July 29, 2020 • 9 mins
Confederate spy Belle Boyd was arrested in this day in 1862. / On this day in 1836, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris was inaugurated.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everyone, Technically you're getting two days in History today
because we were running two episodes from the History Vault.
You'll also here two hosts, me and Tracy V. Wilson.
Hope you enjoy. Welcome to this Day in History class.
It's July. Confederate spy Belle Boyd was captured on this
(00:21):
day in eighteen sixty two. Let's start with the tiny
bit about her life. She was born in Martinsburg, Virginia,
which is now in West Virginia, on May ninth of eight.
She was the oldest of eight children. Kind of a tomboy,
was also at same time raised to be a proper
Southern lady. She attended Mount Washington Female College, and she
(00:42):
had a formal society debut in Washington, d c. In
eighteen sixty. But the Civil War started not long after
her debut. She was seventeen at the time. She came
back home to Martinsburg to raise money for the war
and to serve as a nurse. Her father had also
volunteered for the Confederate Army. They were kind of an
outlier in Martinsburg, though there were a lot of Union
(01:04):
supporters in Martinsburg and in all of the territory that
would become West Virginia. West Virginia would become a state
on June eighteen sixty three after seceding from Virginia, and
West Virginia didn't join the South in the fight for slavery.
On July three, Federal troops occupied Martinsburg, and then, according
(01:25):
to Boyd's own account, they heard that she had a
bunch of Confederate flags hanging in her room. They came
to her house to take the flags down and then
to replace them with a Union flag, but her family
got rid of all those flags before they got there.
They raised their Federal flag anyway, and then during the
argument that followed, a soldier from the north quote addressed
(01:49):
my mother and myself in language as offensive as it
is possible to conceive, was from Boyd's own writing, So
according to Boyd's account, she shot him and he died,
but a Union officer ruled this to be a justifiable homicide,
so Boyd was allowed to remain free. But a detail
of Union soldiers were put around her home, either to
(02:12):
protect her or to keep an eye on her, it's
not clear which, and she started talking to them, listening
to them, eavesdropping on their conversations and then passing that
information onto the Confederacy. By the fall of eighteen sixty one,
she was working as a courier for Confederate intelligence, but
she wasn't using any kind of code or disguising her
(02:33):
handwriting in any way, so when someone found a letter
in her handwriting signed with the name Belle, they naturally
questioned her. Apparently, though they didn't think a seventeen year
old girl could do that much damage, so they didn't
take her into custody. She kept on flirting and eavesdropping
and her efforts to get more information and pass it
on to the Confederacy. In eighteen sixty two, she learned
(02:56):
that General James Shields was planning to take most of
his troops out of Front Royal to aid in an
assault on Richmond, so she passed that information along this
time though in code, along with some other ten bits
she had heard about what's going on. Then she heard
that the Union was going to burn the bridges around
Front Royal, and she tried to get that message to
(03:18):
General Thomas J. Jackson that Stonewall Jackson, nobody was willing
to get in between the two armies to deliver that message. Though,
so she did it herself under fire the whole time.
Jackson speeded up his attack. He managed to save the
bridges and capture some weapons and supplies, and then Belle
Boyd continued on with her spy work. She earned nicknames
(03:41):
like LaBelle Rebel and the Cleopatra of the Secession. All
this went on until the Secretary of War and when
Stanton issued a warrant for her arrest and she was
captured on July two. She was taken to the Old
Capitol Prison in Washington and then released after a month
in a prisoner exchange. She was arrested again though in
(04:01):
July of eighteen sixty three, and then served for six
months before she became ill with typhoid. After all of this,
she really could no longer work as a spy for
the Confederacy anymore. She was way too recognizable. She left
for England, taking some messages to Confederate supporters there with her.
She got married in England, but her husband died not
long after, and she was pregnant at the time. She
(04:24):
wrote a two volume book called Belle Boyd in Camp
in Prison to try to support herself and her child.
Then she also tried to support herself through a stage career.
She got married a second time and then later died
of a heart attack on June tenth of nine hundred.
You can learn more about Bell Boyd in the July
four episode Stuffy Miss in History Class, and you can
(04:47):
subscribe to the Day in History Class on Apple podcasts,
Google podcasts, and whatever else you get your podcasts. Tomorrow,
we'll go to South Africa for a short lived republic. Hi,
I'm Eves and welcome to this Day in History Class,
(05:10):
a show that on covers history one day at a time.
The day was July eight thirty six. The Arch Drill,
a commemorative triumphal arch in Paris, was inaugurated in eighteen
(05:31):
oh five. Napoleon's troops defeated a Russian and Austrian army
and Austerlitz. It resulted in the Treaty of Pressbourg and
it was a big victory for Napoleon. To celebrate the
victory and honor the Grand Army, Napoleon commissioned the construction
of a triumphal arch. In eighteen o six. It was
decided that the location for the monument would be the
(05:54):
place de Lui and Jean shall grind and Jean Arnew
Reymond would be the architects. In August of that year,
construction began on the Arch de Triof. By eighteen ten,
construction was nowhere near completed, but Napoleon wanted to honor
his new wife Marie Luis with a grand entrance into Paris,
(06:16):
so he had a full size model of the arch
built out of wood and painted cloth at the site.
Chal Grand then tweaked the design, but he died in
eighteen eleven. Louis Robert Goust took his place, but three
years later Napoleon abdicated as emperor and the Bourbon Restoration began.
(06:37):
Work on the arch came to a halt a decade later.
In eighteen twenty four, architect Jean nicola Leo was tasked
with redesigning the arch, but after we Oh was removed
from his post a couple of times, Guillaume Abelle Bluey
worked on the arch until his completion in eighteen thirty six.
(06:57):
Under the reign of King Louis Philippe. The Arch du
Trient was inaugurated on July twenty nine, eighteen thirty six,
fifteen years after Napoleon died. It cost nine point three
million Francs. It got its official consecration on December fift
eighteen forty, when a hearse carrying Napoleon's corpse passed underneath
(07:19):
the arch. Chagrin's neo classical design of the arch took
inspiration from the Roman arch of Titus. It stands one
hundred and sixty four ft or fifty meters high and
one hundred and forty eight feet or forty five ms wide.
Francois Ruda, Jean Pierre Corteau and Antoine at Texts created
(07:40):
the sculptures of military victories on the facades of the
arches pedestals. These were created in the last three years
of the monument's construction. The names of hundreds of French
generals are on the inside walls of the arch, a
process that caused much debate among families of generals who
were left out. The names of the major battles fought
(08:01):
during the First French Republic in Napoleon's Empire are also
inscribed on the vault. There are roses on the ceiling
of the Arc d'u trionf and allegorical figures representing characters
in Roman mythology are on the arcades. The tomb of
the Unknown Soldier, a Gray Front unknown military service member
who died in wartime, lies beneath the arch. There's also
(08:26):
a museum inside the arch and an eternal flame that's
rekindled every evening. Many victory marches have passed the arch,
including the Germans in eighteen seventy one and nineteen forty
and the French and the Allies in nineteen eighteen nineteen
forty four. In nineteen forty five, the Arc du Trillon
(08:47):
was the tallest triumphal arch at the time of its completion,
but its size has since been surpassed by the Monumento
Alla Revolution in Mexico City and the Arch of Triumph
and Pyongyange. I'm Eve Jeff Cote, and hopefully you know
a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
If you feel like correcting my pronunciation or my accent
(09:10):
on anything that I've said in the show, feel free
to leave a very kind comment on Twitter, Instagram or
Facebook at t d i h C podcast. Thanks for
joining me on this trip through time. See you here
in the exact same spot tomorrow. For more podcasts for
(09:34):
my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app Apple
Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everyone, Technically you're getting two days in History today
because we were running two episodes from the History Vault.
You'll also here two hosts, me and Tracy V. Wilson.
Hope you enjoy. Welcome to this Day in History class.
It's July. Confederate spy Belle Boyd was captured on this
(00:21):
day in eighteen sixty two. Let's start with the tiny
bit about her life. She was born in Martinsburg, Virginia,
which is now in West Virginia, on May ninth of eight.
She was the oldest of eight children. Kind of a tomboy,
was also at same time raised to be a proper
Southern lady. She attended Mount Washington Female College, and she
(00:42):
had a formal society debut in Washington, d c. In
eighteen sixty. But the Civil War started not long after
her debut. She was seventeen at the time. She came
back home to Martinsburg to raise money for the war
and to serve as a nurse. Her father had also
volunteered for the Confederate Army. They were kind of an
outlier in Martinsburg, though there were a lot of Union
(01:04):
supporters in Martinsburg and in all of the territory that
would become West Virginia. West Virginia would become a state
on June eighteen sixty three after seceding from Virginia, and
West Virginia didn't join the South in the fight for slavery.
On July three, Federal troops occupied Martinsburg, and then, according
(01:25):
to Boyd's own account, they heard that she had a
bunch of Confederate flags hanging in her room. They came
to her house to take the flags down and then
to replace them with a Union flag, but her family
got rid of all those flags before they got there.
They raised their Federal flag anyway, and then during the
argument that followed, a soldier from the north quote addressed
(01:49):
my mother and myself in language as offensive as it
is possible to conceive, was from Boyd's own writing, So
according to Boyd's account, she shot him and he died,
but a Union officer ruled this to be a justifiable homicide,
so Boyd was allowed to remain free. But a detail
of Union soldiers were put around her home, either to
(02:12):
protect her or to keep an eye on her, it's
not clear which, and she started talking to them, listening
to them, eavesdropping on their conversations and then passing that
information onto the Confederacy. By the fall of eighteen sixty one,
she was working as a courier for Confederate intelligence, but
she wasn't using any kind of code or disguising her
(02:33):
handwriting in any way, so when someone found a letter
in her handwriting signed with the name Belle, they naturally
questioned her. Apparently, though they didn't think a seventeen year
old girl could do that much damage, so they didn't
take her into custody. She kept on flirting and eavesdropping
and her efforts to get more information and pass it
on to the Confederacy. In eighteen sixty two, she learned
(02:56):
that General James Shields was planning to take most of
his troops out of Front Royal to aid in an
assault on Richmond, so she passed that information along this
time though in code, along with some other ten bits
she had heard about what's going on. Then she heard
that the Union was going to burn the bridges around
Front Royal, and she tried to get that message to
(03:18):
General Thomas J. Jackson that Stonewall Jackson, nobody was willing
to get in between the two armies to deliver that message. Though,
so she did it herself under fire the whole time.
Jackson speeded up his attack. He managed to save the
bridges and capture some weapons and supplies, and then Belle
Boyd continued on with her spy work. She earned nicknames
(03:41):
like LaBelle Rebel and the Cleopatra of the Secession. All
this went on until the Secretary of War and when
Stanton issued a warrant for her arrest and she was
captured on July two. She was taken to the Old
Capitol Prison in Washington and then released after a month
in a prisoner exchange. She was arrested again though in
(04:01):
July of eighteen sixty three, and then served for six
months before she became ill with typhoid. After all of this,
she really could no longer work as a spy for
the Confederacy anymore. She was way too recognizable. She left
for England, taking some messages to Confederate supporters there with her.
She got married in England, but her husband died not
long after, and she was pregnant at the time. She
(04:24):
wrote a two volume book called Belle Boyd in Camp
in Prison to try to support herself and her child.
Then she also tried to support herself through a stage career.
She got married a second time and then later died
of a heart attack on June tenth of nine hundred.
You can learn more about Bell Boyd in the July
four episode Stuffy Miss in History Class, and you can
(04:47):
subscribe to the Day in History Class on Apple podcasts,
Google podcasts, and whatever else you get your podcasts. Tomorrow,
we'll go to South Africa for a short lived republic. Hi,
I'm Eves and welcome to this Day in History Class,
(05:10):
a show that on covers history one day at a time.
The day was July eight thirty six. The Arch Drill,
a commemorative triumphal arch in Paris, was inaugurated in eighteen
(05:31):
oh five. Napoleon's troops defeated a Russian and Austrian army
and Austerlitz. It resulted in the Treaty of Pressbourg and
it was a big victory for Napoleon. To celebrate the
victory and honor the Grand Army, Napoleon commissioned the construction
of a triumphal arch. In eighteen o six. It was
decided that the location for the monument would be the
(05:54):
place de Lui and Jean shall grind and Jean Arnew
Reymond would be the architects. In August of that year,
construction began on the Arch de Triof. By eighteen ten,
construction was nowhere near completed, but Napoleon wanted to honor
his new wife Marie Luis with a grand entrance into Paris,
(06:16):
so he had a full size model of the arch
built out of wood and painted cloth at the site.
Chal Grand then tweaked the design, but he died in
eighteen eleven. Louis Robert Goust took his place, but three
years later Napoleon abdicated as emperor and the Bourbon Restoration began.
(06:37):
Work on the arch came to a halt a decade later.
In eighteen twenty four, architect Jean nicola Leo was tasked
with redesigning the arch, but after we Oh was removed
from his post a couple of times, Guillaume Abelle Bluey
worked on the arch until his completion in eighteen thirty six.
(06:57):
Under the reign of King Louis Philippe. The Arch du
Trient was inaugurated on July twenty nine, eighteen thirty six,
fifteen years after Napoleon died. It cost nine point three
million Francs. It got its official consecration on December fift
eighteen forty, when a hearse carrying Napoleon's corpse passed underneath
(07:19):
the arch. Chagrin's neo classical design of the arch took
inspiration from the Roman arch of Titus. It stands one
hundred and sixty four ft or fifty meters high and
one hundred and forty eight feet or forty five ms wide.
Francois Ruda, Jean Pierre Corteau and Antoine at Texts created
(07:40):
the sculptures of military victories on the facades of the
arches pedestals. These were created in the last three years
of the monument's construction. The names of hundreds of French
generals are on the inside walls of the arch, a
process that caused much debate among families of generals who
were left out. The names of the major battles fought
(08:01):
during the First French Republic in Napoleon's Empire are also
inscribed on the vault. There are roses on the ceiling
of the Arc d'u trionf and allegorical figures representing characters
in Roman mythology are on the arcades. The tomb of
the Unknown Soldier, a Gray Front unknown military service member
who died in wartime, lies beneath the arch. There's also
(08:26):
a museum inside the arch and an eternal flame that's
rekindled every evening. Many victory marches have passed the arch,
including the Germans in eighteen seventy one and nineteen forty
and the French and the Allies in nineteen eighteen nineteen
forty four. In nineteen forty five, the Arc du Trillon
(08:47):
was the tallest triumphal arch at the time of its completion,
but its size has since been surpassed by the Monumento
Alla Revolution in Mexico City and the Arch of Triumph
and Pyongyange. I'm Eve Jeff Cote, and hopefully you know
a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
If you feel like correcting my pronunciation or my accent
(09:10):
on anything that I've said in the show, feel free
to leave a very kind comment on Twitter, Instagram or
Facebook at t d i h C podcast. Thanks for
joining me on this trip through time. See you here
in the exact same spot tomorrow. For more podcasts for
(09:34):
my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app Apple
Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
This Day in History Class News
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