Barred from fighting for their beliefs on the battlefield, though many tried, Southern women served the Confederacy in other ways, like through the timeless art of espionage. Confederate women used their wits, charm, and beauty to discover Union secrets and carry out covert operations for the war efforts. This insightful book highlights these little-discussed Confederate figures, including the famously persuasive Rose O'Neal. Readers will meet the Moon sisters, who used their acting skills to smuggle information and supplies under the noses of Union soldiers using all manner of disguises.
Although spying has always been a part of warfare, espionage didn't become an official part of American war efforts until World War II. The United States government established the Office of Strategic Services, which employed spies, translators, map readers, and code breakers to help gather information. Many of these roles were filled by women. This compelling book tells the riveting stories of six of these lady spies, including singer Josephine Baker, who smuggled military secrets on her sheet music; model and countess Aline Griffith; and the dangerously effective "Limping Lady," Virginia Hall.
Barred from fighting for their beliefs on the battlefield, though many tried, Southern women served the Confederacy in other ways, like through the timeless art of espionage. Confederate women used their wits, charm, and beauty to discover Union secrets and carry out covert operations for the war efforts. This insightful book highlights these little-discussed Confederate figures, including the famously persuasive Rose O'Neal. Readers will meet the Moon sisters, who used their acting skills to smuggle information and supplies under the noses of Union soldiers using all manner of disguises.
Though women had been involved in war efforts in every conflict in American history, more women participated in the Gulf War than in any war before it. When the Gulf War began in 1990, women in the military were still not allowed to fight on the front lines, in positions that directly engaged the enemy, but the roles they held still proved challenging and dangerous. This engrossing book tells the stories of the women who fought bravely in the air, on land, at sea, and in enemy camps as prisoners of war, as well as honors those who gave their lives for their country.
Clandestine missions. Clever, devious, daring. Passionately committed to a cause. During America's most divisive war, both the Union and Confederacy took advantage of brave and courageous women willing to adventurously support their causes. These female spies of the Civil War participated in the world's second-oldest profession-spying-a profession perilous in the extreme. The tales of female spies are filled with suspense, bravery, treachery, and trickery. They took enormous risks and achieved remarkable results-often in ways men could not do. As stated on the grave marker of Union spy Elizabeth Van Lew: "She risked everything that is dear to man-friends, fortune, comfort, health, life itself." Told with personality and pizzazz, author H. Donald Winkler uses primary Civil War sources such as memoirs, journals, letters, and newspaper articles, plus the latest in scholarly research, to make these incredible stories come alive.
The Vietnam War was one of the most controversial wars in American history, as many Americans opposed the United States' involvement in the war. The draft, which forced certain young men to fight in the war, even if they didn't want to, was particularly controversial. At the time, women were not allowed to fight in the military, but many worked directly in the conflict as nurses and administrators. Through fascinating and poignant interviews, this book tells the stories of six courageous women who served in the Vietnam War as they narrate their fascinating and sometimes difficult memories of the conflict.
Your Mission: Find Mary’s secret diary using spycraft stools to uncover hidden codes! It’s a true story of bravery: Mary Bowser was an African American spy for the Union who worked as a maid in the mansion of Confederate Jefferson Davis. From hair-raising close calls when she almost gets caught to how she uses her photographic memory to “steal” top secret documents. Mary’s story reads like a gripping novel. It’s a mystery to solve: There are clues embedded in the story’s text and illustrations, and Spycraft materials—including a replica Civil War cipher wheel—come in an envelope at the beginning of the book. Use both to discover what happened to Mary Bowser’s secret diary.
For sheer bravado and style, no woman in the North or South rivaled the Civil War heroine Rose O’Neale Greenhow. Fearless spy for the Confederacy, glittering Washington hostess, legendary beauty and lover, Rose Greenhow risked everything for the cause she valued more than life itself. In this superb portrait, biographer Ann Blackman tells the surprising true story of a unique woman in history. “I am a Southern woman, born with revolutionary blood in my veins,” Rose once declared–and that fiery spirit would plunge her into the center of power and the thick of adventure. Born into a slave-holding family, Rose moved to Washington, D.C., as a young woman and soon established herself as one of the capital’s most charming and influential socialites, an intimate of John C. Calhoun, James Buchanan, and Dolley Madison. She married well, bore eight children and buried five, and, at the height of the Gold Rush, accompanied her husband Robert Greenhow to San Francisco. Widowed after Robert died in a tragic accident, Rose became notorious in Washington for her daring–and numerous–love affairs. But with the outbreak of the Civil War, everything changed. Overnight, Rose Greenhow, fashionable hostess, become Rose Greenhow, intrepid spy. As Blackman reveals, deadly accurate intelligence that Rose supplied to General Pierre G. T. Beauregard written in a fascinating code (the code duplicated in the background on the jacket of this book). Her message to Beauregard turned the tide in the first Battle of Bull Run, and was a brilliant piece of spycraft that eventually led to her arrest by Allan Pinkerton and imprisonment with her young daughter. Indomitable, Rose regained her freedom and, as the war reached a crisis, journeyed to Europe to plead the Confederate cause at the royal courts of England and France. Drawing on newly discovered diaries and a rich trove of contemporary accounts, Blackman has fashioned a thrilling, intimate narrative that reads like a novel. Wild Rose is an unforgettable rendering of an astonishing woman, a book that will stand with the finest Civil War biographies.
