxville - I 
hear of the Death of General Jackson - Battle of Winchester - At Home once 
more. . . . . 229 

Page x

CHAPTER XII. Invasion of Pennsylvania - Panic in the Northern States - 
General Lee issues an Order respecting Private Property - Battle of 
Gettysburg - The Retreat of Lee's Army - How I occupied my time with other 
Ladies - I receive a call from Major Goff - Am held a Prisoner in my own 
Home - Again come to Washington a Prisoner - New Quarters - The Carroll 
Prison - How Ladies and Gentlemen were treated who recognised us in 
passing the Carroll - The "Old Familiar Sound" once more - The Bayonet - 
Our Mail Communication is again established . . . . . 253 

CHAPTER XIII. A very Romantic Way of Corresponding - The Prison 
Authorities for once are at a loss - My Confederate Flags - The wave over 
Washington 

Page xi

in spite of Yankee assertions to the contrary - I become very ill - Mr. 
Stanton in an unfavourable light once more - My Prisoner of Front Royal in 
her true Character - Sentence of Court-martial is announced to me - A 
Relapse of my former Illness - I am banished - The cry of "Murder" raised 
round the Corner - Incidents in my Prison Life. . . . . 271 



Page 1

INTRODUCTION. 
BY A FRIEND OF THE SOUTH.

   "WILL you take my life?"

   This was the somewhat startling question put to me by Mrs. Hardinge - 
better known as Belle Boyd - on my recent introduction to her in Jermyn 
Street.

   "Madam," said I, "a sprite like you, who has so often run the gauntlet 
by sea and land, who has had so many hair-breadth escapes by flood and 
field, must bear a 'charmed life:' I dare not attempt it." Then, placing 
in my hands a roll 

Page 2

of manuscript, she said, "Take this; read it, revise it, rewrite it, 
publish it, or burn it - do what you will. It is the story of my 
adventures, misfortunes, imprisonments, and persecutions. I have written 
all from memory since I have been here in London; and, perhaps, by putting 
me in the third person you can make a book that will be not only 
acceptable to the public and profitable to myself, but one that will do 
some good to the cause of my poor country, a cause which seems to be so 
little understood in England."

   I took the manuscript, promising to look it over, and return it with an 
estimate of its merits. I have done so; and hence the publication of 
"Belle Boyd, in Camp and Prison." The work is entirely her own, with the 
exception of a few suggestions in the shape of footnotes - the simple, 
unambitious narrative of an enthusiastic and intrepid schoolgirl, who had 
not yet seen her seventeenth summer 

Page 3

when the cloud of war darkened her land, changing all the music of her 
young life, her peaceful "home, sweet home," into the bugle blasts of 
battle, into scenes of death and most tumultuous sorrow.

   Believing, with all the people of the South, in the sovereignty of the 
States, and the absolute political and moral right of secession, our young 
heroine, like Joan of Arc, inspired and fired by the "tyranny impending," 
resolved to devote her hands, and heart, and life if need be, to the 
sacred cause of freedom and independence. How much she has done and 
suffered in the great struggle which has crimsoned the "sunny South" with 
the "blood of the martyrs," we shall leave the reader to gather from the 
narrative itself.

   But, by way of introduction, I have a few incidental facts to relate; 
and it is proper to add that I do it entirely on my own responsibility, 

Page 4

and without consulting "our heroine" in the matter.

   At the time of my presentation to Mrs. Hardinge, above alluded to, I 
found the lady in very great distress of mind and body. She was sick, 
without money, and driven almost to distraction by the cruel news that her 
husband was suffering the "tender mercies" of a Federal prison. Lieutenant 
Hardinge was in irons; and his friends were prohibited from sending him 
food or clothing! Letters addressed to his young wife, containing 
remittances, were intercepted; and thus I found her, not quite friendless, 
in this great wilderness of London, but, what is worse, absolutely 
destitute of that indispensable and all-prevailing friend - MONEY.

   The sight of a pair of flowing eyes, that for thirteen long months had 
refused to weep in a Northern prison, were enough to call forth the 
following communication, addressed to the 

Page 5

"Morning Herald," that able and consistent defender of the Southern 
cause: -

"A WORD TO CONFEDERATE SYMPATHIZERS.

   "SIR, - Your readers cannot have forgotten the glowing description of 
the recent romantic wedding of 'Belle Boyd' (La Belle Rebelle), so 
pleasantly celebrated a few months since at 'a fashionable hotel in Jermyn 
Street.'
   Alas, poor Belle! Her bridal bliss was 'like the snow-fall on a river.' 
Her husband of a day is now tasting the sweets of a Yankee prison, and she 
(who 'was made his wedded wife yestreen') all the bitterness of poverty 
and exile. After enduring for many a long and weary month the insults, 
sufferings, and persecutions of the 'Old Capitol Prison,' I heard the 
afflicted lady say yesterday that she 'had rather be there as she was than 
here as she is.' And why? Cut off from all pecuniary resources at home, 
she has 

Page 6

had to part with her jewellery piece by piece, including her 'wedding 
presents,' to pay her weekly bills.

   "We can well understand how trouble like that would smite the heart of 
a high-toned woman, the daughter of affluence and luxury, even more 
cruelly than the tortures of a Federal prison.

   "Without further comment, I will only add that Madame Hardinge (Belle 
Boyd) has prepared for publication a narrative of her adventures, 
imprisonment, and sufferings, for which there are no lack of publishers 
ready to advance a handsome sum; but she has recently received threatening 
intimations that her husband's life depends upon the suppression of her 
story!

   "The father of 'Belle Boyd,' a most respectable Virginian gentleman, 
has lately died, at the age of forty-six, from a disease induced by his 
daughter's sufferings. These are the sad, simple facts of the case, and I 
commend them to the kind consideration 

Page 7

of Confederate sympathizers in England. Surely poverty, in a young and 
accomplished woman, is not only a sacred claim to the protection of 
society - it is also the very highest credential of honour."


   The above was copied by one of the London morning papers, with the 
following sympathetic comments: -

   "We are in a position to verify all that is here stated, and a great 
deal more. Probably the history of the world does not contain a parallel 
case to that of this newly married lady, who has just only emerged from 
her teens. Her adventures in the midst of the American war surpass 
anything to be met with in the pages of fiction. Her great beauty, elegant 
manners, and personal attractions generally, in conjunction with her 
romantic history before her marriage, which took place only three months 
ago at the West End, in the presence of a fashionable assemblage of 

Page 8

affectionate and admiring friends, concur to invest her with attributes 
which render her such a heroine as the world has seldom, if ever, seen in 
a lady only now in her twentieth year."

   Several of the New York journals also copied the above, and one of 
them, "The World," published the following communication: -

   "I would respectfully ask the use of a small space in the columns of 
'The World' to say a word regarding these statements.

   "Within the past few months Mrs. Hardinge's agent in the United States 
has sent her bills of exchange on London bankers to the amount of eight 
hundred pounds sterling, or nearly ten thousand dollars in greenbacks. She 
has never received a sou of this money. Her letters have been opened here 
and the drafts extracted before going on to her, and this is the reason 
she is in distress. Too proud to beg, too honourable to borrow, she pawned 
her jewels and wedding 

Page 9

presents, piece by piece, until her situation became known to her friends. 
Cut off from pecuniary resources, a stranger in a strange land, her 
husband in a Northern prison, what could she do? 'Surely poverty in a 
young and accomplished woman is not only a sacred claim to the protection 
of society, but is also the very highest credential of honour.'

   "I received during the week a letter from this poor lady; and she says, 
'I think it is so cruel in the Yankees to intercept my letters and stop my 
money, and I don't know why I am thus persecuted.' It is cruel, and it is 
beneath the dignity of any Government to stoop to such means of revenge. 
Such things in the dark ages would be called unchivalrous. Good God! can 
this be the nineteenth century?

   "Mr. Hardinge came here, as a peaceable citizen would come, to attend 
to his private business and return to England. He had no Confederate 
duties. Having nearly completed his labours, he went to Martinsburg to see 
his wife's mother, and, while returning thence, with all the necessary 
papers and passes in his possession, was arrested this 

Page 10

side of Harper's Ferry. Confined in nondescript guard-houses, in jails, 
and dragged about like a convicted felon, he was finally lodged in the 
Carroll Prison at Washington, and from thence taken to Fort Delaware. 
After suffering two months' confinement, he was unconditionally released, 
and sailed for Europe on the 8th February. She will not be in want or 
distress when he arrives in London. For what he was arrested and confined 
is to him yet a mystery.

   "The intimation to Mrs. Hardinge that the publication of her work would 
endanger the life of her husband was not without foundation, as there are 
officials high in power at Washington of whom she knows more than is 
generally known, and who will be shown up in their true light and colours 
in her book. They fear the truth."

   It is pleasant to add, that the moment Belle Boyd's necessities became 
known in London the most generous offers of assistance were literally 
showered upon her by ladies and gentlemen of 

Page 11

the highest and best classes in England. And here I cannot refrain from 
saying that, after several years of observation and experience, I cannot 
but regard the real nobility of England as the noblest and most hospitable 
people in the world. The Southern planters rank - or, alas! did rank - 
next.

   But this is a digression. Let us glance a moment at Belle Boyd in 
prison, sketched by other hands than her own.

   In the month of August, 1862, the editor of the "Iowa Herald," D. A. 
Mahony, Esq., a strong Anti-Black Republican, but an able and eloquent 
supporter of the Constitution and the Union, was taken from his bed, and, 
without arraignment or trial, and without even being informed of "the 
things whereof he was accused," hurried away to Washington, and thrust 
into the "Old Capitol Prisons." What he saw and suffered there he has 
already told the world, in words that ought to 

Page 12

burn and brand for ever his lawless and infamous persecutors.

   The following extracts from Mr. Mahony's journal, published by 
Carleton, of New York, give us characteristic glimpses of Belle Boyd in 
prison: -

   "Among the prisoners in the Old Capitol when I reached there was the 
somewhat famous Belle Boyd, to whom has been attributed the defeat of 
General Banks, in the Shenandoah Valley, by Stonewall Jackson. Belle, as 
she is familiarly called by all the prisoners, and affectionately so by 
the Confederates, was arrested and imprisoned as a spy....

   "The first intimation some of us new-comers in the Old Capitol had of 
the fact of there being a lady in that place was the hearing of "Maryland, 
my Maryland," sung the first night of our incarceration, in what we could 
not be mistaken was a woman's voice. On inquiry, we were informed that it 
was Belle Boyd. Some of us had never heard of the lady before; and we were 
all 

Page 13

inquiring about her. Who was she? where was she from? and what did she 
do?....

   "Belle was put in solitary confinement, but allowed to have her room-
door open, and to sit outside of it in a hall or stair-landing in the 
evening. Whenever she availed herself of this privilege, as she frequently 
did, the greatest curiosity was manifested by the victims of despotism to 
see her. Her room being on the second story, those who occupied the third 
story were civilians from Fredericksburg.....

   "But we must not lose sight of Belle Boyd. I heard her voice, my first 
night in prison, singing 'Maryland, my Maryland,' the first time I had 
ever heard the Southern song. The words, stirring enough to Southern 
hearts, were enunciated by her with such peculiar expression as to touch 
even sensibilities which did not sympathize with the cause which inspired 
the song. It was difficult to listen unmoved to this lady, throwing her 
whole soul, as it were, into the expression of the sentiments of devotion 
to the South, defiance to the North, and affectionately confident appeals 
to Maryland, which form the burden of that 

Page 14

celebrated song. The pathos her voice, her apparently forlorn condition, 
and, at those times when her soul seemed absorbed in the thoughts she was 
uttering in song, her melancholy manner, affected all who heard her, not 
only with compassion for her, but with an interest in her which came near, 
on several occasions, bringing about a conflict between the prisoners and 
the guards.

   "Fronting on the same hall or stair-landing on which Belle Boyd's room-
door opened, were three other rooms, all filled to their capacity with 
prisoners, mostly Confederate officers. Several of these were personally 
acquainted with Belle, as she was most of the time, and by nearly every 
one, called. In the evenings these prisoners were permitted to crowd 
inside of their room-doors, whence they could see and sometimes exchange a 
word with Belle. When this liberty was not allowed, she contrived to 
procure a large marble, around which she would tie a note, written on 
tissue-paper, and, when the guard turned his back to patrol his beat in 
the hall, she would roll the marble into one of the open doors 

Page 15

of the Confederate prisoners' rooms. When the contents were read and noted 
a missive would be written in reply, and the marble, similarly burdened as 
it came, would be rolled back to Belle. Thus was a correspondence 
established and kept up between Belle and her fellow-prisoners, till a 
more convenient and effective mode was discovered. This occurred soon 
after some of us were transferred from room No. 13 to No. 10.

   "One day Mr. Sheward and I were rummaging in an old, dirty, doorless 
closet in No. 10, when we discovered an opening in the floor, and, looking 
down, perceived the light in the room below, which happened to be that 
occupied by Belle Boyd. Here was a discovery! No sooner was it made, than 
we set to writing a note, which was tied to a thread and dropped down 
through the discovered aperture. It happened to be seen by Belle, who soon 
returned the compliment. Thenceforth a regular mail passed through the 
floor in No. 10; and though Lieutenant Miller and Superintendent Wood 
prided themselves on being well informed of every occurrence which 

Page 16

took place in prison contrary to the rules, with all their vigilance, 
aided by the presence, as they admitted, of a detective in every room of 
the prison, except that of Belle Boyd, they never discovered this through-
the-floor mail. It would not be the least interesting chapter in the 
history of the Old Capitol to give in it these letters of Belle Boyd. But 
the time is not yet."

   These last words of Mahony remind me of the fact that Belle Boyd, the 
"rebel spy," is in possession of a vast amount of information implicating 
certain high officials at Washington, both in public and private scandals, 
which she deems it imprudent at present to publish. "The time is not yet."

   "Belle usually commenced her evening entertainment," writes Mahony, 
"with 'Maryland.'" Up to this time this patriotic and spirit-stirring 
song, written by young Randall, of Baltimore, must be regarded as the 
"Marseillaise" of the 

Page 17

South. As it is as yet but little known in England, I will here quote it 
entire -

AS SUNG BY BELLE BOYD IN PRISON.

"The despot's heel is on thy shore, 
 Maryland! 
 His torch is at thy temple door, 
 Maryland! 
 Avenge the patriotic gore 
 That flecked the streets of Baltimore, 
 And be the battle queen of yore, 
 Maryland! my Maryland! 

"Hark to a wandering son's appeal, 
 Maryland! 
 My Mother State, to thee I kneel, 
 Maryland! 
 For life and death, for woe and weal, 
 Thy peerless chivalry reveal, 
 And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, 
 Maryland! my Maryland! 

"Thou wilt not cower in the dust, 
 Maryland! 
 Thy beaming sword shall never rust, 
 Maryland! 
 Remember Carroll's sacred trust, 
 Remember Howard's warlike thrust, 
 And all thy slumberers with the just, 
 Maryland! my Maryland! 

Page 18

"Come! 'tis the red dawn of the day, 
 Maryland! 
 Come with thy panoplied array, 
 Maryland! 
 With Ringgold's spirit for the fray, 
 With Watson's blood at Monterey, 
 With fearless Lowe, and dashing May, 
 Maryland! my Maryland! 

"Dear mother! burst the tyrant's chain, 
 Maryland! 
 Virginia should not call in vain, 
 Maryland! 
 She meets her sisters on the plain: 
 Sic semper, 'tis her proud refrain, 
 That baffles minions back amain. 
 Maryland! my Maryland! 

"Come! for thy shield is bright and strong, 
 Maryland! 
 Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong, 
 Maryland! 
 Come to thine own heroic throng, 
 That stalks with Liberty along, 
 And gives a new Key to thy song, 
 Maryland! my Maryland! 

"I see the blush upon thy cheek, 
 Maryland 
 And thou wert ever bravely meek, 
 Maryland! 

Page 19

 But, lo! there surges forth a shriek, 
 From hill to hill, from creek to creek: 
 Potomac calls to Chesapeake. 
 Maryland! my Maryland! 

"Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll, 
 Maryland! 
 Thou wilt not crook to his control, 
 Maryland! 
 Better the fire upon thee roll, 
 Better the shot, the blade, the bowl, 
 Than crucifixion of the soul, 
 Maryland! my Maryland! 

"I hear the distant thunder hum, 
 Maryland! 
 The Old Line's bugle, fife, and drum, 
 Maryland! 
 She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb. 
 Hurrah! she spurns the Northern scum! 
 She breathes, she lives; she'll come, she'll come! 
 Maryland! my Maryland!" 

   "The singing of this song," says Mahony, "often brought Belle in 
collision with the guard who passed to and fro in front of her room door. 
It was, of course, provoking; but was such a place a proper one in which 
to imprison a female, and especially one who, whatever may have been 

Page 20

her offence, was in the estimation of the world, a lady?"....

   Many a patriotic lady of Baltimore has been arrested by Federal 
officers for singing the patriotic song of "Maryland." But what will the 
English reader say when he learns the following fact? At one of the most 
celebrated eating, drinking, and singing saloons in London, the classical 
resort of authors, actors, poets, and wits, for these hundred years at 
least, the famous band of boys, who sing better than any choir outside the 
Sistine chapel in Rome, after having got "the words and air of 'Maryland' 
by heart," are not allowed to sing it, for fear of giving offence! OFFENCE 
TO WHOM? It might possibly "offend"somebody were they to chant the 
"Marseillaise."

   To return again to our caged bird: -

   "Belle was allowed to go in the yard on Sundays, when there was 
preaching there. On 

Page 21

these occasions she wore a small Confederate flag in her bosom. No sooner 
would her presence be known to the Confederate prisoners, than they 
manifested towards her every mark of respect which persons in their 
situation could bestow. Most of them doffed their hats as she approached 
them, and she, with a grace and dignity that might be envied by a queen, 
extended her hand to them as she moved along to her designated position in 
a corner near the preacher. We Northern prisoners of State envied the 
Confederates who enjoyed the acquaintance of Belle Boyd, and who secured 
from her such glances of sympathy as can only glow from a woman's eyes.

   "Belle's situation was a peculiarly trying one. If she kept her room, a 
solitary prisoner, her health, and probably her mind, would become 
affected by the confinement and solitude; and if she indulged herself by 
sitting outside her room door, she became exposed to the gaze of more than 
a hundred prisoners, nearly all of them strangers to her, and many of them 
her enemies by the laws of war. Nor was this all. 

Page 22

She could not help hearing the comments made on her, and the opinions 
expressed of her, by passers-by; some of them complimentary and 
flattering, it is true, but oftentimes couched in expressions which were 
not what she should hear. The guards, too, were sometimes rude to her both 
by word and action. One time, especially, one of the guards presented his 
bayoneted musket at her in a threatening manner. She, brave and 
unterrified, dared the craven-hearted fellow to put his threat into 
execution. It was well for him that he did not, for he would have been 
torn into pieces before it could be known to the prison authorities what 
had happened.

   "Belle was subjected to another worse annoyance and indignity than even 
this. Her room fronted on A Street, and, as usual with all the prisoners 
whose rooms had windows opening towards the street, Belle would sit at her 
window sometimes, and look abroad upon the houses, streets, and people of 
the city named after Washington. It happened frequently that troops were 
moving to and fro, and it was on such occasions especially that Belle, 
prompted by 

Page 23

that curiosity which seems to be a law of nature in mankind, would look 
through her barred window at the soldiers. No sooner would they perceive 
her than they indulged in coarse jests, vulgar expressions, and the vilest 
slang of the brothel, made still more coarse, vulgar, and indecent by the 
throwing off of the little restraint which civilized society places upon 
the most abandoned prostitutes and their companions....

   "Did the officers of the troops passing by permit the soldiers to thus 
insult a female, and subject themselves to such scornful and contemptuous 
reproof? the reader will be apt to inquire. Yes; and participated with the 
soldiers in uttering the most vulgar language and indecent allusions to 
the imprisoned woman; and that, too, without having the remotest idea of 
who she was, or of what she was accused. It was enough for them that she 
was a defenceless woman, to insult and outrage her by such language as 
they would not dare to apply in the public streets to an abandoned woman 
who had her liberty. And these men were going forth to fight the battles 
of the Union! They had just parted with mothers, 

Page 24

wives, and sisters. It would seem that, in doing so, they turned their 
backs upon the virtues which give beauty to woman and dignity to man....

   "At the general exchange of prisoners which took place in September 
Belle Boyd was sent to Richmond. As soon as it became known in the 'Old 
Capitol' that she was about to leave, there was not one, Federalist or 
Confederate, prisoner of state, officer of the 'Old Capitol,' as well as 
prisoner of war, who did not feel that he was about to part with one for 
whom he had, at least, a great personal regard. With many it was more than 
mere regard.

   "Every inmate of the 'Old Capitol' tried to procure some token of 
remembrance from Belle, and there was scarcely one who did not bestow on 
her some mark of regard, esteem, or affection, as their sentiments and 
feelings influenced them severally, and as the means of their disposal 
afforded them an opportunity to manifest their sensibility. While every 
man who had any delicacy of feeling for the apparently forlorn prisoner 
rejoiced at her release from such a loathsome place, and from being 
subjected, as she continually was, to insult and contumely, there 

Page 25

was not a gentleman in 'Old Capitol' whose emotions did not overcome him 
as he saw her leave the place for home."

   Thus kindly and warmly writes the veteran editor of the "Iowa Herald," 
one of the victims of Seward's "little bell," for whose imprisonment and 
release the "Powers" at Washington, "clothed with a little brief
authority," have given no reason or explanation. But was not Mr. Mahony 
"guilty" of being the Democratic nominee for Congress?

   A somewhat more poetic picture of "La Belle Rebelle" is given by the 
accomplished author of "Guy Livingstone," in his "Border and Bastille," 
written while tasting the sweets of Federal tyranny in that same "Old 
Capitol" Prison: -

   "Through the bars of a second-story window that fronted each turn of my 
tramp, I saw - this: a slight figure, in the freshest summer-toilette of 
cool pink muslin; close braids of dark hair 

Page 26

shading clear pale cheeks; eyes that were made to sparkle, though the look 
in them was very sad; and the languid bowing down of the small head told 
of something worse than weariness.

   "Truly a pretty picture, though framed in such a rude setting; but 
almost startling, at first, as the apparition of the fair witch in the 
forest to Christabelle....

   "No need to ask what her crime had been: aid and abetment of the South 
suggested itself before you detected the ensign of the South that the 
démoiselle still wore undauntedly - a pearl solitaire, fashioned as a 
Single Star. I may not deny that my gloomy 'constitutional' seemed 
thenceforward a shade or two less dreary; but, though community of 
suffering does much to abridge ceremony, it was some days before I 
interchanged with the fair captive any sign beyond the mechanical lifting 
of my cap, when I entered and left her presence, duly acknowledged from 
above. One evening I chanced to be loitering almost under the window. A 
low, significant cough made me look up; I saw the flash of a gold 
bracelet, and the wave of a white hand; and there 

Page 27

fill at my feet a fragrant, pearly rose-bud, nestling in fresh green 
leaves. My thanks were, perforce, confined to a gesture and a dozen 
hurried words; but I would the prison-beauty could believe that fair Jane 
Beaufort's rose was not more prized than hers, though the first was a love-
token to a king, the last only a graceful gift to an unlucky stranger. I 
suppose that most men, whose past is not utterly barren of romance, are 
weak enough to keep some withered flowers till they have lived memory 
down; and I pretend not to be wiser than my fellows. Other fragrant 
messengers followed in their season; but if ever I 'win hame to my ain 
countrie,' I make mine avow to enshrine that first rose-bud in my 
reliquaire with all honour and solemnity, there to abide till one of us 
shall be dust."

   With this explanatory introduction, I have now only to commend "La 
Belle Rebelle" to the kindly sympathies of her readers - not as an 
authoress (to this she makes no pretensions); nor as a partisan soldier, 
although as such she 

Page 28

has done good service in the cause; nor even as a freed bird from the "Old 
Capitol" cage; but simply as a woman - a warm-hearted, impulsive, heroic 
woman of the South, who, maddened by the wrongs and cruelties inflicted 
upon her people, and exalted, by the love she bore them, above the common 
cares and considerations of life, dashed into the field, bearing more than 
a woman's part in her country's struggle for liberty.

   Like the flashing of the plume in the helmet of Navarre, the glancing 
of the Confederate ensign, when waved by a woman's hand, has never failed 
to fire the soldier's heart to "lofty deeds and daring high;" and on more 
than a hundred Southern battle-fields that proud banner, consecrated by 
prayers and kisses, baptized in tears and blood, has been greeted by the 
closing eyes of its dying defenders as the oriflamme of victory. Though 
lost for the moment in clouds and darkness, prophetic Hope, the last 
solace of the unfortunate, 

Page 29

still waits and watches for its re-appearance as the harbinger of Southern 
liberty and independence: -

"For the battle to the strong 
 Is not given, 
 While the Judge of Right and Wrong 
 Sits in heaven! 
 And the God of David still 
 Guides the pebble with his will. 
 There are giants yet to kill, 
 Wrongs unshriven!" 

   Since the above was written the Southern people have suffered a heavy 
calamity in the assassination of the President of the United States. Not 
that Mr. Lincoln was their friend: on the contrary, every man and woman in 
the South, and every child born within the last four years, regarded him 
as the official head and personal embodiment of all their enemies. But, by 
the removal of the Commander-in-Chief of the great army and navy with 
which they were contending, a far more vindictive and unrelenting man is 
invested with the supreme power of the nation. 

Page 30

Abraham Lincoln, -with all his faults and fanaticism, his angularities of 
character and vulgarities of manner, had a sunny side to his nature; and 
there is every reason to believe that, with his idol Union once nominally 
restored, he would have adopted an indulgent, humane policy towards the 
brave and vanquished South, believing, with the great poet, that - 

"Earthly power cloth then show likest God's, 
 When mercy seasons justice." 

   The suspicion which has been officially and wickedly thrown upon an 
honourable and heroic people, touching "the deep damnation of his taking 
off," is sufficiently answered by the universal regret expressed 
throughout the Confederacy at President Lincoln's death, the public 
denunciation of his murderer, and the horror everywhere felt at the idea 
of being "ruled with a rod of iron" by such an unprincipled demagogue as 
Andrew Johnson! It is usual in cases of murder to look for the 

Page 31

criminal among those who expect to be benefited by the crime. In the death 
of Lincoln his immediate successor in office alone receives "the benefit 
of his dying."

   While deploring the event which places the reins of power in the hands 
of one as unfit to control the destinies of a great nation as was the 
reckless youth to guide the chariot of the Sun, there can be no injustice 
in alluding to the fact that the Northern Powers and the Northern Press 
have much to answer for on the head of assassination. I have yet to learn 
that the written programme of Colonel Dahlgren, which designed the burning 
of Richmond, the ravaging of its women, and the murder of President Davis 
and all his cabinet, has ever been disavowed or denounced by the 
Washington Government, or by the newspapers that support it. Philosophy 
and religion alike teach us that, while crime only belongs to the act, the 
sin of murder consists in the intent. In the light of this 

Page 32

judgment, faint in comparison with that "awful light" yet to be thrown, 
not only upon all human actions, but upon "the very thoughts and intents 
of the heart," both North and South, friend and foe, rebel and loyalist, 
the victim and the victor, the living and the dead, must all be tried and 
sentenced by ONE who "judgeth not as man judgeth."

   In the meantime, let us pray, and hope, and labour for liberty, love, 
and peace.

London, May 17th, 1865.