Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy is an in-depth look at four women - two Union and two Confederate - who determined to play a role in the Civil War. Karen Abbott deftly traces the paths each of the women took, comparing and contrasting their histories along the way.
Rose O'Neal Greenhow and Elizabeth Van Lew are two of the best-known spies from the time, Rose for the Confederacy and Van Lew for the Union. The women are portrayed as being 180 degrees apart in temperament and methods (with ROG fulfilling the role of "temptress," particularly of Congressmen and other political types, while EVL was clearly a "liar," and never more than when a Confederate general and chief of the POW system in Richmond moved into her home to better keep an eye on her). Their belief in the their respective causes was equally unwavering, and each paid a particularly steep price for her wartime activities.
Emma Edmonds ran away from her New Brunswick home, living as a man in Flint, Michigan, before the war in order to escape society's expectations of a woman of her time and class. She enlisted under her assumed name, Frank Thompson, and served as a courier, spy, and infantryman in a number of the wars bloodiest battles before, going AWOL and reclaiming Emma's identity. (I was familiar with many aspects of Edmonds's/Thompson's story from They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War, which I read earlier this year.)
Belle Boyd was 17 when the war hit home, literally, with Union soldiers forcibly entering her family's home in Martinsburg, Virginia, (later West Virginia). Of the four women, Belle most completely embodies the four roles of Abbott's title, and is portrayed, at least, as having the most colorful personality.
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy is an informative and interesting read that those with an interest in women's history or the American Civil War will especially enjoy.
Four stars.
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