NOTABLE ARKANSANS

Her time in Arkansas was brief, but her account of her own life is so bizarre, it merits a mention in Arkansas history. According to her memoirs, she was born in 1842 in Havana to a Spanish official and the daughter of a French naval officer. When she was 2, her father resigned his position and the family moved to an estate in Mexico. At the age of 5, she joined an aunt in New Orleans to learn the skills expected of a young lady of her class; during her studies, she gained an admiration for Joan of Arc and Deborah of the Hebrews and dreamed of some day emulating them.

When she was 14, her family arranged a marriage to an acceptable young man. He didn’t fit the life she envisioned for herself, so she eloped with a young American military officer. For the first four years of marriage she traveled with him from post to post, learning about military life. She gave birth to three children, all dying in infancy. During this time, she never lost her dream of following in the footsteps of her two childhood heroines.

When the Civil War began, her husband resigned his position and joined the Confederate Army. Seeing an opportunity, she attempted to persuade him to let her accompany him. He didn’t think the battlefield was an appropriate place for a woman, so he refused her request. Not to be deterred, she waited until he left, had two uniforms made by a tailor in Memphis, added facial hair, adopted the name Lt. Harry T. Buford, proceeded across the Mississippi River to Arkansas and traveled by train to a small settlement called Hurlburt Station.

In her book, written later and bearing a lengthy title — “The Woman in Battle: A Narrative of the Exploits, Adventures, and Travels of Madame [her name], Otherwise Known as Lieutenant Harry T. Buford, Confederate States Army” — she claimed to have recruited 256 men, whom she named The Arkansas Grays, in four days; marched them to Memphis; and traveled by boat to New Orleans, then by train to Pensacola, Fla. There, she marched the men into the Confederate post and presented them to her astonished husband, who eventually agreed to take command of the regiment and formally train them. A few days later, he was killed when a carbine he was using in a demonstration exploded in his hands.

As related in her book, she continued her ruse as a soldier and engaged in several battles, giving acceptably accurate eyewitness descriptions of the battles of Manassas and Shiloh. Later, becoming disenchanted with the horrors of battle, she returned to women’s clothing and became a spy for the Confederacy in Washington, where she claimed to have met the Secretary of War and President Lincoln while learning a number of military secrets.

After the war, she traveled Europe and South America before settling in the western United States, where she was married two more times and had a son. She wrote her book in 1876. The date of her death is unknown.

Who was this controversial woman, about whose truthfulness historians are undecided?

Who was this controversial woman, about whose truthfulness historians are undecided?