Major Pauline Cushman: Union Spy
The only woman given a commission for secret-service work during the Civil War
Research for my current book has been leading me down some fascinating rabbit holes, welcome respites from doomscrolling.
This week I was reading F.R. Burnham’s memoir, Scouting on Two Continents (an incredible book!) and he talked about meeting the famous Major Pauline Cushman, “the only woman given a commission in the United States Army for secret-service work inside the enemy’s lines during the Civil War.”
Who could resist looking that up? Not me.
Born Harriet Wood in 1833, Cushman grew up with seven brothers, learning to ride horses, shoot, and canoe down local rivers. Her dream was to become an actress, and she moved to New York City at the age of 17 and took the stage name of Pauline Cushman. A year later she was back in New Orleans working in the theater where she met her first husband, a musician, and had two children. After her husband died, she moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to pursue acting again, leaving her children behind with her in-laws.
At the time, Kentucky was a hotbed of dissent, and violence often erupted between Unionists and Confederate sympathizers. In April 1863, Pauline was performing in the play The Seven Sisters at a theater in Union-controlled Louisville when she was approached by two Confederate officers. In a scene in the play, her character proposed a toast, and the officers offered her money to drink to the Southern Confederacy. She asked the U.S. Provost Marshal in Louisville what to do. He told her to accept the proposition.
The next night she raised her glass and toasted, “Here’s to Jefferson Davis and the Southern Confederacy. May the South always maintain her honor and her rights!” It’s said the audience fell silent and Cushman was immediately fired from the production.
A newspaper later wrote, “Romances of the lovely young actress who was persecuted and driven out of the two cities by the Union soldiers filled the South, and she was the Confederate heroine of the hour.”
Work in the theater was scarce after that, but Cushman was embraced by Confederate circles and began working as a Union spy. Disguised as a Southern woman in a boarding house, Cushman discovered her landlady mixing poison in the coffee of wounded Union soldiers. Major Pauline saved the soldiers and got her landlady arrested. Other disguises included dressing as a man to convince a Southern woman carrying supplies to the Confederates that she was an undercover Confederate officer. Cushman was able to notify Union forces, and all the supplies headed South were confiscated.
In the summer of 1863 the espionage chief for the commander of the Army of the Cumberland asked Cushman to scout ahead of the upcoming Tullahoma Campaign, a sweeping plan to push the Confederates out of middle Tennessee. Under the guise of ‘searching for a lost brother,’ she was to gain access to Confederate camps in Tennessee to ascertain the size of their forces, their supplies, and if they were building any fortification. She was not to steal any physical documents.
Before she reached the camps she befriended a young soldier who was drawing fortification maps for the Army of Tennessee. She had a tough decision to make: take the map or stick with the original plan. She quickly stuffed the map into her boot to take back across the Union line. While attempting to cross, she was caught, the map was found, and she was arrested. She was tried in a military court and sentenced to death by hanging.
Some accounts say that as she waited to be hanged she faked illness so her captors would delay her execution. Others say she had typhoid fever. Either way, her plan worked. One day she awoke to the sound of the Confederate camp in retreat. She was left behind in the chaos.
It was this exploit that cemented her fame. General Garfield and President Lincoln awarded her the honorary rank of Brevet Major for her heroic service as a spy. The Union Ladies of Nashville presented her with a military uniform which she wore when she appeared at P.T. Barnum’s American Museum. She was billed as the “Spy of the Cumberland” and “the greatest heroine of the age.” After that, she toured the country, giving lectures about her adventures.
Her fame waned as the country struggled to put itself back together after the war. Pauline moved to California, married again, and was widowed in less than a year. Working in logging camps in Santa Cruz, she met her third husband and relocated to Arizona to run a hotel.
And that’s where Major Frederick Russell Burnham (who appears in the book I’m working on) encountered her. In his memoir he wrote that Major Pauline and her husband, “a great six-footer named Jerry Fryer…offered me a hearty welcome and a much-needed rest, with feed for my horses. Major Pauline told me many things about her secret work and gave me inside information about the men I was after, as well as a list of ‘don’ts’ for a scout which have stood me in good stead many times since.” In a later exploit, Major Pauline nursed Burnham back to health after a particularly trying time in the desert. After her death he wrote, “a few years later, when taps were sounded in San Francisco for Major Pauline, there were men whom she had befriended all the way from the Golden Gate to the banks of the Rio Grande who deeply grieved to hear of her passing.”
Pauline and her third husband separated in 1890 after the death of her adopted daughter, and she moved back to California, where she became addicted to pain medication while suffering from arthritis and rheumatism and hardly able to work. Impoverished, she died from an opium overdose in 1893 in San Francisco. She was 60 years old.
When the Grand Army Republic learned of her death, they held a large funeral with military honors for her. She was buried in the Officer’s Circle at the Presidio in the San Francisco National Cemetery, her grave marked with her name, Pauline C. Fryer, and “Union Spy.”
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Sources:
https://www.nps.gov/people/paulinecushman.htm
https://www.sfgate.com/sfhistory/article/UNION-SPY-Pauline-Cushman-Presidio-SF-16175456.php
Scouting on Two Continents, by Major Frederick Russell Burnham, Garden City Publishing, Inc., 1926
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Cowboy/Cowgirl Lingo of the Day
A busted flush: Plans gone awry
As in: Major Pauline’s plan to smuggle the map was a busted flush.
I am the author of seven non-fiction books, including The Last of the Wild West Cowgirls: A True Story. I’m currently working on a novel about cowgirl spies. Follow me on Cowgirl Cocktail by subscribing.