Ex Confederate scout Frank Stringfellow had another trick up his sleeve to garner permission to be a chaplain in the Spanish-American war.

According to Virginia Morton, author of “Marching Through Culpeper,” former Confederate scout Frank Stringfellow became an Episcopal minister at age 36 and used his ingenuity and speaking engagements of his wartime adventures to raise money to build churches across Virginia.

According to Virginia Morton, author of “Marching Through Culpeper,” Confederate scout Frank Stringfellow arrived in Hamilton, Canada in March, 1866 where he joined many ex-Confederates in search of a new life…

After the incriminating letter was discovered in the lining of Stringfellow’s coat, his guard– a sergeant, informed him that he would be taken to Washington the next day along with a group of deserters and blockade runners. Stringfellow persuaded the sergeant to take him down to the river that evening. There, in the darkness, the scout related how he had refused to kill the sergeant with an ax when he had the opportunity, and the internal struggle he had faced.
The sergeant was touched by the story and wished he had …

Following his brave but foolhardy toast to Jefferson Davis in a Washington boarding house, Frank Stringfellow headed into Eastern Maryland. He posed as a dentist but sensed that the net of intrigue was about to snare him. Thus he rented a carriage and headed southward towards the Potomac River to return to Virginia. 
The carriage came to a sudden stop and Stringfellow looked out the windows to see a Union soldier holding the reins of the horse and two others poked carbines through the windows into the scout’s face. He indignantly …

Stringfellow’s reputation for courage and reliability reached the upper echelons of the Confederacy. Following Jeb Stuart’s death, the scout reported directly to Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. Davis personally ordered Stringfellow into the Federal capital in March of 1865 to determine the climate for peace negotiations.
Many years after the war, Davis requested information for his memoirs and Stringfellow sent a report of his final mission. While gathering intelligence, the infatuated spy had risked his life to court Emma Green. He wrote, “Dark and dangerous as these days were they …

In March of 1863, after he had established a line of communication from Confederate sympathizers in the War Department in Washington to Richmond, Stringfellow undertook the audacious challenge of capturing a Union Picket Post in Lorton.
He learned that the picket command post was at the Widow Violett’s house, a former Lorton landmark located in the “Y” intersection of Lorton and Furnace roads. The intrepid scout concluded there couldn’t be more than fifty Yanks at the command post, so he and Captain Farrow’s thirty-six men should be able to take it …

While a student at the Episcopal School in Alexandria, Frank Stringfellow fell in love with Emma Green, daughter of a prominent furniture maker. His love for Emma would motivate him to undertake audacious missions which provided invaluable information to the Confederacy.
His first official covert mission in January of 1862, sent him into Alexandria to pose as a dental apprentice. Thus he wore civilian clothes which meant that if caught, he would be hung as a spy. He arrived at the office of a local dentist and Southern sympathizer, Richard Sykes, …

Following Lincoln’s election and the secession of seven Southern states, there was initially little outcry for war. Most northern newspapers editorialized that the states should be allowed to leave in peace. They would still be trading partners of the United States and many preferred their departure to continued sectional rancor.
Then within days of each other in early March, 1861 two events occurred, usually overlooked in chronicles of the War, but destined to exert colossal influence on world history. The U. S. Congress passed the Morrill Tariff, the highest in the …

Clara Barton is rightfully considered one the greatest humanitarians of the 19th century.
She broke tradition and went to the front to nurse wounded soldiers, thus opening the door for better medical care and female nurses. She courageously assisted doctors at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, Antietam, Ox Hill, and even crossed the pontoon bridge at Fredericksburg under heavy fire. But in the winter of 1863 the army consolidated its medical work under the authority of Dorothea Dix and the Christian Sanitary Commission. Clara and Miss Dix had a personality clash …