Virginia Beauty, Laura Ratcliffe, was not only brilliant and gorgeous, but a brave and courageous Confederate Spy. During the Civil War, Laura met General Stuart when she and her sister were nursing wounded Confederate soldiers at his camp, near Fairfax, Virginia during the winter of 1861-1862, when Laura and Stuart became friends. Laura became known as the local beauty who charmed Major General J.E.B. Stuart into writing her excessive amounts of romantic poetry and some very injudicious letters. She also provided important military intelligence to Stuart and Colonel John Singleton Mosby. Both Stuart and Mosby knew that a stay with the Virginia Beauty could not only prove entertaining, but provide valuable intelligence regarding Union operations in the area.
Laura Ratcliffe was born May 28, 1836, in Fairfax City, Virginia, to Francis and Ann Ratcliffe. The blood of such legendary Southern families as the Lees, Fitzhughs and McCartys flowed in her veins. It was a Ratcliffe who founded the City of Fairfax. During the Civil War, northern Virginia was rife with Union and Confederate activity, especially along the Potomac. Skirmishes and full-fledged battles, midnight raids and daytime maneuvers were the stuff of daily living for soldier and civilian alike. After meeting Laura, Stuart began a correspondence with her. His letters, along with a poem he dedicated to her, reflect his respect for her. He also gave her a gold-embossed brown leather album that was inscribed,
“Presented to Miss Laura Ratcliffe by her soldier-friend as a token of his high appreciation of her patriotism, admiration of her virtues, and pledge of his lasting esteem.”
During the war, the Ratcliffes were among those who chose to walk the tightrope of pragmatism in Virginia. While loyal to the South, they were not averse to selling food and supplies to the Union troops who often controlled the area. It was the braggadocio of one Union lieutenant who came to buy milk from the Ratcliffes that thrust Laura into the role of spy. He made the mistake of gloating to Laura that a trap for Mosby was in place near her home stating,
“I know you would give Mosby any information in your possession, but, as you have no horses and the mud is too deep for women folks to walk, you can’t tell him; so the next you hear of your ‘pet’ he will be either dead or our prisoner.”
That very afternoon, Feb. 7, 1863, Laura and her sister started across the freezing, muddy fields toward the home of a cousin, George Coleman, intending to have him warn Mosby. Fate stepped in, however, and the two women encountered Mosby as he rode across those same bitterly cold fields. In his memoirs, Mosby credits Ratcliffe with saving his life.
“We then proceeded on toward Frying Pan where I heard that a cavalry picket was stationed and waiting for me to come after them….When I got within a mile of it and had stopped for a few minutes to make my disposition for attack, I observed two ladies walking rapidly toward me. One was Miss Laura Ratcliffe, a young lady to whom Stuart had introduced me a few weeks before, when returning from his raid on Dumfries, with her sister. Their home was near Frying Pan, and they had got information of a plan to capture me, and were just going to the house of a citizen to get him to put me on my guard, where fortune brought them across my path.
But for meeting them, my life as a partisan would have closed that day. There was a cavalry post in sight at Frying Pan, but near there, in the pines, a large body of cavalry had been concealed. It was expected that I would attack the picket, but that my momentary triumph would be like the fabled Dead Sea’s fruit, ashes to the taste, as the party in the pines would pounce from their hiding-place upon me.”
Laura Ratcliffe, informed Mosby of a Union gathering, on March 9, 1863, when Union Brigadier General Edwin Stoughton hosted a party at Fairfax Court House for his visiting mother and sister, who were staying at the home of Confederate spy Antonia Ford. After leaving the party, Stoughton retired to a nearby house that served as his headquarters. As Stoughton and his officers lay in bed, Mosby and 29 men slipped through Federal picket lines and entered General Stoughton’s room.
Mosby woke the general and asked him, “Do you know Mosby?”
The general said, “Yes, have you captured the devil?”
Mosby said, “No, the devil has caught you.”
Mosby captured the general, two captains and 58 horses, without firing a shot, and evaded numerous Federal outposts on their departure. Upon hearing of these events President Lincoln allegedly said that generals were replaceable, but he deeply regretted the loss of so many good horses.
At various times during the war Confederates used the Ratcliffe house as a headquarters and for temporary storage of confiscated Union goods. Union investigators knew Ratcliffe was up to something and repeatedly searched the farm but were never able to find anything.
After the war, when Laura was 54 years old, she married a Union man named Milton Hanna on December 4, 1890. Hanna built a nice post-war house, renamed Merrybrook, for the increased comfort of Laura and her mother, in their severely reduced post-war financial circumstances.
Laura Ratcliffe Hanna passed on August 8, 1923, at Merrybrook and was laid to rest in the Ratcliffe, Coleman, Hanna Cemetery located near Herndon, Virginia.
Virginia Beauty, Laura Ratcliffe, was not just another refined Southern Belle, but an example of the fortitude and perseverance that defined many women survivors of the Civil War.
Bummer
