Belle Boyd was one of the most famous personalities of the Civil War. For a spy, she got a lot of press attention. She was a very effective one, as evidenced by the Confederate Army commissioning her as a Captain of Scouts in September 1862 and appointing her an aide de camp to Stonewall Jackson. This was more than a propaganda exercise. While the Confederate Secret Service records were destroyed on April 2, 1865, there are indicators that Belle organized entire parties of young women for low level order of battle collection, may have been one of the Confederate Scouts with Lee's army at Gettysburg, and may have been promoted as high as Lt. Col. Boyd's exploits began after she shot and killed a Union soldier who was part of a party of home invaders on July 4, 1861. Her initial efforts were clumsy and amateurish, but she somehow became a very effective agent and delivered critical intelligence to Stonewall Jackson before and even during the Battle of Front Royal, which was the start of the Valley Campaign. Belle was arrested by the Union's Secret Service three times and then sent, for her own safety, as a courier to England and to assist with Confederate Secret Service operations there.
Our speaker this month is Francis Hamit, whose novel, "The Shenandoah Spy," covers only the first year of her career. This is the first of five books he plans to write about that the Confederate Secret Service and the women who were its most effective agents. Hamit served for four years in military intelligence, in the old Army Security Agency, the last two as a General Staff NCO in Frankfurt, Germany. Growing up in an Army family, he has some experience with the military culture. Hamit has a MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop and was one of the 4,000 people hired to help revise the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the early 1980s. One of the 93 articles he originated was the short biography of Belle Boyd. Hamit belongs to the Association for Intelligence Officers, the National Military Intelligence Association, and the Military Writers Society of America.
Mr. Hamit will have copies of his book for sale at our meeting, and will happy to sign them.
Please join us as we learn more about this famous Civil War spy.
Janet Whaley
Program Chair