{"id":645,"date":"2020-06-17T10:41:59","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T15:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kitsergeant.com\/?page_id=645"},"modified":"2022-07-13T12:43:15","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T17:43:15","slug":"underground","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.kitsergeant.com\/?page_id=645","title":{"rendered":"The Women of Underground"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>
Photograph of Belle Boyd<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Image of Loreta Velasquez from “The Woman in Battle”<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/a>Why was Loreta Velasquez’s name mentioned during the Lincoln Assassination trials?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In October 1865, a man named Sandford\nConover wrote to the chief prosecutor during the Lincoln assassination trial,\nstating that he had uncovered a Jefferson Davis-approved plot to poison\nPresident Lincoln. The plan would have had the \u201cshe-wolf\u201d who had posed as\nLieutenant Buford, none other than Loreta Velasquez herself, actually deliver\nthe poison. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandford Conover was one of the many\naliases of Charles Dunham, the dubious journalist who sparked the Confederate\nprison plot featured in Underground:\nTraitors and Spies in Lincoln\u2019s War. <\/em>When Loreta first met Dunham in Castle\nThunder, he was introduced as Harvey Birch, a name perhaps purposely mimicking\nthat of the main character in James Fenimore Cooper\u2019s American Revolution\nnovel, The Spy. <\/em>Dunham also occasionally\nwent by James Watson Wallace,\nFranklin Foster, Isaac Haines (or Haynes), Henry Wolfenden, W.E. Harrison,\nGeorge W. Margrave, John McGill and many other aliases. Of course,\nLoreta was going by the alias Alice Williams at the time, so while they were\nacquainted, it wasn\u2019t an intimate enough relationship for them to reveal their\nreal names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Civil War was in its early stages,\nDunham was unsuccessful in an effort to raise a Union regiment. He then\ntraveled to Richmond, where he offered to try to do the same for the\nConfederate Army. Understandably, the Richmond authorities imprisoned him for a\nbrief period. After his release, Dunham traveled to New York, where he began\nhis less than illustrious journalism career. He became acquaintances with\nConfederate refugees in Canada, and began writing articles warning of possible\nplots to free Southern prisoners.  In his\nHarvey Birch column, published by the New\nYork Herald <\/em>in September 1863, he wrote that he had  \u201cleft Washington on the 19th of March last for the purpose of invading\nthe “sacred soil” to a point near Mason and Dixon’s\nline. The object of my journey being of no concern to anybody, I need not take\ntime to disclose.\u201d  After crossing Ashby\u2019s gap, he was captured by\nMosby\u2019s raiders, who accused him of being a Yankee spy. He seemed to switch\nsides as often as he switched names. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Dunham, Loreta remained a\nlodger at Castle Thunder after she was released by Winder, supposedly because\nshe had a free room. He relayed that Loreta was \u201cboarding, drinking, gambling,\nand carousing with Capt. Alexander and other officers.\u201d Dunham claimed that\nLoreta was eventually sent North on a truce boat and that, before she left, she\nexpressed hope that he would soon be released so that they could meet in\nBaltimore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Lincoln was assassinated, Dunham was\ncalled to testify as a witness. He spoke first of a conspiracy headed by former\nConfederate President Jefferson Davis, for which he gave no solid evidence.\nDunham then wrote an article under one of his pseudonyms to discredit his own\ncharges, for reasons unknown but possibly because he, like Loreta, would pursue\ninfamy at whatever cost. He then switched to another story, at which point the\njudge got tired of his antics. Accused of perjury, he was thrown in jail. Soon\nhe was conspiring again, this time with fellow prisoners, Benjamin F. Butler\n(of no relation to General \u201cBeast\u201d Butler) and another man to declare that the\nLincoln plot had actually been headed by President Andrew Johnson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where was Loreta during the spring of 1865\nwhen she was supposedly plotting to kill the President? True to form, she told\nseveral different stories, some of them contradictory. In 1866, she claimed\nthat she was in New York, preparing to leave for Europe. In her autobiography, The Woman in Battle, <\/em>published in 1876,\nshe wrote that she was in Columbus, Ohio, at the Neil House, having\n\u201cconferences with several persons concerning the affairs\u201d of the South when she\nfound out that Lincoln had been assassinated. Loreta stated that \u201cMr. Lincoln\nwas the enemy of the cause I loved, and for which I labored and it would have\nbeen intensely repugnant to my feelings to have made any outward manifestations\nof mourning.\u201d Wherever she was, it seems she probably had nothing to do with\nLincoln\u2019s actual assassination, despite Dunham\/Conover\u2019s accusations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why was Loreta Velasquez’s name mentioned during the Lincoln Assassination trials? In October 1865, a man named Sandford Conover wrote to the chief prosecutor during the Lincoln assassination trial, stating that he had uncovered a Jefferson Davis-approved plot to poison President Lincoln. The plan would have had the \u201cshe-wolf\u201d who had posed as Lieutenant Buford, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":552,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-645","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P4Nv5L-ap","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitsergeant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitsergeant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitsergeant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitsergeant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitsergeant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitsergeant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitsergeant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/645\/revisions\/846"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitsergeant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitsergeant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}