Pauline Cushman
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1833-1893
Pauline Cushman was born in New Orleans in 1833. At eighteen Cushman
went to New York where she began an acting career. She toured the
United States in a variety of different plays.
On the outbreak of the American Civil War Cushman was asked to become
a Union Army spy. In 1863 she toured Tennessee and after visiting the
camp of General Braxton Bragg of the Confederate Army, she managed to
discover his battle plans.
Cushman was captured and sentenced to death. While waiting to be
executed in Shelbyville, the Union Army captured the town and freed
Cushman. Despite her narrow escape, Cushman agreed to carry out
further spying missions behind the Confederate lines. She provided
considerable information for General William Rosecrans and President
Abraham Lincoln awarded her with an honorary major's commission.
After the war Cushman toured the country dressed in uniform lecturing
on her spying exploits. A friend, Ferdinand Sarmiento, wrote her
biography, The Life of Pauline Cushman (1865).
Cushman suffered from arthritis and rheumatism in her final years.
Racked with pain, Pauline Cushman committed suicide by taking an
overdose of morphine in San Francisco on 7th December, 1893.
