1859-1903 (bulk 1862-1880). Album :
- 1 v. (126 p.) ; 30 cm.
Some pages and portions of pages cut or torn out; portions of some entries, especially signatures, erased or lined through.\\Comments have been written on some other entries, apparently by Boyd.
Begun as an autograph album before the war, but most entries are by both Union and Confederate soldiers who visited and guarded Boyd.\\Includes many newspaper clippings about her, mainly collected by herself, but a few added later by S.W. Pennypacker.\\Most concern her activities and those of the alleged impostor on the theater and lecture circuits.\\At least one of the clippings confuses details of her life with those of the outlaw Belle Starr. There are also some letters by and clippings about Hardinge and her second husband, John S. Hammond.
Confederate spy.\\Born Martinsburg, Va.\\Imprisoned for spying July-Aug. 1862 and Aug.-Dec. 1863.\\She went to England in 1864 and there married Sam Wilde Hardinge, one of the Union officers who had guarded her. After his death several years later she returned to the U.S.\\In 1865 she published a sensational memoir, "Belle Boyd in camp and prison". It appears that she did make several appearances in dramatic productions and gave some public lectures, but the woman who acted and lectured for many years as Belle Boyd was often denounced as an impostor.
A few entries in German and French.
Boyd, Belle, 1844-1900. Hardinge, Sam Wilde, d. 1866? Hammond, John S., fl. 1869-1880. Starr, Belle, 1848-1889.
Secret service--Confederate States of America. Women spies--Southern States. Theater--United States. Lectures and lecturing--United States. Impostors and imposture--United States.
United States--History--Secret service.--Civil War, 1861-1865 United States--History--Participation, Female.--Civil War, 1861-1865