The Woman in Battle

Loreta Janeta Velazquez was the daughter of a Spanish official living in Cuba. As a young girl she was sent to school in New Orleans, where she ran away and married a U.S. Army officer. After the outbreak of the war, she persuaded her husband to renounce his commission and to join the Confederate forces. After he was killed in battle, Velazquez disguised herself as a man so that she could serve, eventually doing so as an officer, a spy, and a blockade runner. The Woman in Battle tells the amazin