Belle Boyd (a.k.a. Isabelle Maria Boyd) was born May 9, 1884 in Martinsburg West Virginia and died June 11, 1900 in Wisconsin while doing a performance in one of her speaking tours. Her parents were Benjamin Reed and Mary Rebecca Boyd and she was the oldest child in the family. Although her family had a lack of money, she had received a good education. Belle Boyd went from West Virginia to Baltimore to England, and then to Wisconsin. She had no known job before becoming a spy. At the age of 17, she had shot a Union soldier and killed him because he had invaded her home and used offensive language towards her and her mother. Boyd didn’t receive any consequences for this because the commanding officer said she had done right. Because of this …show more content…
She was very successful and managed to eavesdrop on a Council of Civil War through a peephole while visiting family. She was also able to run out in the battlefield last minute and provide the general with information about Union troop dispositions. Belle Boyd was arrested several times but avoided being imprisoned. July 29, 1862, she was finally imprisoned but was part of a prisoner exchange, so she was released after a month. Boyd was later arrested again in July 1863. In December 1863, she was released and banished to the South. On May 8, 1864, she was arrested once more as a Confederate courier. With the help of Lieutenant Sam Hardinge, a Union naval officer, she was able to escape to Canada and make her way back to England. In England, she married Sam Hardinge and had kids. She stayed in England for two years, achieving success on the stage and writing her memoirs, Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison. In 1866, she returned to America as a widow and continued with her career on stage. Between 1869 and 1884, she married John Swainston Hammond, had four children with him, andthe divorced him. A couple of months later, she married again to Nathaniel High Jr. Belle Boyd died due to a heart attack during one of her performances on June 11, 1900 at the age of