The Opelousas courier., 1896-12-12
FAIR SPIES.
AN INTERESTING CHATTER OF
WAR HISTORY.
Women Who Aided the Cause OF the
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES Role
Played by q Girl i'll the
Signal CorEs.
TOGETHER the strangest

tenn of the Confeaeracy. During the
war it was hard to find g woman south
of Mason and Dixon's line, no matter
how fair her face and refined her
character, who was really a non-com-
Blatant.
For the first two years of the war
all aid and comfort for the Confeder-
acy north of the Potomac were mainly
derived from the ladies of the ancient
regime at Washington. These ripe
and languid beauties who had formed
the court and assisted in the cere-
monies of successive administrations
learned with speed and certainty many
OF the most important secrets of Lin
coins administration and impaired
them to their friends in the South. As
long as this continued Lees spy sys.
tenn was perfect. He knew the Union
army organization, it's numbers and
its position, while the Federal generals
were absolutely in the dark in respect
to his.
In the third year of hostilitics this
position OF affairs became intolerable
and the Federal Government organ
lied q bureau Of military information,
which had command over all the spies,
the ball room and the signal corps.
As a natural consequence the Govern
ment soon ascertained the numbers
and commanders OF every brigade and
regiment in the Confederate army and
could tell at any time, within a few
thousand, Lees entire numerical
force.
One Of the means of communication
these intri guantes had was by signal
ing across the Potomac to their agents
on the Virginia side of the river. The
chief among the spies was Miss Mary
Watson, the daughter of Major Rod
erick G. Watson, who resided upon q
bluff at least 100 feet above the Poto-
mac River, at Pope's Greek, near Port
Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland.
Miss Watson was a remarkably pretty
girl, twenty-three Or twenty-four
years of age, with mop of black hair, !
dark eyes shaded by long lashes and
heavy black brows. Her carriage
was erect and figure slender, which
made her appear a little above the av.
erage height. She loved the Confeu-
eracy with an ardor SO intense that it
is believed she would have made any
sacrifice for it's cause. She was the
chief female Confederate m%ail-carrier
with Thomas A. Jones north of the
Potomac from about March, 1862, 10
the close Of the war. She and Mr..
Jones successfully managed to traus-
NIT South all thessConfederate mail in.
trusted to their care by the Confeder-
ate agents north OF the Potomac, and
receivedthe mail from the South which
was to be distributed at the North or
or to be transmitted to the Confeder-
ate agents in Canada and Europe. 1t
was owing to her vigilance and un-
firing zeal that not one Of the Con
federate main was ca,Aured during
the war, notwi. astandi/g the neigh
borhood of her Ir.e 1s infested with
Federal detectives, SPIES and soldiers.
She also Eagih up dI4ting the entire
four years signal alton in n OF
her fathers hisg, garrett windows by
means of a black SHAWL. The house of
Thomas A. Jones, Nth whom she D
Grated, Was the l eadquarters of the
Confederate spies.
The character IF the prisoners con.
fined in the Old Capitol was a matter
of wide variation, differing in this
particular from any other place OF
confinement. 1t held prisoners of
State particularly, such as parties
charged with active ~disloyalty at the
North, bounty frauds, counterfeiters
of United States notes and other con-
tractors who had swindled the Govern
ment, and Confederate spies.
OF the secret agents or spies in the
service of the Confederate Govern
ment, there were some who achieved
notoriety at least, and they were we'll
represented at the Old Capitol, among
the latter Being the famous Belle
Boyd, who did the Confederacy some
service by her aIertness and enter
prise as a spy. On a particularly dar-
ing expedition she was arrested and
imprisoned as a spy. After remaining
= prisoner in the Old Capitol about
eleven months she was exchanged for
Colonel Michael C%orcoran Of Meagher's
New York irish Brigade.
Miss D., at the outbreak of the war,
was a lovely, fragile-looking girl of
nineteen, remarkable for the sweet.
ness of her temper and the gentleness
of her disposition. A few days before
the battle of Bull Run a country
market cart stopped in the Confederate
lines at the door Of General Benham's
tent. A peasant girl alighted from
the cart and begged for an immediate
interview withf ;he General. 1t was
granted. General Benham, I be-
%lieve," said tle young lady, in tones
which betrayed her superiority to the
disguise she had assumed. Then, pull
ing down her long, black hair, she
took from its folds a note, small,
damp and crumpled. But it was by
acting upon this informal dispatch
that General Beauregard won the vic
tory of Bull Run.
One of the most interesting charac-
ters in the Old Capitol prison was Mrs.
Rose O. H. Greenhow, an alleged
Southern spy, who was arrested on
the 18th OF August, and confined until
May 81, 1861, when she was sent to
Old Point to be delivered into the
Confederate lines. Mrs, Greenhow
was a dashing widow, rather tall, of
small facial outlines and graceful in
movement. Her husband had been
employed in the State Department as
fra nGlafnr Shn uac q mnmnn Of Lot