Frank took the oath of allegiance to the United States…He assured himself that this was a calling, that he had to do what he could ‘for the defense of the right,’ and that if he was careful no one would discover his secret: Frank Thompson was really Emma Edmondson, and had been posing as a man for two years…” He turned it over as if it were a tarot card, studying its nuances, noting the absence of calluses, the smooth palm, the slim and tapered fingers…he doctor marked Frank Thompson fit to serve as a private for Company F, 2nd Michigan Infantry. He coiled his fingers around Frank’s wrist and lifted up his hand. The doctor’s eyes skimmed his shoulders and back, torso and legs. He told the doctor he was nineteen years old, twenty come December. He was five foot six, two inches shorter than the average Union army recruit, solid but thin. With a cast of real-life characters, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, General Stonewall Jackson, Detective Allan Pinkerton, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, and Emperor Napoléon III, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy shines a dramatic new light on these daring-and, until now, unsung-heroines. Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy Richmond abolitionist, hid behind her proper Southern manners as she orchestrated a far-reaching espionage ring-even placing a former slave inside the Confederate White House-right under the noses of increasingly suspicious rebel detectives. The beautiful widow Rose O'Neal Greenhow engaged in affairs with powerful Northern politicians and used her young daughter to send information to Southern generals. Emma Edmonds disguised herself as a man to enlist as a Union private named Frank Thompson, witnessing the bloodiest battles of the war and infiltrating enemy lines. Seventeen-year-old Belle Boyd, an avowed rebel with a dangerous temper, shot a Union soldier in her home, and became a courier and spy for the Confederate army, using her considerable charms to seduce men on both sides.

Karen Abbott tells the spellbinding true story of four women who risked everything during the Civil War.

Liar temptress soldier spy