Belle Boyd

On the other side of the Civil War struggle, Belle Boyd was made a captain and honorary aide-de-camp by Confederate General Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson for providing valuable information as a spy operating out of her father’s hotel in Front Royal, West Virginia. Betrayed by her lover in 1862, Boyd spent the rest of the war being arrested, imprisoned, exchanged, and re-arrested, after which she was released for having contracted typhoid fever while in prison.

Proceeding to Europe to recuperate, Boyd made fast work of that and promptly sought passage on a blockade runner out of England in an attempt to return to the South. When the ship was captured by Union forces, she simply beguiled a young officer into helping her escape into Canada. In-your-face women sometimes have to make up their plan as they go along.