David Owen Dodd David Owen Dodd ( November 10 , 1846 – January 8 , 1864 ) was an American 17 - year - old who was tried , convicted and hanged as a Confederate spy in the American Civil War . In December 1863 , Dodd carried some letters to business associates of his father in Union - held Little Rock , Arkansas . While traveling to rejoin his family at Camden , Arkansas , he mistakenly re - entered Union territory . Found to be without a pass , Union soldiers questioned him and discovered that he was carrying a notebook with the locations of Union troops in the area . He was arrested and tried by a military tribunal , with little defense offered for his actions . The tribunal found him guilty of spying and he was hanged for his crime on January 8 , 1864 . Though Dodd did not reveal the source of the information , a 15 - year - old girl named Mary Dodge and her father were summarily escorted back to their home in Vermont . These events have led to David Owen Dodd being called the " Boy Martyr of the Confederacy " . Biography . Early life . David Owen Dodd was born in Victoria , Lavaca County , Texas , to Andrew Marion Dodd , a merchant , and Lydia Echols Owen . His Baptist parents had married in a village south of Little Rock , Arkansas and moved to Texas with daughter Senorah , where David and his sisters , Leonora , and Ann Eliza , were born . David ' s third sister , Ann Eliza , died before the Civil War . In 1856 , the family returned to Arkansas and settled near Benton . In 1861 , the Dodds moved to Little Rock to be closer to Senhora , who attended school in the city and lived with her aunt , Mrs . Susan A . Dodd . David Dodd went to classes at St . John ' s Masonic College . His father left the family to serve as sutler with the 3rd Arkansas Cavalry . In 1862 , David went to Louisiana and worked as a telegraph operator until crossing the river to join his father and assist him in his sutlery . In the fall of 1863 , after the Union Army occupied Little Rock , David returned to escort his mother and sisters to Mississippi but never left Arkansas . In December his father Andrew arrived and the entire Dodd family moved south to journey to Mississippi to be near Andrew . Trip to Little Rock . As Union troops destroyed southern fields , tobacco was becoming scarce . Andrew Dodd devised a plan to buy tobacco and store it for later sale at a higher price . He looked to his business associates in Little Rock for the needed cash . Because Little Rock was in Union hands , he could not make the trip himself . On December 24 , 1863 , he sent David Dodd , a minor and therefore assumed neutral , to Little Rock to deliver letters to former associates seeking investments for the tobacco deal . Confederate General James F . Fagan issued the boy a pass . Dodd rode a mule to Little Rock , carrying a birth certificate showing he was an underage 17 along with his pass . Dodd stayed with his aunt , Mrs . Susan Dodd , in Little Rock . Except for some Union soldiers , there were very few teenage boys in the city , and Dodd was popular with the city ' s younger girls . He even became popular with some of the younger servicemen at the arsenal , especially because he usually was accompanied by a local girl or two . In addition to his father ' s letters , he also delivered letters to several people he knew . Dodd attended some holiday dances with at least two girls , Mary Swindle and Minerva Cogburn . He also spent some time with 16 - year - old Mary Dodge at her home , where Union officers were quartered . Mary supported the Southern cause ; her father , R . L . Dodge , was a Vermont native on friendly terms with the Northern troops . On December 28 , 1863 , Dodd visited the Provost Marshal ' s office at St . John ' s College ( several hundred yards southwest of the arsenal ) and had no trouble obtaining a pass through Union lines to rejoin his family in Camden . Dodd left Little Rock the next day . As he left Union territory , the guard tore up Dodd ' s pass since he would no longer need it now that he was in Confederate land . He went to spend the night with his uncle , Washington Dodd , on the Middle Hot Springs Road southwest of Little Rock . The next day , Dodd traveled through the woods and found himself back behind Union lines . Arrest and trial . On December 29 , 1863 , Dodd was stopped by a Union sentry in west Little Rock , near Ten Mile House on Stagecoach Road , and was discovered to be without a pass . For identification , he showed his small leather notebook , where Union soldiers found his birth certificate and a page with dots and dashes . A Union officer was able to read some of the Morse code messages , which contained information about Union troop strength and locations in Little Rock ; Dodd was arrested . The next day , Dodd was taken to Little Rock to face Brigadier General John Davidson , who was commanding the Union occupation forces in General Frederick Steele ' s absence . A telegraph operator translated the Morse code , which provided precise locations and strengths of Union troops . David was formally charged as a spy and was taken to the military prison on the site of the present Arkansas State Capitol building . Dodd was interrogated for two days by Union officers who tried to discover the source of the information . On the third day , under personal orders from General Steele , Mary Dodge and her father were escorted under armed guard to a Union gunboat on the Arkansas River and transported to Vermont , where Mary was kept until the end of the war . This suggests that Steele had discovered that Mary Dodge was involved , and that he would not be able to hang a 16 - year - old girl . On December 31 , 1863 , Dodd ' s trial began in Little Rock by a military tribunal of six Union officers . Brigadier General John M . Thayer presided with Captain B . F . Rice as Judge Advocate . Other members were Colonel John A . Garrett , Major Phineus Graves , Major H . D . Gibson and Captain George Rockwell . The Court Martial lasted four days . The official charges were read by the Judge Advocate : " " In this , that said David O . Dodd , an inhabitant of the State of Arkansas , did as a Spy of the so - called Confederate States of America , enter within the lines of the Army of the United States , stationed at Little Rock , Arkansas , and did there secretly possess himself of information regarding the number , the kind , and position of the troops of said Army of the United States , their commanders , and other military information valuable to the enemy now at war with the United States , and having thus obtained said information did obtain a pass from the Provost Marshal General ' s office , and endeavor to reach the lines of the enemy - therewith ; when he was arrested at the cavalry outposts of said Army - and did otherwise lurk , and act as a spy of the Rebels now in arms against the United States - This at the Post of Little Rock , and the encampments of the Army of Arkansas , on or about the 29th and 30th of December , 1863 . " " To these charges , David pleaded " Not Guilty " . On January 1 , 1864 , the trial continued with Dodd represented by attorneys T . D . W . Yonley and William Fishback , who was pro - Union and later became Governor of Arkansas . The defense attorneys proposed amnesty , which was rejected by the tribunal after an adjournment to deliberate the matter . Court was adjourned until the next day . On January 2 , 1864 , witnesses were called to testify against Dodd . Private Daniel Goldberg testified that he tore up Dodd ' s pass because " he did not need a pass anymore " . Sergeant Frederick Miehr testified that he arrested Dodd after the boy could not produce a pass . 1st Lieutenant C . F . Stopral found Dodd ' s memoranda book , discovered that the Morse code reported the positions and armaments of the 3rd Ohio Battery and 11th Ohio Battery , and sent him to the guard house . Captain George Hanna testified that he interrogated Dodd , and discovered that Dodd was carrying one pocketbook containing Louisiana money , Confederate money , ten dollars in greenbacks , and some Confederate postage stamps ; one postal currency holder , one loaded Deringer pistol , and a package between his shirts containing letters . Captain John Baird testified that , per Hanna ' s orders , he took the prisoner and the papers into Little Rock the next morning to General Davidson . Captain Robert C . Clowery testified that he interpreted the Morse code as containing detailed information about the locations and strengths of Union forces and armaments . First Lieutenant George O . Sokalski then testified about the actual Union troop strength and weaponry , which was a match of Dodd ' s coded message . During the trial , Dodd was asked several times to name the Union traitor who gave him the troop information ; each time he remained silent . The defense tried to explain the Morse Code information as something Dodd did to exercise his telegraph skills . Dodd did not testify , although his written deposition was submitted . Only character witnesses were called . By a 4 – 2 vote , David Dodd was convicted of spying for the Confederacy and was sentenced to be hanged . He was taken back to the State Prison . General Steele designated Friday , January 8 , 1864 for the execution day . Hanging . On January 8 , 1864 , David O . Dodd was brought to the grounds of his former school , St . John ' s , just east of the Little Rock Arsenal , for his hanging . A crowd of five or six thousand gathered to watch the hanging . Dodd stood on the tailgate of a wagon under the noose . The executioner , named Dekay , fixed the rope around David ' s neck , and the prop was knocked from under the tailgate . The rope stretched and the boy dangled , strangling to death over a full five minutes . Onlookers and Union soldiers became ill . The record is unclear about exactly how Dodd died . Some contend that one or two soldiers grabbed his legs to add weight and hasten his death . Others told that a soldier shinnied up the gibbet to grab the noose , twist the rope and raise the condemned off the ground . Military doctors who examined Dodd ' s body reported death due to " a disrupted spine . " Just prior to the funeral , Union Headquarters ordered no spoken or sung words at the memorial service , and that only Dodd ' s relatives in Union - held territory ( two aunts and their husbands ) would be allowed to attend . The town was tense ; a riot was possible ; there was fear that a Confederate raid would take advantage of the situation . Security around General Steele ' s Headquarters was increased ; no one was allowed to see him except on official business . Calm prevailed , and David O . Dodd was buried in plot Elm 355 in the southeast portion of Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock , in a grave donated by a Little Rock resident . This cemetery was also the eventual resting place of R . L . Dodge and General Fagan . At a time when Union sympathies ran high in Arkansas and a constitutional convention was in session to enable the state to rejoin the Union , Dodd ' s execution fueled renewed divisions between Union and Confederate factions . Dodd quickly became a folk hero and a force behind renewed Confederate dissension . After hearing the news of their son ' s execution , Andrew and Lydia Dodd spent the remainder of their lives in ill health . Andrew died of yellow fever in 1867 , while Lydia died in Pascagoula , Mississippi in 1885 . In March 1864 , General Steele was relieved of responsibilities in Little Rock and was replaced by a harsh anti - southern commander . Legacy . Dodd ' s story has been told in the poem " The Long , Long Thoughts of Youth " by Marie Erwin Ward , a full - length play and a 1915 silent Hollywood movie whose film has not survived . There are more monuments to David O . Dodd in Arkansas than to any other of its war heroes , including General Douglas MacArthur . A monument marks the spot of Dodd ' s hanging , now in the corner of the parking lot of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock ' s School of Law . Dodd ' s grave is marked by an eight - foot marble monument , engraved " Here lies the remains of David O . Dodd . Born in Lavaca County , Texas , Nov . 10 , 1846 , died Jan . 8 , 1864 . " Nearby is a marble scroll with the words " Boy Martyr of the Confederacy . " David O . Dodd Elementary School in southwest Little Rock is located on land that was once a part of Washington Dodd ' s Farm . A stone marker on school grounds , believed to be the place where he was captured , was erected by the David O . Dodd Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy , Pine Bluff , Arkansas , and is dedicated to " Arkansas ' Boy Hero of the War Between the States . " In 1908 , the Arkansas Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy starting raising funds for a stained - glass window in Dodd ' s honor . The window was built by the Charles F . Hogeman Company in New York City and depicts Dodd as Southern saint and martyr with curly blond hair , even though his only known photograph shows him with straight black hair . The David O . Dodd window was unveiled at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond , Virginia on November 7 , 1911 where it was displayed for several years . In 1988 , it was found in storage and was moved back to Arkansas . The David O . Dodd window debuted at the Arkansas Museum of Science and Industry in January 1990 . The Dodd window was returned to Richmond in 1998 . In January 2004 , the Museum of the Confederacy again loaned the Dodd window to Arkansas to commemorate the 140th anniversary of Dodd ' s trial at the renamed MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History ( formerly the Little Rock Arsenal ) . Each January , the Sons of Confederate Veterans honor Dodd in a ceremony at his grave site . In November 1984 , the Sons of Confederate Veterans awarded the Confederate Medal of Honor to Dodd , one of only twenty - two persons so honored .