A new Orleans woman born in Cuba, Loreta Janeta Velazquez, longed to be " a second Joan of Arc", after the accidental death of her husband by gun shot wound in the Confederate army.
She managed to flatten her chest with shields and braces made with wire, put on a soldier's uniform and took the name Harry T. Buford as her own.
She wore a false mustache, and developed a masculin walk. She also learnt how to smoke cigars !
She the went on to Arkansas to raise a battalion of troops, the "Arkansas Grays", which at her own expence she equipped.
She became lieutenant of the unit, and at the First battle of Bull Run, Virginia she commanded it.
She then went west to fight in Kentucky and Tennessee, where she was wounded twice.
She was still restless and dreaming of glory, so she traveled to Richmond in 1861. She was there arrested for being a woman in disguise. They suspected her of spying for the union. However she managed to convince a Rebel officer that her heart lay with the South. She was therefore enlisted as a Confederate secret agent.
In a book she wrote publishing her memoirs after the war in 1876 |
