Lurking as Spies

Lurking as Spies. Jones House, Military Jail. Union forces commandeered private dwellings in and around New Bern. They served as barracks, hospitals, headquarters and jails. The Jones House (built ca. 1809) served as a jail. According to local tradition, Union soldiers jailed a young Carteret County woman, Emelin Jamison Pigott. In February 1865, Pigott was arrested for smuggling goods and transporting letters., Pigott was no the only local woman who supposedly risked her life passing information through Union lines. When confronted by a Union officer puzzled by how mail was getting out of jail, Sarah Ann Cole Taylor confessed to carrying letters under her clothing. The officer took her confession as a joke, and she was not arrested., Penalties for spying were severe. As early as 1806, and again in 1862, Congress authorized courts martial to impose the death penalty to anyone who supplied money, food, ammunition or protected the enemy. The Confederacy adopted the same approach. Normal rules of legal due process were suspended. Civilians convicted of spying were hanged. Some received lighter sentences like imprisonment for the rest of the war. Women suspects were more often imprisoned or paroled., Pigott was never court-martialed. After her release, she returned home to Carteret County., (sidebar) , Concealed Under Her Clothes , When a Union officer detained, Emeline Pigott in Beaufort, a search of her garments revealed a mind-boggling number of items suspended from the hoops beneath her skirts: 1 pair of boots, 2 pairs of pants, 1 shirt, 1 cap, 1 dozen linen collars, 1 dozen handkerchiefs, 50 skeins of sewing silk, spool cotton, needles, toothbrushes, hair combs, 3 pocketknives, dressing pins, gloves, 1 razor, and 4 or 5 pound of candy. The types of goods speak to the shortage of everyday items during wartime., (captions) , Emeline Jamison Pigott (1836-1919) Courtesy North Carolina Office of Archives and History, "A Female Spy," from Allan Pinkerton, The Spy of the Rebellion. G.W. Carleton and Co. 1883., Jones House, ca. 1863 - Courtesy University of North Carolina Library at Chapel Hill.