Nancy Hart Douglas Nancy Hart Douglas ( 1846 – 1913 ) was a scout , guide , and spy for the Confederacy during the American Civil War . Serving first with the Moccasin Rangers , a prosouthern guerilla group in present - day West Virginia , she later joined the Confederate Army and continued to serve as a guide and spy under General Stonewall Jackson . Childhood . Born Nancy Hart in 1846 in Raleigh , North Carolina , she and her family moved to Tazwell , Virginia , when she was an infant . Hart lived with her family in western Virginia until the outbreak of the Civil War , at which time she developed great sympathy for the Southern cause . During the early years of her life on her family ' s farm , she became an expert with rifles , pistols , and riding horses . She could reportedly operate a gun or handle a horse as well as a man . She eventually moved in with her sister and brother - in - law , Mary and William Clay Price . William Clay Price was not a soldier , but would go and do things for the Confederate army in the evenings . One day the Union soldiers came to question him . They took him away and killed him down the road from his family . This fueled Nancy ' s rage and hatred toward the Union cause . Civil War . In early 1861 , after a contingent of Union troops passed through her town , Hart ' s sympathy for the Confederacy prompted her to leave home and join the Moccasin Rangers , led by the infamous Perry Conley . She became a valuable asset to the Rangers , serving both as a spy and a guide to the local region . Hart became so famous and such an enigma for Union forces in West Virginia that a reward was offered for information leading to her capture in 1862 . Shortly thereafter , she and a female friend were captured by Union troops led by Lt . Col . Starr and taken prisoner in Summersville , West Virginia . Here , she was photographed unsmiling and unemotional , by an itinerant photographer . According to legend , Hart did not smile because of the attire she had to wear for the picture . Civil War telegrapher Marion H . Kerner , an officer who befriended Hart at the encampment , later made her story famous in the magazine , " Leslie ' s Weekly " . That same night , Hart escaped from the Union camp on Starr ' s horse and joined a regiment of about 200 Confederate soldiers led by Major R . Augustus Bailey ( the Moccasin Rangers had been disbanded since the death of Perry Conley ) . A week later , the Confederate troops overran Summersville , burning many of the public buildings and taking Lt . Col . Starr prisoner . Marion Kerner was also captured , but due to the kind treatment he had given Hart during her own imprisonment , she convinced the Confederate officers to release him . However , he was promptly recaptured after attempting to relay a telegram to Union forces . He was released at the war ' s end . Francis Miller ' s 1911 " Photographic History of the Civil War " repeats the claim Hart was captured by Lt . Col . Starr of the 9th West Virginia ; a photograph was taken of Hart ; she killed a guard with his own gun and a week later led a Confederate unit which captured Starr and the 9th West Virginia July 25 , 1862 . Official Records of the Civil War mention the capture of Companies " A " and " F " of the 9th West Virginia Infantry at Summerville , West Virginia , July 25 , 1862 — but have no mention of an arrest / escape of a Nancy Hart in 1862 . Likewise the Official W . V . Adjutant General Report on the 9th W . V . do not show any casualties for July 18 – 25 , 1862 After the war . After the war , Hart married the former Ranger Joshua Douglas , and they lived in Spring Creek and Richwood , West Virginia during the remainder of their lives . They had two sons . Milking cows , Nancy Hart Douglas died in 1913 and is buried on Mannings Knob near Richwood . Adaptation . Nancy Hart ' s story has been recreated in the novel " Rebel Hart " by Edith Hemingway and Jacquelin Shields .