First published in 1865, Belle Boyd’s memoir of her experiences as a Confederate spy has stood the test of time and interest. Belle first gained notoriety when she killed a Union soldier in her home in 1861. During the Federal occupations of the Shenandoah Valley, she mingled with the servicemen and, using her feminine wiles, obtained useful information for the Rebel cause.
In this new edition, Kennedy-Nolle and Faust consider the domestic side of the Civil War and also assess the value of Boyd's memoir for social and literary historians in its challenge to our understanding the most divisive years in American history.
DREW GILPIN FAUST is the author of six books, including This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War and Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War, winner of the Francis Parkman Prize. She is President of Harvard University.
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