Belle Boyd Isabella Marie Boyd ( May 13 , 1843 – June 11 , 1900 ) , best known as Belle Boyd or " Cleopatra of the Secession " , was a Confederate spy in the American Civil War . She operated from her father ' s hotel in Front Royal , Virginia and provided valuable information to Confederate general Stonewall Jackson in 1862 . Early life . She was born at Martinsburg , West Virginia , then a part of Virginia , the eldest child of Benjamin Reed and Mary Rebecca ( Glenn ) Boyd . Belle would describe her childhood as idyllic , living a care - free life of a reckless tomboy who climbed trees , raced through the woods , and dominated brothers , sisters , and cousins . Despite her family ' s lack of money , Belle received a good education . After some preliminary schooling , she attended the Mount Washington Female College at Baltimore beginning in 1856 . She completed her training four years later , and her family and friends arranged a debut in Washington , where she filled the role of a fun - loving debutante . Southern Spy . Belle Boyd ' s espionage career began by chance . According to her 1866 account , on July 4 , 1861 , a band of Union army soldiers heard she had Confederate flags in her room , and they came to investigate . They hung a Union flag hung outside her home . This made her angry enough , but when one of them cursed at her mother , she was enraged . Belle pulled out a pistol and shot and killed the man . A board of inquiry exonerated her , but sentries were posted around the house and officers kept close track of her activities . She profited from this enforced familiarity , charming at least one of the officers , Captain Daniel Keily , into revealing military secrets . " To him , " she wrote later , " I am indebted for some very remarkable effusions , some withered flowers , and a great deal of important information . " Belle conveyed those secrets to Confederate officers via her slave , Eliza Hopewell , who carried the messages in a hollowed - out watch case . On her first attempt at spying she was caught and told she could be sentenced to death , but was not . She was not scared and realized she needed to find a better way to communicate . One evening in mid - May 1862 , Union General James Shields and his staff gathered in the parlor of the local hotel . Belle hid in the closet in the room , eavesdropping through a knothole she enlarged in the door . She learned that Shields had been ordered east from Front Royal , Virginia , a move that would reduce the Union Army ' s strength at Front Royal . That night , Belle rode through Union lines , using false papers to bluff her way past the sentries , and reported the news to Col . Turner Ashby , who was scouting for the Confederates . She then returned to town . When the Confederates advanced on Front Royal on May 23 , Belle ran to greet General Stonewall Jackson ' s men , braving enemy fire that put bullet holes in her skirt . She urged an officer to inform Jackson that " the Yankee force is very small . Tell him to charge right down and he will catch them all . " Jackson did and that evening penned a note of gratitude to her : " I thank you , for myself and for the army , for the immense service that you have rendered your country today . " For her contributions , she was awarded the Southern Cross of Honor . Jackson also gave her captain and honorary aide - de - camp positions . After her lover gave her up , Belle Boyd was arrested on July 29 , 1862 , and brought to the Old Capitol Prison in Washington July 30 , 1862 , where there was an inquiry on August 7 , 1862 concerning violations of orders that Boyd be kept in close custody . Boyd was held for a month before being released on August 29 , 1862 , when she was exchanged at Fort Monroe . She was later arrested and imprisoned a third time , but again was set free . In 1864 , she went to England where she met and married a Union naval officer , Samuel Wylde Hardinge . Belle Boyd became an actress in England . Following the death of her husband in 1866 , she returned to the United States on November 11 , 1869 . She married John Swainston Hammond in New Orleans . After a divorce in 1884 , Boyd married Nathaniel Rue High in 1885 . A year later , she began touring the country giving dramatic lectures of her life as a Civil War spy . While touring the United States ( she had gone to address members of a GAR post ) , she died of a heart attack in Kilbourne City , Wisconsin ( now known as Wisconsin Dells , Wisconsin ) on June 11 , 1900 . She was 57 years old . She was buried in the Spring Grove Cemetery in Wisconsin Dells , with members of the Local GAR as her pallbearers . For years her grave simply read :