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Cultural Background |
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Storyteller's Cabin |
I sat in my car in stunned silence for the remainder of the night, scared to make any move for fear of the ghostly soldiers returning. When the sun rose the next morning, I saw no sign in the forest of any fires or people. There were no foot or horse prints anywhere to be found. Was it all a dream?
An hour later, a tow truck driver arrived to take away my banged up car. He was quite curious as to why I was stuck so far out in the woods. I was so delirious at that point that I went ahead and told him the story, figuring he would at least have a funny tale to tell his friends after work. To my surprise, he got strangely quiet and nodded.
"You weren't seein' things, mister," he said as he slowly took a sip from his steaming coffee cup. "What you saw was the ghost of Belle Boyd."
Belle Boyd - that name seemed familiar to me, but I couldn't place her. "She was a spy for the Confederacy," continued the driver. "She once lived a few miles down the road from here. The story I heard was that she used to eavesdrop on the Union troops that captured the towns around here. And she'd sneak their battle plans out to Stonewall Jackson and other Confederate generals out in the field. She'd run through the battle lines in a long dress and kitchen apron while the Yankee troops fired on her."
"She helped the Confederate forces a lot, but the Union troops eventually took over this whole area. They wiped out a lot of the soldiers that Belle tried to help. Ol' Belle got put in prison, and eventually escaped to England. But she could never get over all those poor boys dyin'. Some folks say she still runs up and down these roads, tryin' to deliver battle plans to the Confederates. Sad thing is, the war's long over."
The driver then hopped into the truck and lifted my car out of the ditch. "You really believe that story?" I asked him.
The driver shrugged his shoulders and replied, "There are a lot of ghosts 'round here, mister. I guess it's a good thing. Keeps us all from forgettin' what happened."
After my experience, I never returned to that part of Virginia - at least at night. I became fully convinced that my ghostly passenger was the famous Belle Boyd. And sometimes at night, I think about Belle and hope she has delivered her last message to the Confederate troops in the forest. Perhaps then she can finally find peace.
Learn more about the real Belle Boyd in our cultural background section.
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