The Girl Guide Spies

Today, I'm very happy to welcome fellow author Patty Smith Hall, who will share an interesting story about Girl Guides. Leave a comment at the end for a chance to win a drawing of our new novella, Crinoline Cowboys, which is coming out in five weeks. 

Thank you for having me today, Marilyn.

You’ve probably heard of Mati Hari, and how Julia Child spied for the Allies during World War II, but recently, I discovered a group of females that ‘spied’ for the MI5 from the second year of World War I to the palace of Versailles where the treaty was signed. This group of patriots have been kept secret since their service until last November on the hundredth-year anniversary of the end of World War I. So, who am I talking about?

The Girl Guides or as we know them in the United States, the Girl Scouts!

The Beginning

When Great Britain entered the war in August of 1914, their secret service agency, the MI5 faced a daunting challenge. German spies had infiltrated the country, seeking information regarding troop movement and battle plans. English men were scarce, so the MI5 turned to an unexpected source for help—the Boy Scouts. But problems arose. The boys were loud and bragged to their friends about their position with the MI5 which in turn, put the boys in danger. It was then that MI5 turned to the Girl Guides for help.

The Girl Guides weren’t idle during the first year of the war. Many of them learned to hunt and fish to provide food for families in their communities. Some learned medical skills and volunteered to drive ambulances at the front. Even the youngest members were involved with making and rolling bandages. But serving with the MI5 was something even the organization’s leaders hadn’t considered.

Qualifications of a Girl Guide Spy

First, the ninety girls chosen had to be between fourteen and sixteen years old, and in good standing with their troop. They needed to be quick, cheerful, and willing to do the work, swearing on their honor never to read any of the messages or paperwork they carried. They also had to sign a statement saying they had permission to serve from both parents as well as the Girl Guide leader who recommended them. After they were accepted, the girls served a three-month probational period, earning 30 pence (37 cents American) a week with dinner and tea included. They alternated working 9-6 or 10-7 and every other Sunday. The girls were allowed a week off during the summer as well as a short break at Easter and Christmas.

Not Your Ordinary Workday

The girls reported to Waterloo house or one of the other two houses used. They would dust, fill inkwells and disinfect phones during their first hour of work. After that, they would collect documents and post them, deliver messages at various areas around London, sort cards, collect paperwork to be burned and repair typewriters. They also delivered secret messages verbally.

By January 1916, the Girl Guides had proved to be so valuable to the MI5, they were giving their own company within the organization. Each patrol was assigned a different floor of the headquarters to work.

When the war ended, a select group of Girl Guides were taken by the British delegation to France for the peace treaty deliberations where they ran errands and delivered messages to the parties involved. After the peace treaty was signed, the girls returned home. Yet, very few talked about their time with the MI5 or their contributions toward winning the war.

Have you ever heard of Girl Guides before? Were you in Girl Scouts?

Multi-published author Patty Smith Hall lives near the North Georgia Mountains with her husband, Danny. When she’s not writing on her back porch, she’s spending time with her family or working in her vegetable garden.

A Cowboy of Her Own by Patty Smith Hall

Bookish southern belle Madalyn Turner knows what she wants—to be a cowboy and own a Texas ranch. But books are far different from real life and soon she realizes she needs help.

     

      

Elizabeth Stiles~Union Spy

1862, late October. The day started out as any other in the life of Elizabeth W. Stiles. Household chores to complete, her three, adopted children and her husband to care for, until a gang of men arrived on the Stiles farm.

         

Union uniform. 

            

Confederate uniform

The men, dressed in Union uniforms, approached Jacob Stiles and his friend Mr. Becker (or Baker). George Todd stepped up to Mr. Stiles and asked him where his politics lay. Mr. Stiles answered the man—Union. Todd raised his gun and fatally shot Jacob Stiles. Then to be sure the deed was complete, a former neighbor of the Stiles’ stepped to Jacob’s prone body, placed the muzzle of his gun to his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

Elizabeth ran for the house and her children. But leader of the marauding gang, Charles Quantrill, and a few of his men, cornered Elizabeth in her home. As one of the men placed his pistol to her temple, Quantrill halted him, saying Elizabeth was too pretty to shoot. Quantrill’s gang left without any further killing.                            
Fearing for her children’s safety, Elizabeth moved her family to        

Boston Library, Fort Leavenworth

              

Fort Leavenworth. There she received a letter from General James H. Lane, Kansas Senator and friend of President Abraham Lincoln. The letter stated that President Lincoln had important work for Elizabeth to do. She accepted, moved to Washington D.C., put two of her children in boarding school, and took her daughter Clara (13) with her as she carried out her duties as a spy for the Union Army.
 

President Lincoln

                                 
Dressed as a pipe-smoking elderly, Southern woman, Elizabeth Stiles, a nurse and teacher before her career as a spy, traveled throughout the South gathering information for the North. Part of her disguise included her daughter, Clara, playing the part of Elizabeth’s granddaughter. The pair claimed to be searching for Clara’s father, a wounded Confederate soldier.

           
Elizabeth was arrested in Missouri on the suspicion of being a Union spy. During her incarceration, she convinced General Sterling Price that she was a Confederate spy instead of a Union spy and he personally equipped both Elizabeth and Clara with better horses, firearms, and supplies before he sent them on their way.

Throughout the year and half that Elizabeth and Clara worked as spies, they collected valuable information that contributed to the victory of the North, but more than the contribution of the information, Elizabeth’s story shows how the strength, fortitude, and intelligence of one woman can help change the world.

Elizabeth and Clara retired in November of 1864 after the President decided the pair had become too well known to the “rebel sympathizers”. 

She died July, 1898. When Elizabeth passed away, her beloved letter from President Abraham Lincoln was found among her belongings. A family member sold the letter to The Western Reserve Historical Society in the 1940's. 

If given the chance, would you be able to do this things Elizabeth did? Would you leave two of your children and put another in the path of danger? I admire Elizabeth for her bravery, but I'm not sure I'd make the same choice. How about you, what do you think? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts and ideas.  

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Award winning author, Michele K. Morris’s love for historical fiction began when she first read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House book series. She grew up riding horses and spending her free time in the woods of mid-Michigan. Married to her high school sweetheart, they are living happily-ever-after with their six children, three in-loves, and eight grandchildren in Florida, the sunshine state. Michele loves to hear from readers on Facebook, Twitter, and here, through the group blog, Heroes, Heroines, and History at HHHistory.com

The Secret History of US Spies

by Tamera Lynn Kraft


The United States has been in the spy business since before it became a nation. It all began with Nathan Hale, America's first spy. Now there are many spy organizations in the United States government with the CIA being the most well known.

America's First Spy: Nathan Hale is considered America's first spy. He wasn't really the first spy, but he was the first to be executed as a spy. He volunteered for a dangerous mission into New York City to spy upon the British. Unfortunately he was caught and hanged. Reportedly his last words were, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

Revolutionary Spies: Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere are amoung the most well-known spies of the Revolutionary War, but there were many spy rings. The biggest was the Culpepper Spy Ring in New York. Major Benjamin Tallmadge recruited Caleb Brewster and Abraham Woodhull (code name Samuel Culpepper) to gather intelligence on the British. Historians still don't know the identity of some of the spies in that ring, only their code names.  One piece of intellegence the Culpepper Ring gathered was the betrayal of Benedict Arnold and his secret meeting with John Andre.

Washington's Secret Service: George Washington, our first president understood the importance of intelligence gathering. One of his first acts as president was to work with the Congress to establish the Secret Service which comprised 10% of the federal budget. A few years later, Thomas Jefferson used the Secret Service to overthrow the government in a small North African country to stop Barbary pirate from raiding US ships. Madison used spies to influence the Spanish to relinquish Florida. Congress tried to oversee the secret fund, President Polk insisted that emergencies require oversight to be the prerogative of the president.

Civil War: During the Civil War, both Union and Confederate armies were involved in spying. They used the first spy satellites, hot air balloons, to record movements of the enemy troops. Neither side had an organized intelligence gathering organization run by their governments. The Union contracted
Allen Pinkerton and Lafayette Baker. The South had many individuals involved in spying including three infamous women: Rose Greenhow, Belle Boyd, and Nancy Hart.

First Formal Spy Agencies: The first formal US spy agencies were formed in the 1880s. They were the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Army’s Military Intelligence Division. They were involved heavily in the Spanish-American War in 1898. The Secret Service was still in operation but was in charge of domestic counter-intelligence only. The Secret Service broke up a Spanish spy ring in Montreal during the war.

World War I: US spy agencies had suffered greatly from budget cuts until World War I when the National Security Agency was established as a department of the US Army. The Secret Service, the New York Police Department, and military counterintelligence also were involved in intellegence and stopped German spying inside the United States. Another significant organization to be created during the First World War was the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation (later called FBI) which enforced the first US Espionage Act of 1917.

World War II: As the Nazis rose in power, the US put it's energy into code breaking and intellegence gathering on Germany and Japan. The Black Chamber Organization was formed to do that.  As the war drew closer, President Roosevelt established a new spy organization in 1941 called the Office of the Coordinator of Information to organize the activities of the various spy organizations. After the failure to detect the Japanese plot to bomb Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt dissolved the OCI and established the wartime organization, the Office of Strategic Services. The OSS and FBI worked closely with the Armed Services spy organizations to do intelligence gathering throughout the war.

Cold War: The OSS was abolished when the war ended in October, 1945 by President Truman, but it soon became obvious another central intelligence organization was needed. In January, 1946, Truman and others planned out the new spy organization called the Central Intelligence Group. This group had access and oversight of all foreign intelligence gathering and spying. The CIG also functioned under the direction of a National Intelligence Authority, composed of a presidential representative and the secretaries of State, War, and the Navy. In 1947, the National Security Act disbanded the CIG and the National Intelligence Authority and replaced them with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency forming our modern day spying organizations.

Tamera Lynn Kraft has always loved adventures and writes Christian historical fiction set in America because there are so many adventures in American history. She has received 2^nd place in the NOCW contest, 3^rd place TARA writer’s contest, and was a finalist in the Frasier Writing Contest. Her novel Alice’s Notions and novellas Resurrection of Hope and A Christmas Promise are available on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble.

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 (PART 2)

ANNE GREENE here. Last 14^th day of the month I told you about women spies during the Civil War. This month, I’ll mention a few of the more well-known women covert agents. If you missed last month’s blog, please check out the achieves.

ELIZABETH VAN LEW was an important spy for the Union. Elizabeth Van Lew and her mother visited Union soldiers held at Richmond’s brutal Libby Prison. Besides bringing them food, clothing and medicine, Elizabeth smuggled out letters. She and her mother obtained confederate information from guards and prisoners. These two women gathered valuable intelligence about Confederate strategy from prisoners and guards, and sent the communiqués via coded messages, invisible ink, and hollowed out eggs and vegetables.

Not Elizabeth Van Lew, but similar to what she would have looked like 

Raised in a wealthy slave-holding family in Richmond, Virginia, Elizabeth developed strong abolitionist sympathies as a young adult, particularly after attending a Quaker school in Philadelphia. After her father’s death in 1843, Elizabeth convinced her brother to free their slaves, many of whom stayed on as paid servants.

Late in 1863, Union General Benjamin Butler recruited Elizabeth as a spy. She became head of an espionage network based in Richmond. With the help of her servants—including Mary Bowser, an important spy in her own right, Elizabeth sent coded messages to Union officers. She convinced new members to join her covert ring, including a high-ranking official at Libby Prison. When Richmond fell to Union forces in April 1865, Elizabeth flew the Stars and Stripes above her home.

By war’s end, Elizabeth had become a pariah in her community, but earned General Ulysses S. Grant’s respect. Elizabeth spent her final days in poverty, having used her family’s entire wealth on espionage. The family of a Union officer she assisted during the war-grandson of Paul Revere-provided for her until her death in 1900.

MARY ELIZABETH BOWSER, born as Mary Elizabeth Richards, sometime around 1839, was a slave of John Van Lew of Virginia. When the younger Elizabeth Van Lew began working as a Union spy, Mary assisted Elizabeth in her intelligence gathering.

Mary Elizabeth Bowser

Mary, freed by Elizabeth Van Lew, used the name Ellen Bond and worked as a servant to Varina Davis, President Davis’s wife, in the Confederate White House. During Mary’s time there, she used her photographic memory to gather intelligence by reading military documents left out on desks or tables and eavesdropping on conversations.

Throughout most of the war Mary overheard many conversations between the President and his officers and generals. She eavesdropped on Davis and his colleagues while serving dinner.

Mary, one of the few black women who could read and write, read many letters left in the house and memorized them. She relayed this information to Elizabeth Van Lew at night near her farm. She also worked with Thomas McNiven, a Richmond baker. McNiven received the intelligence information at the bakery and dispersed the data during deliveries to the white house. President Davis knew information leaked from the house, but he never suspected his servant Ellen Bond. Other people suspected her, however, so she decided to flee. She made a final effort for the North by attempting to burn down the Confederate White House.

Little information exists of what became of Mary after the war. Like other spies, federal officials destroyed information about Mary’s spy activities to protect her identity.

In 1995, the US Army Military Intelligence Corps Hall of Fame inducted Mary Elizabeth Bowser as one of the highest placed and most productive espionage agents of the Civil War.

SARAH EMMA EDMONDS was born on a farm in New Brunswick, Canada in 1841. When her father tried to marry her off to a neighbor at age 16, she ran away from home, changed her name to Emma Edmonds and got a job as a salesgirl in a millinery shop. When her father discovered her, she fled again, cut her hair, spent her savings on men’s clothing, and was hired for a job selling bibles and religious books. She began her life as Frank Flint Thompson.

A month after the outbreak of the Civil War, Emma signed up as a male field nurse in the Second Volunteers of the United States Army under her alias Franklin Flint Thompson. She continued her hospital work for many months until March of 1862, when she was reassigned as a mail carrier for her regiment. Only a few months later, after one of General McClellan’s spies was caught and executed by the Confederate army, Emma volunteered for the open position.

Her first spy mission involved darkening her skin with silver nitrate to pose as a slave named Cuff in a nearby Confederate military camp. While there she worked in the kitchen where she eavesdropped on conversations. She left a few days later when she was assigned as a Confederate picket and returned to tell McClellan the information she gathered on the Confederate’s local troop size, available weapons, and location of numerous Quaker Guns (logs painted to look like cannons) that the Confederates planned to use in Yorktown.

A few months later she infiltrated the Confederate army again, this time as a female Irish peddler named Bridget O’Shea. She returned with valuable military information as well as a beautiful horse and a wound on her arm where the horse bit her while she retrieved medical supplies from the saddlebags.

After her regiment transferred to Virginia in 1862, Emma again went undercover as an African-American laundry woman in a Confederate camp. Her position allowed her to steal valuable papers from officers’ jackets which she brought back to her regiment.

In the spring of 1863, Emma developed malaria. Unable to admit herself to a military hospital out of fear of being discovered, Emma decided to leave her unit and seek medical attention in a private hospital.

After recovering and leaving the hospital in Cairo, Illinois, Emma saw an army bulletin in the local post office listing Private Frank Thompson as a deserter. Unable to return to her previous duties, Emma spent the rest of the war working as a female nurse at hospitals in war torn regions like Virginia and West Virginia.

After the war, upset about being branded a deserter and irritated that she wasn’t eligible for a pension due to her gender, Emma petitioned the War Department for a full review of her case. Various stories of women who had served in combat were starting to emerge but none of them had yet been awarded a pension. Emma’s Army comrades supported her quest to get a pension and spoke very highly of her. Some of her comrades stated that there had been rumors all along that Emma was a girl. On July 5 of 1884, a Special Act of Congress granted Emma a veteran’s pension of $12 a month. Since her case generated a lot of publicity, Emma became a celebrity.

Emma passed away on September 5, 1898 and was buried in a local cemetery. In 1901, she was re-buried with military honors at Washington Cemetery in Houston.

Many other ladies spied for the Union but their stories are lost in the mists of time. Perhaps you know of one or more and would like to share their name or names in a comment. I would love to hear from you.

I hope you will visit with me next month. I’ll tell you about some interesting Confederate lady spies.

Which of the three Union spies in hoop skirts do 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.