Antonia Willard

Confederate spy who fell in love with and married her Union soldier captor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonia_Ford

Antonia Ford (July 23, 1838 – February 14, 1871) was a volunteer civilian spy for the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Biography

Antonia Ford was born at Fairfax Court House, Virginia. She was a daughter of a prominent local merchant and ardent secessionist named Edward R. Ford. She attended the Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute in Buckingham, Virginia.

As Union forces occupied the Fairfax region in mid-1861, Ford circulated among the officers and garnered valuable intelligence about troop strengths and planned movements, which she passed along to Brigadier General J.E.B. Stuart, in whose artillery her brother served. She also spied for John S. Mosby, a noted partisan ranger. Stuart, grateful for her service and appreciative of the information he had received, designated Ford as an honorary aide-de-camp on October 7, 1861.

In early 1863, Ford was betrayed by a Union counterspy named Frankie Abel, whom she had befriended and shown the document bearing Stuart's signature. Ford was subsequently arrested on March 13 and incarcerated in Washington, D.C. at the Old Capitol Prison. She was accused of playing a prominent role in the capture of Union general Edwin H. Stoughton, but Colonel Mosby and others later denied her complicity, and no evidence of her guilt could be found. She was released and exchanged seven days later. However, she was arrested in Fairfax by Major Joseph Willard (1820–1897) and sent back to Old Capitol Prison. She took the Oath of Allegiance and subsequently married her captor on March 10, 1864. The couple had three children.

Antonia Ford Willard died in Washington, D.C. in 1871 as an indirect result of health issues stemming from her captivity. Her husband never remarried.

Film

The 2007 made-for-television docudrama, Now & Forever Yours: Letters to an Old Soldier, artistically recounts the courtship of Antonia Ford and Major Joseph Clapp Willard. It was written and directed by Steven Fischer. In the film, Ford and Willard recount from an ethereal netherworld the events of their two year affair. This narrative is dramatically illustrated with scenes of the courtship filmed in and around Fairfax, Virginia, where the actual romance took place. Now & Forever Yours: Letters to an Old Soldier was a critical success, winning, among others, an Emmy Award nomination for cinematography. The dialogue between the lovers was taken directly from the couple’s surviving letters. The movie starred Katie Tschida and Winston Shearin.

In 2009, BLM Productions released a feature-length docudrama, "Spies in Crinoline," which recounts the intersecting lives of spies Antonia Ford and Laura Ratcliffe. The screenplay, adapted from Karla Vernon's The Spy in Crinoline and numerous primary sources, intersperses dramatic sequences shot on-location in Fairfax County, Virginia, with period images, narration, and interviews with historians. Directed by Bert Morgan, it stars Emily Lapisardi as Antonia Ford, Gregory Labenz as Joseph Willard, Becci Varga as Laura Ratcliffe, and Joe Cain as General J. E. B. Stuart.

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https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Ford_Antonia_1838-1871

Antonia Ford was a Confederate spy during the American Civil War (1861–1865), credited with providing the military information gathered from her Fairfax Court House home during the First Battle of Manassas (1861) and in the two years following. In October 1861, Confederate cavalry general J. E. B. Stuart issued an order declaring her an honorary aide-de-camp. The document was used against Ford in 1863, however, when she was accused of spying for John Singleton Mosby, whose partisan rangers famously captured the Union general Edwin H. Stoughton in his headquarters. Mosby later denied that Ford ever spied for him. After several months in prison, Ford was released and married one of her captors, Union major Joseph C. Willard. Ford stopped spying, Willard resigned from the army, and they returned to managing the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., and had three children.

Early Years

Antonia J. Ford was born on July 23, 1838, in Fairfax Court House, the daughter of Edward Rudolph Ford, a wealthy merchant, and Julia F. Ford. In 1857, she attended the Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute in Buckingham, Virginia. During the Civil War, her brother Charles Ford served with Stuart's cavalry, and Ford herself became acquainted with the general and began supplying him with information. Histories have traditionally cited Ford's youth and beauty as the assets she used in intelligence gathering. When her father opened the family's home—which was located halfway between Washington, D.C., and Manassas—as a gathering spot for Union officers, she had ample opportunity to charm Union soldiers and steal their secrets. She is said to have sometimes worked in conjunction with Rose O'Neal Greenhow, a Confederate agent in Washington, D.C. On October 7, 1861, Stuart presented Ford with a "commission" as an honorary aide-de camp, ordering she be "obeyed, respected and admired" as such. Instead, however, the document helped get her thrown in jail.

Ford is best known for her alleged involvement in one of the most famous cavalry raids of the war. At about two o'clock in the morning on March 9, 1863, Mosby and twenty-nine of his partisan rangers slipped past Union pickets and into Fairfax Court House, where the headquarters of General Stoughton and his cavalry commander, Colonel Percy Wyndham, was located. Stoughton was literally "caught napping," as the Baltimore American newspaper later charged, and a number of his men and horses were also captured. Afterward, United States president Abraham Lincoln quipped that he could spare the general but not the horses, which were more expensive. Wyndham, who earlier had labeled Mosby a common horse thief, was spared the indignity; he was in Washington, D.C., that night.

An investigation into the incident by Lafayette C. Baker, head of the U.S. Secret Service, immediately focused on Ford. Stoughton's mother, his sister, and three of his aides had stayed in Ford's home, and the twenty-four-year-old Stoughton was said to have socialized with Ford. On March 14, 1863, an anonymous letter appeared in the New York Times accusing the general and Ford of having been "very intimate." In fact, the writer claimed to have thought before the raid, "If he [Stoughton] gets picked up some night, he may thank her for it." Ford—along with her father and perhaps as many as ten others—was arrested and charged with espionage on the weight of a confession she was said to have given to a female agent named Frankie Abel, whom Baker dispatched to Fairfax in the guise of a Confederate refugee from New Orleans. Union authorities also pointed to Ford's 1861 commission from Stuart, which they found in her house, as proof she was in the employ of Confederates.

Nevertheless, the fact of Ford's participation in the planning of the raid has been disputed over the years. Stoughton, who first became ill at Libby Prison in Richmond and died in 1868, wrote to Mosby in 1867 requesting that his old foe clear Ford of any involvement. Historian James A. Ramage, in his 1999 biography of Mosby, speculated that Mosby complied because Stoughton's brother later wrote a letter of recommendation for a political appointment Mosby was seeking. Ramage also cited a letter Mosby wrote to a friend in 1900, which stated that Ford was "as innocent as Abraham Lincoln." While most histories credit Ford's role, Ramage concluded that the accusations against her were "not valid."

Later Years

Ford was confined at Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C., which at various times also held Confederate spies Belle Boyd and Rose Greenhow. Within a matter of months, however, Ford was released, perhaps in part because of lobbying on her behalf by her arresting officer, Major Joseph Willard. In a twist of fate that remarkably echoes Boyd's story, Ford fell in love with her captor and married him on March 10, 1864. Willard, a Vermont native who was part owner of the famous Washington, D.C., hotel that bore his family's name, resigned from the army; Ford took an oath of allegiance to the United States. The two settled in the capital and had three children, only one of whom survived infancy. Ford died on February 14, 1871. Her son, Joseph Edward Willard, served on the staff of Fitzhugh Lee, Confederate general Robert E. Lee's nephew, during the Spanish-American War (1898). He also served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates (1893–1901), lieutenant governor of Virginia (1902–1906), and United States ambassador to Spain (1913–1921) during the administration of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson.

Time Line

July 23, 1838 - Antonia Ford is born in Fairfax Court House to wealthy merchant Edward Randolph Ford and Julia F. Ford.

October 7, 1861 - Confederate cavalry general J. E. B. Stuart "commissions" Antonia Ford an honorary aide-de-camp.

March 9, 1863 - John Singleton Mosby and his Confederate partisan rangers capture Union general Edwin H. Stoughton in Fairfax Court House. Antonia Ford is soon accused of being an accomplice in the raid.

March 13, 1863 - Antonia Ford is arrested by Union authorities on charges of espionage in the wake of a nighttime raid on Fairfax Court House by John Singleton Mosby and his Confederate partisan rangers.

Autumn 1863 - Ford is released from Old Capitol Prison after serving several months on charges of espionage. Her release may have come in part from the lobbying efforts of her arresting officer, Major Joseph Willard, who has fallen in love with Ford.

March 10, 1864 - Antonia Ford and Joseph Willard are married.

February 14, 1871 - Antonia Ford dies in Washington, D.C., from an illness contracted at Old Capitol Prison.