Loreta velazquez biography

American Civil War spy (1842–1923)

Loreta Janeta Velázquez (19th-century – 1923) was an American woman who wrote that she had masqueraded as a male Confederate soldier during the American Civil War.

The book she wrote about her experiences says that after her soldier husband's accidental death, she enlisted in the Confederate States Army in 1861. She then fought at Bull Run, Ball's Bluff, and Fort Donelson, but was discharged when her sex was discovered while in New Orleans.

Undeterred, she reenlisted and fought at Shiloh, until unmasked once more. She then became a Confederate spy, working in both male and female guises, and as a double agent also reporting to the U.S. Secret Service.

Loreta velazquez biography wikipedia

She remarried three more times, being widowed in each instance.

According to historian William C. Davis, she died in January 1923 under the name Loretta J. Beard after many years away from the public eye in a public psychiatric facility, St.

Elizabeths Hospital. Most of