Nancy Hart

Nancy Hart. Legendary Spy. The story of Nancy Hart is a blur of fact and legend. Born in Virginia in 1843, she settled with her family first in southwestern Virginia and then in Roane County by the mid-1850s. There, she grew to young adulthood and learned to ride and shoot as well as a man. When the Civil War began, her sympathies lay with the South, and she allegedly served as a guide and spy for the local Confederate guerrilla group, Capt. Perry Conley’s Moccasin Rangers. Conley was killed early in 1862 in a Federal ambush., Hart moved to Nicholas County and spied for Confederate authorities as she peddled eggs and vegetables in Union camps, where she noted troop dispositions. Here in Summersville, she observed two companies of Lt. Col. William C. Starr’s 9th West Virginia Infantry. Starr soon caught on to Hart’s activities and had her arrested and confined here. She is said to have escaped, however, by tricking a young guard into letting her examine his pistol, shooting him dead, and then mounting Starr’s favorite horse and galloping away., Hart allegedly returned to Summerville a week later on July 25, 1862, guiding Maj. Robert A. Bailey, 22nd Virginia Infantry, and 200 cavalrymen. The Confederates stormed the town at dawn, capturing Starr (who was exchanged the next month), three other officers, and an undetermined number of soldiers. Bailey’s men burned three houses and two wagons and took away eight mules and a dozen horses. After the raid, Hart became less active., Nancy Hart married Confederate veteran Joshua Douglas in 1864 and later lived in Webster County She died in 1902.