Portrait of Belle Boyd, Confederate Spy,
Frontispiece from her autobiography
BELLE BOYD, IN CAMP AND PRISON, 1865
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Portrait of Belle Boyd, Confederate Spy,
Frontispiece from her autobiography
BELLE BOYD, IN CAMP AND PRISON, 1865
Now Belle Boyd was a lady
With bright eyes and long black hair,
She spied for Stonewall Jackson,
For the Southern Cause she dared;
The Yankees caught her several times,
But she always won fair play;
She'd charm her captors all the night,
In the morning slip away.
Chorus:
Belle, she's on the run,
Belle, she's on the run,
At the break of day she'd slip a-way,
Belle, she's on the run!
She shipped on board the Greyhound,
One dark and stormy night;
With dispatches for the British,
To aid the Rebel fight;
They steamed out from the harbor,
Yankee gunboats all around,
Bound first for Bermuda,
And then to London Town.
Chorus
Now the Greyhound was a flyer,
With rakish masts and slender keel;
She'd cut right through the combers,
And rattle out the reel;
From Wilmington to St. George Bay
She'd steam a three-day run;
Unload her bales of cotton,
Return with powder and gun.
Chorus
The Greyhound crept on through the night
Through the blockade she did run;
'Twas only at the break of day
They found they were undone;
Up hove a Yankee gunboat,
Shell fire 'round them 'rose;
Captain Henry struck his colors,
And surrendered to his foes.
Chorus
Belle burned her dispatches
'Fore the Yankees pulled 'longside;
They questioned all the sailors
And the Captain they did chide;
But she charmed the prize-master
Who soon fell 'neath her sway,
And after reaching Boston,
Once more she slipped away.
Chorus
There's still more to this story,
For Belle she'd fallen in love,
But with the Yankee Skipper,
And they were soon betrothed;
He'd followed her to London,
Where they married happily,
While Belle she wrote her memoirs,
They began a family.
Chorus