Lady Spies of the Civil War

Season 1, Episode 7. 19th-century women weren't supposed to be devious - and that's what made them such effective spies. Hundreds of women tied gun parts to their crinolines, baked quinine into bread loaves, hid generals in their attics, and made daring midnight rides for their cause. In this episode, we follow four of them: Union ladies Elizabeth Van Lew and Mary Jane Bowser and Confederate dames Rose O'Neal Greenhow and Bell Boyd. They flirted, tricked, and cajoled the men around them, using their prejudice about a woman's place to achieve outrageous feats of courage and ingenuity. You won't believe what they did, and what they risked, to do their part for the conflict raging all around them.