THE FIRST PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS

                

Hi Anne Greene here. This month I’m exploring information about the first Private Investigation Company, the Pinkertons.

The Pinkerton National Detective Agency began long before there was a Federal Bureau of Investigation. Founded in the early 1850s by Scottish immigrant Allan Pinkerton, the Pinkertons were America’s first private police force. They gained prominence by hunting down Old West outlaws and train robbers. But they also worked as presidential security, intelligence operatives, and as management muscle during labor strikes. They ushered in the modern era of law enforcement.

Alan Pinkerton became a detective by accident.

In 1842, Allan Pinkerton immigrated to the Chicago area and opened a cooperage, or barrel-making business. His detective career began just five years later, when he stumbled upon a band of counterfeiters while scrounging for lumber on an island in the Fox River. The Scotsman conducted informal surveillance on the gang, and was hailed as a local hero after he helped police make arrests. “The affair was in everybody’s mouth,” he later wrote, “and I suddenly found myself called upon from every quarter to undertake matters requiring detective skill.” Pinkerton soon won a gig as a small town sheriff. He went on to work as Chicago’s first police detective and as an agent for the U.S. Post Office. Around 1850, he opened the private investigation firm that became the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

The Pinkertons inspired the term private eye.

The Pinkerton agency first made its name in the late-1850s for hunting outlaws and providing private security for railroads. As the company’s profile grew, its logo—a large, unblinking eye accompanied by the slogan “We Never Sleep” started the nickname private eye for detectives.

Shortly before Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration in March 1861, Allan Pinkerton traveled to Baltimore. The detective was investigating rumors that Southern sympathizers might sabotage the rail lines to Washington, D.C. While gathering undercover intelligence, he learned that a secret group planned to assassinate Lincoln, as he switched trains in Baltimore on his way to the capital.

Pinkerton informed the president-elect of the alleged plot. With the help of several other agents, Pinkerton arranged for Lincoln to secretly board an overnight train and pass through Baltimore several hours ahead of his published schedule. Pinkerton operatives cut telegraph lines so the conspirators couldn’t communicate with one another. The president-elect arrived safely in Washington the next morning, but his decision to skirt through Baltimore saw him labeled a coward in the press. None of the would-be assassins was arrested, leading some historians to wonder if the threat had been exaggerated by Pinkerton.

Allan Pinkerton was a Union man and during the Civil War organized a secret intelligence service for General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. Pinkerton set up spy rings behind enemy lines and infiltrated southern sympathizer groups in the North. His agents interview escaped slaves to glean information about the Confederacy. Pinkerton’s group produced reams of intelligence, but not all of it proved accurate. During the1862 Peninsula Campaign Pinkerton reported that the Confederate forces around Richmond were more than twice their actual size. McClellan believed the faulty intel, and despite outnumbering the rebels by a large margin, he delayed his advance and made repeated calls for reinforcements.

During the era of frontier expansion, express companies and railroads employed the Pinkertons as Wild West bounty hunters. The agency infiltrated the Reno gang—perpetrators of the nation’s first train robbery—and chased Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch. The Pinkertons usually got their man, but in the 1870s, they spent months hunting for bank robbers Jesse and Frank James. One of Pinkerton’s agents was murdered trying to infiltrate the James gang, and two more died in a shootout.

The hunt came to a bloody end in 1875, when the Pinkertons launched a raid on the James brothers’ mother’s house in Clay County, Missouri. Frank and Jesse were gone,  tipped off, but the Pinkertons got into an argument with their mother, Zerelda Samuel. During the standoff, one of the detectives’ posse tossed an incendiary device through Samuel’s window. The bomb blew part of Zerelda’s arm off and killed the James brothers’ 8-year-old half-brother. The botched raid turned public opinion against the Pinkertons. After seeing his detectives denounced as murderers in the papers, Allan Pinkerton ended his war against the James gang.

But the Pinkertons revolutionized law enforcement with their Rogues’ Gallery, a collection of mug shots and case histories that the agency used to research and keep track of wanted men. Along with noting suspects’ distinguishing marks and scars, agents collected newspaper clippings and generated rap sheets of each wanted man’s previous arrests, known associates and areas of expertise. Not until the 20^th century was a more sophisticated criminal library assembled with the birth of the FBI.

After Allan Pinkerton died in 1884, his two sons, Robert and William took control of his agency. The company continued to grow under their watch, and by the 1890s, it boasted 2,000 detectives and 30,000 reserves—more men than the standing army of the United States.

The agency still exists today.

Have you ever wanted to become a lady detective? Do you know any detectives? Who is your favorite detective writer?

LEAVE A COMMENT FOR A CHANCE TO WIN A COPY OF THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH ROMANCES. Anne’s story is The Marriage Broker and The Mortician.

Not everything that glitters is gold in California gold rush country. The Marriage Broker has a passion for helping others find the love of their life, but she has no desire to prospect that mine herself. Can a wealthy Mortician surrender his livelihood to win the spunky Marriage Broker who has no desire to lose her freedom?                 

Eve, a spunky Irish orphan takes on the responsibility for six 18-year-old orphan girls sent to live on their own. She procures husbands for them from the gold mine country of California. Visionary thinker and Mortuary owner Rafe Riley needs a wife for his showy home in Eureka, California, and to console his grieving clients. When Eureka’s mayor campaigns to win Eve for his wife, Rafe ramps up his own efforts to win Eve. Will he give up the mortuary business and gold prospecting to win her hand?

ANNE GREENE delights in writing about alpha heroes who aren’t afraid to fall on their knees in prayer, and about gutsy heroines. Her three novellas, A Groom For Christmas, A Christmas Belle, and The Marriage Broker and The Mortician, recently released. Her Women of Courage Series spotlights heroic women of World War II, with the first book Angel With Steel Wings available. Enjoy her private investigating series, Handcuffed In Texas by reading the first book, Holly Garden, PI, Red is for Rookie. Try her award-winning Scottish historical romances, Masquerade Marriage and Marriage By Arrangement. Visit Anne at AnneGreeneAuthor.com. Anne makes her home in McKinney with her own hero husband, Army Colonel Larry Greene. They have four grown children and eight grand-children. Buy her books at The California Gold Rush Romance Collection: 9 Stories of Finding Treasures Worth More than Gold

BOOK GIVEAWAY AND WASPs – WORLD WAR II LADY TEST PILOTS

ANNE GREENE here. Today I’m giving an autographed copy of my WWII Women Test Pilots book, ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS, to one person who answers a question at the bottom of this blog. So please leave a comment and your email for a chance to win.

Women played an important role in many jobs during World War II. One way women helped win that war to end all war was test piloting repaired combat planes. This was an especially dangerous job and thirty-eight WASPs died in the line of duty.

 

In 1942, the United States faced a severe pilot shortage. President Roosevelt made a life-altering decision that affected all women. He decided to train women to fly military aircraft so male pilots could be released for combat overseas. Congress named the females the Women Airforce Service Pilots – WASPs. The ladies surprised the Army Air Force Commander General Hap Arnold who wasn’t sure a ‘slip of a girl could fight the controls of a B-17 in heavy weather. Neither were many officers and enlisted men in the Air Force. The ladies had to prove themselves. And prove themselves they did. With flying colors.

More than 1,100 lady civilian volunteers flew every type of military aircraft, including the B-26 and B-29 bombers, as part of the WASP program. They tested overhauled, crippled fighter planes, they towed targets to give inexperienced ground and air gunners training to shoot with live ammunition, and they ferried untested planes from factories to military bases across the country. The WASPs expected to become a branch of the military. Congress never passed that bill.

And along the way, they fell in love.

WASPs weren’t granted military status until the 1970s. Now 65 years after their service, President Obama signed a bill awarding the WASPs the Congressional Gold Medal.

The women who flew had moxie and an adventurous gene. In that 1940-1944 timeframe, most people had never travelled aboard a plane, much less flown one. Short, tall, slim, wide, women joined the WASP program knowing how to fly. Since flying lessons were expensive, most women came from wealthy families. The military trained male pilots from scratch, but not the female civilian volunteers.

Jacqueline Cochran, the driving force and head of the WASP program, was a pioneering aviator. But disbelieving men threatened the WASP program from the start. WASPs had to fight to remain in service. Men found the program unacceptable and hard to swallow, not believing that women could release men for combat and place themselves in danger. And these male voices were loud.

Yet, along the way, women fell in love.

 

After proving themselves above and beyond the call of duty, Commander Arnold said, “Let the record stand. Women can fly as well as men, and in many cases, better.”

Still, as war drew to a close in the summer of 1944, women’s flight training programs closed. Flight instructors didn’t want to lose their jobs to women, so they lobbied Washington for the WASPs’ jobs saying, “It’s unacceptable for women to replace men.” Men said they were heads of families and sole providers and as such needed the jobs more than women.

And yet, along the way, women fell in love.

In my book, ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS, about WASPs, you’ll discover a tumultuous romance, live through many of the adventures real American women experienced, and discover the answer to what happened to the WASPs. I hold WASPs in extremely high regard! Only a few of them remain alive today.

This month I’m giving an autographed copy of my historical romance, ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS, to one person who leaves a comment. I pick the name from a hat. So please answer the question: In my next book of the Women of Courage series, would you rather read about a lady spy, a lady nurse, a WAC, a WAVE, a donut dolly, a victory garden grower, or a Rosie the riveter?

ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS is a World War II romance where Steel Magnolias meet Band of Brothers. While test flying planes as a Woman Air Service Pilot, WASP, Mandy McCabe escapes her dead-end life in Hangman’s Hollow, Tennessee. Major Harvey Applegate lost his wife to the WASP program, and he’s convinced Yankee Doodle Gals have no place flying in the war effort. He determines to protect the WASPs by sending them packing back to the home front. Will their new love survive the test? One love. Two goals. Someone has to give.

ANNE GREENE delights in writing about alpha heroes who aren’t afraid to fall on their knees in prayer, and about gutsy heroines. Enjoy her Women of Courage series spotlighting heroic women of World War II, first book Angel With Steel Wings. Read her Holly Garden Private Investigating series, first book Red Is For Rookie. Look for Anne’s newest novella, The Marriage Broker and The Mortician in the anthology The California Gold Rush Romance Collection. Anne’s highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to an awesome new world and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. Buy Anne’s books on http://www.Amazon.com. Visit Anne at AnneGreeneAuthor.com. and http://www.facebook.com/AnneWGreeneAuthor.

BOOK GIVEAWAY AND SPIES IN HOOP SKIRTS (PART IV)

ANNE GREENE here: This fourth part of my series ends with other lady spies, first Confederate spies and then Union spies. I so hope you’ve enjoyed this series. If so, I’d love to hear from you.

Hundreds of women served as spies for the Confederate army during the Civil War. They often carried information about the enemy's plans, troop size and fortifications on scraps of paper or fabric which they sewed into their blouses and petticoats or rolled into their hair. To smuggle goods such as morphine, ammunition or weapons, they attached them to the frame of their hoop skirts or hid them in baskets and packages, even inside dolls.

Most women spies volunteered for the job, but some were recruited by spymasters. Most fit this description: lady spies were young, white, well-to-do and unmarried, as well as attractive, charming, intelligent, and quick-witted. They by-passed society’s strict rules by meeting men in various locations, and riding horses and in buggies unaccompanied.

Apprehended Confederate women spies were often branded as prostitutes unless their reputations were strong enough to protect them. Punishment for the crime of espionage was imprisonment or deportation to Canada or the South. Male spies were hanged.

Confederate lady spies often gathered information from Union troops who, when occupying southern towns, invited local women to army-sponsored balls, where they would sometimes talk about their military plans, not realizing the potential for espionage.

These women spies eavesdropped on soldiers during dinner parties, at boarding houses where the soldiers stayed, or gathered information from their friends and connections in southern society.

Although it was important for spies to keep a low profile while they worked, once they were detected or released from prison, spies like BELLE BOYD became instant celebrities after the press published their stories.

Belle was born into a Virginia family with strong Southern loyalties. A celebrated beauty, Isabelle Belle Boyd became one of the Confederacy’s most notorious spies after a skirmish with a drunken Union soldier in July 1861. The man invaded her home, tore down a Confederate flag, and spoke offensively to her mother. Enraged, the seventeen-year-old Belle shot and killed him. Acquitted of the crime, but closely watched by Union troops, she beguiled her enemies into revealing military secrets, which she transmitted to Confederate commanders.

In May 1862 Belle stayed in Fort Royal, Virginia, with relatives whose hotel had been taken over by Union officers. She

eavesdropped on their meetings through a hole in a door and rode through enemy lines, to report to Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. Imprisoned that July in Washington, D.C., she was released a month later. A second incarceration the following year ended with her banishment to the South.

Belle sailed for England in May 1864 to serve as a Confederate courier but was intercepted by Union troops. One of them, a naval officer named Samuel Hardinge, fell in love with the alluring spy and helped her escape to London, where they wed. He died shortly thereafter. Belle, now a widow and mother at 20, remained in England to compose her memoirs and launch a successful stage career. She later returned to America, where she continued acting, married twice more and lectured on her wartime experiences across the United States.

MARY KATE PATTERSON was no so famous. When the Civil War began she was sixteen. Mary Kate and her family lived a few miles southeast of Nashville, Tennessee. Vivacious Mary Kate, with flashing brown eyes and dark brown curls, attended old Elliott School in Nashville, Tennessee. Declaration of war between the North and South interrupted her education, but the contacts she made in school were invaluable during her service as a Confederate spy.

The Federal army occupied Nashville early in the war. Mary Kate provided information to Coleman's Scouts, a spy network of the Army of Tennessee. She befriended Yankees officers and frequently obtained passes to Nashville, where she gathered secret messages and supplies for the Scouts and hid them in her buggy's false bottom.

Mary Kate smuggled boots, blankets, and anything needed by the Confederate army through the lines, concealing quinine and morphine in her voluminous riding habits. She admitted after the war, when it was too late for reprisal, that she had carried six hundred dollars’ worth of medicine in just one trip. She and her family sheltered and fed Confederate soldiers, signaling them by a certain arrangement of louvers and lanterns in the windows when it was safe to come in for medical help and hot meals.

Widowed three times, when she died in 1931, she was buried in the Confederate Circle in Nashville's Mt. Olivet Cemetery, the first woman so honored.

BELLE EDMONDSON, born in Mississippi in 1840, served as a Confederate agent throughout the war. In 1862 after the fall of Memphis, she smuggled supplies and funds to the Confederate army. Her love of the South and of danger attracted her to spying, carrying mail and smuggling. In 1863, she worked for the Independent Scouts, headed by Captain Thomas Henderson.

She lived near Memphis, Tennessee and smuggled supplies to Confederate soldiers throughout the war. In 1864, since soldiers did not search women, she hid uniforms, money, buttons, letters, etc. in her luggage and on her clothing and took them through Union lines.

Belle’s trips eventually attracted the attention of Union forces and they issued a warrant for her arrest. In July 1864, she fled south to Mississippi and lived there for the rest of the war. She was engaged three times. The third was announced two weeks before her sudden death in 1873.And finally, I want to speak of two Union spies who did not fit the profile of lady spies.

PAULINE CUSHMAN was a stage actress who later became a spy for the Union army. Born Harriett Wood in New Orleans on June 10, 1833, Pauline was raised in Michigan, but returned to Louisiana at age eighteen to became a stage actress, changing her name to Pauline Cushman.

Two Confederate soldiers, Colonel Spear and Captain Blincoe, offered Pauline money to toast Confederate President Jefferson Davis during a performance.

Offended, she visited Union Colonel Moore to report the men. Moore directed Pauline to carry out the toast, hoping to embed her as a local Union spy.

She toasted Davis and was promptly fired from the production, since they now believed her to be a Confederate sympathizer.

Since she had successfully gained the trust of the local Confederates, Pauline began posing as a Confederate camp follower in Kentucky and Tennessee. She disguised herself as a man while gathering information from soldiers in local saloons.

After visiting the camp of General Braxton Bragg in May of 1863, Pauline obtained the general’s battle plans, but aroused suspicion and was caught. She was tried in a military court and sentenced to death. But her execution was delayed when she became ill.

Shortly after, the Union army invaded Shelbyville, Tennessee, where she was being held, forcing the Confederates to flee without her.

Despite her brush with death, Pauline continued to spy for the Union army. At war’s end, President Abraham Lincoln awarded her the honorary rank of Brevet-Major, earning her the nickname “The Spy of Cumberland.” She was buried with military honors in the Golden Gate National Cemetery.

HARRIET TUBMAN set up a vast spy ring in the south, sending African-American men to pose as servants in order to gather intelligence for the Union army.

One of the most celebrated heroines in American history, Harriet Tubman is best known for ushering slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad in the 1850s. But not everyone knows that the courageous Harriet, who escaped slavery in 1849, set up the vast espionage ring.

In early 1862, with the support of abolitionist friends in the North, Harriet traveled to South Carolina, where she served as a nurse and teacher for the hundreds of newly liberated slaves who had assembled in Union camps. She recruited black men to slip behind Confederate lines, posing as servants or slaves to gather military intelligence. She organized dangerous missions in which Union troops destroyed plantations and spirited former slaves to freedom on warships. In June 1863, Harriet led an armed expedition along the Combahee River, disrupting Confederate supply lines and liberating more than seven hundred slaves. Later in life, Harriet became a key figure in the suffrage movement.

Which of the Civil War Spies In Hoop Skirts did you like the most? Would you have liked to have lived during that historic period? Do you prefer the freedom of today’s clothing styles or the beauty and romance of the styles of the 1860s? Leave a comment for a chance to win an autographed copy of Angel With Steel Wings.

Thanks for visiting and please leave a comment for a chance to win an autographed copy of Angel With Steel Wings.

ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS is a World War II romance where Steel Magnolias meet Band of Brothers. While doing her part test flying planes as a Woman Air Service Pilot, WASP, Mandy McCabe escapes her dead-end life in Hangman’s Hollow, Tennessee. But, can she escape from her past? Major Harvey Applegate lost his wife to the WASP program, and he’s convinced Yankee Doodle Gals have no place flying in the war effort. He determines to protect the remaining WASPs by sending them packing back to the home front. Both Mandy and Harvey experience immediate attraction, which increases Harvey’s desire to send Mandy home to safety. Can a man burdened with memories of death undertake added emotional danger? Will their new love survive the test? One love. Two goals. Someone has to give.

ANNE GREENE delights in writing about alpha heroes who aren’t afraid to fall on their knees in prayer, and about gutsy heroines. Her Women of Courage Series, first book, ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS spotlights heroic women of World War II, and read her private investigating series, Handcuffed In Texas, first book HOLLY GARDEN, PI, RED IS FOR ROOKIE. Enjoy her other award-winning historical romances and novellas. Anne’s highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to an awesome new world and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. Buy Anne’s books on http://www.Amazon.com. Type in Anne Greene. Visit Anne at AnneGreeneAuthor.com.

SPIES IN HOOP SKIRTS PART THREE AND BOOK GIVEAWAY

ANNE GREENE here. This is the third part of my series Spies In Hoop Skirts. I hope you’ve enjoyed the other two parts. If not, please look up the archives to read the other articles.

Although the exact number is unknown, it is speculated that several hundred women served as spies and smugglers for the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Whatever their duties, these new jobs redefined their traditional roles as housewives and mothers and made them an important part of the war effort. Confederate military leaders actively recruited women for undercover operations, mainly because of their familiarity with local customs and geography.

Many women spies in the South remained at home, supplying critical information about the daily activities of nearby soldiers and military leaders. Southern belles invited enemy officers to their parties, hoping to pick up some new tidbit of information.

As the Civil War unfolded, there was a major shift in how women operatives were utilized. At the beginning of the conflict, women were considered innocent and non-threatening. As the war progressed, military leaders began to appreciate the value of women operatives, and opponents no longer viewed them as above suspicion. So intelligence gathering became dangerous for undercover females.

Below, I’ve mentioned a few of the scores of Confederate spies in hoop skirts.

By 1861 most Southerners had moved out of the capital, but ROSE O’NEAL GREENHOW remained and became the Rebel Queen of Washington Spies. Her high station in Washington society enabled her to gather valuable intelligence. Much of it came from an infatuated suitor, Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee.

Although a widow in her mid-forties, Rose used her sensuality to create the largest network of spies that operated during the Civil War. President James Buchanan visited Rose weekly. She lived only four blocks from the White House and seemed a woman of almost irresistible seductive powers. She smuggled intelligence reports across the Potomac River to Confederate officials in Virginia and Maryland.

Rose and her daughter

In July 1861, Rose learned that the Union General Irvin McDowell planned to attack Confederate troops near Manassas, Virginia. She sent her 16-year-old courier, Bettie Duvall, through twenty miles of enemy territory with a coded message tucked into her hair. Bettie Duvall, dressed as a farm girl in order to pass Union sentinels on the Chain Bridge leaving Washington, rode at high speed to deliver the document to Confederate officers. The Confederate President, Jefferson

Clothes Emeline wore

EMELINE PIGOTT, born and raised in Carteret County, North Carolina, was twenty five when she moved to a farm at Crab Point, North Carolina, just across the creek from where soldiers of the 26th North Carolina Regiment were stationed to defend the coast. Emeline took it upon herself to tend to the sick and wounded soldiers, even bringing some to her home to care for until they were well.

Working throughout three counties, Emeline collected mail, food, clothing, medicine and other supplies, which she left in designated hollow trees and logs for the Confederates. She also gathered intelligence for the Confederates by hosting parties for local Union officers, who provided valuable intelligence concerning Federal military and naval installations.

Emeline carried information gained from local loyal fishermen about Union boats' cargoes and destinations. She hid the intelligence in big pockets under her hoop skirt.

Emeline Picott's Grave

VIRGINIA BETHEL MOON, known as Ginnie, was part of a Confederate spy duo with her sister, Charlotte. At eighteen, Ginnie moved with her mother to Memphis, Tennessee, where they both served as nurses and dressed the wounds of soldiers returning from battle. Their stock of bandages soon ran low in the Confederate held areas.

Virginia Bethel Moon

Under the guise that she was meeting a boyfriend, Ginnie often crossed into Union territory to collect supplies. Over time the Confederates trusted her and she relayed information through the lines to Confederate agents. Union officials caught her with several bottles of morphine, seven pounds of opium and a supply of camphor. They arrested her and held her in prison until her sister's ex-boyfriend, Union General Ambrose Burnside, arranged her release. She continued spying farther south and was eventually imprisoned in New Orleans. Ginnie returned to Memphis after the war and became a philanthropist.

Next month I’ll write about not so famous Confederate spies in hoop skirts. I hope you will join me.

Which Union spy in hoop skirts did you think took the most risks? Leave a comment for a chance to win an autographed copy of Angel With Steel Wings.

ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS is a World War II romance where Steel Magnolias meet Band of Brothers. While test flying planes, Mandy McCabe escapes her dead-end life in Hangman’s Hollow, Tennessee as a Woman Air Service Pilot, WASP. Major Harvey Applegate lost his wife to the WASP program, and he determines to protect the remaining ladies by sending them packing back to the home front. Will their new love survive the test? One love. Two goals. Someone has to give.

ANNE GREENE delights in writing about alpha heroes who aren’t afraid to fall on their knees in prayer, and about gutsy heroines. Her Women of Courage series spotlights heroic women of World War II, first book Angel With Steel Wings. Read her private investigating series, Handcuffed In Texas, first book Red Is For Rookie. Enjoy her other award-winning books.  Anne hopes her stories transport the reader to awesome new worlds and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. Learn more of Anne at AnneGreeneAuthor.com. Buy Anne’s books on http://www.Amazon.com.

BOOK GIVEAWAY AND SPIES IN HOOP SKIRTS

ANNE GREENE here. For the next several months on the 14^th day, I shall be writing about women spies during the Civil War. I hope you will join me!

Throughout the Civil War, spying grew to incredible heights. At war’s beginning, men considered women innocent and non-threatening, so using them as spies was easy. Women showed incredible ability, and forever changed espionage and warfare.

Union and Confederate military leaders actively recruited women for undercover operations. Women’s familiarity with their region made them valuable assets.

Women volunteered to help protect the nation in great numbers, serving effectively in the shadowy world of espionage as couriers, guides, and spies.

Clandestine agents maintained a low profile by blending in. Given the danger of a spy’s life some women died undercover, their true identities still a mystery. Today, researchers are discovering forgotten records attesting to the heroism of these shadow warriors.

Slowly commanders on both sides understood the value of women operatives. So military leaders no longer viewed women as above suspicion, and intelligence gathering grew dangerous for females.

As war progressed, leaders of both sides established clandestine networks. Women served at all levels, scouts, encryption specialists, agent handlers, and spies. Female operatives worked with a more formalized spy gathering system. Field agents reported to designated handlers. Recruitment and what passed for training became more structured.

Virginia Governor John Letcher organized a network of spies in late April 1861 for the Confederacy. He recruited Rose O’Neal Greenhow to smuggle reports from the north across the Potomac and back to Letcher. Among other successful missions Rose carried a coded report that credited her with helping the South win its first major battle at Bull Run Creek on July 21, 1861.

At first, the North created no formal spy organizations. Rather, each general hired his own spies. Later, Allan Pinkerton organized the first formal espionage unit for the North. He founded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, and installed a code for his agents of no drinking, smoking, card playing, or slang. Abraham Lincoln used Pinkerton’s services during the Civil War. Kate Warne was one of Pinkerton’s first female spies.

Women on both sides gathered information about the enemy’s plans, troop size, fortifications and supplies on scraps of paper or fabric and sewed them into their blouses and petticoats or rolled them into their hair. They smuggled needed supplies as well. They attached morphine, ammunition or weapons to the frame of their hoop skirts or hid them in baskets, packages and inside dolls.

Women perfected the role of spy because soldiers, enamored by their beauty, often let down their guard with them.

Typically women spies were young, white, well-to-do, and unmarried. They were attractive, charming, intelligent, and quick-witted – desirable characteristics when eliciting information from soldiers. Since few able-bodied men or servants remained in communities, especially in the South, married and widowed women were too occupied with caring for family, neighbors, and soldiers to become involved in surreptitious activities. Most women spies volunteered for the job.

Since the Civil War occurred during the Victorian-era, dominated by strict societal rules for women, lady spies were often caught or aroused suspicion due to the unladylike behavior that went along with being a spy. Behavior such as allowing men into their homes at all hours of the night, arranging meetings with men in various locations, and riding on horses and in buggies unaccompanied.

Society branded apprehended women spies as prostitutes, unless their reputations remained strong enough to protect them.

As soldiers caught on to the activities of these women spies, crossing enemy lines without getting searched or apprehended grew difficult.

Punishment for espionage was stiff. Male spies were executed, usually by hanging. Women, seldom executed, were imprisoned or deported to Canada.

Next month, June 14th, I’ll write about specific spies in hoop skirts. I hope you’ll join me then.

Don’t you think it’s amazing how much times have changed for women?

Thanks for visiting and please leave a comment for a chance to win an autographed copy of Angel With Steel Wings.

ANNE GREENE delights in writing about alpha heroes who aren’t afraid to fall on their knees in prayer, and about gutsy heroines. Her Women of Courage Series, first book, ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS spotlights heroic women of World War II, and read her private investigating series, Handcuffed In Texas, first book HOLLY GARDEN, PI, RED IS FOR ROOKIE. Enjoy her other award-winning historical romances and novellas. Anne’s highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to an awesome new world and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. Buy Anne’s books on http://www.Amazon.com. Type in Anne Greene. Visit Anne at AnneGreeneAuthor.com.

BOOK GIVE-AWAY AND THE STONE OF DESTINY

ANNE GREENE HERE.

Both Scotland and England revered The Stone of Destiny for centuries as a holy relic. Scots and English fought over this Honor Of Scotland for over 700 years.

The Stone of Destiny played a central role in the coronation of Scottish kings.

Like most Scottish national icons, the origins of the Stone of Destiny, also commonly known as the Stone of Scone, have been lost in the mists of time and subject to legends.

One theory grants the stone a biblical origin as Jacob’s pillow. Legend says part of the ground of Macbeth's castle suddenly gave way, and sank down about six feet. A discovered vault contained a large stone buried during Macbeth's reign. Two round tablets found beside the stone were deciphered. 'The shadow of kingdom come, until Sylphs in air carry me again to Bethel.' So people believed unseen hands brought Jacob's pillow from Bethel and dropped it on the site where the palace of Scoon stands. Perhaps Macbeth deposited the stone at the bottom of his Castle on the hill of Dunsinane to protect it from the trouble of the times.

Another theory mentioned the stone was produced in various parts of Ireland and Scotland. Whatever the stone’s origin, the icon was used at Iona, Dunadd, Dunstaffnage, and Scone for enthroning Scottish monarchs.

Despite the stone’s unremarkable appearance, this block of sandstone had a turbulent history. Men and armies fought over, hid the relic, and captured the icon for over 700 years.

In 1292, John Balliol became the last king of Scotland to use the Stone of Destiny. In 1296, Edward I of England captured the stone and carried it to Westminster Abbey in London. For the next 700 years, the stolen Stone of Destiny remained under the coronation chair on which English and British sovereigns sat during their coronation.

On Christmas Day 1950, four Scottish nationalist students removed the Stone from Westminster Abbey, hid it in their car, and drove it north. The students left the stone symbolically in Arbroath Abbey, draped in a Saltire. Saltire is the Saint Andrew’s Cross, the flag of Scotland.

For almost 400 years Arbroath Abbey was one of the grandest monasteries in Scotland. Founded in 1178 by King William I, ‘the Lion’, in memory of the martyr Thomas Becket, the abbey is famous for its association with the Declaration of Arbroath, in which Scotland’s nobles swore their independence from England.

The English moaned its loss with a huge public outcry. The police restored the stone to Westminster Abbey.

The coronation of Elizabeth, HM The Queen sat above the Stone at her coronation in 1953. This is the last time the fought-over stone was used.

Forty-three years later, on St Andrews Day, 30 November 1996, the Stone of Destiny returned to Scotland amid much ceremony, and found a permanent home at Edinburgh Castle, placed alongside the Honours of Scotland, the country’s crown jewels. About ten thousand people lined the Royal Mile to watch a procession of dignitaries and troops escort the famous Stone from Holyroodhouse Palace to the castle.

Visitors can view the Stone of Destiny and the Honours of Scotland at Edinburgh Castle. A replica of the Stone reposes on the grounds of Scone Palace in Perthshire.

I have seen the Stone of Destiny. It’s not large, nor imposing. It is just a stone. Amazing what a legend can do.

Can you think of a legend built up around an uninspiring item? I think of Pilgrims' Rock, another  common appearing rock with a legendary name. Leave a comment to win an autographed copy of my award-winning Scottish historical, Masquerade Marriage.

ANNE GREENE delights in writing about alpha heroes who aren’t afraid to fall on their knees in prayer, and about gutsy heroines who accomplish great things. Her Women of Courage Series, spotlights heroic women of World War II, with the first book, ANGEL IN STEEL WINGS now available. Anne’s private investigating series, Handcuffed In Texas, has the first book, HOLLY GARDEN, PI, RED IS FOR ROOKIE, also available. Anne makes her home in McKinney, Texas, with her husband Colonel Larry Greene, and has four children. Anne’s highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to an awesome new world and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. Buy Anne’s books on http://www.Amazon.com. Learn more of Anne at http://www.AnneGreeneAuthor.com.