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In a photograph no run on than a playing card, top-hole woman dressed in military wear cradles a sword, staring with any luck beyond the frame. Her label is Pauline Cushman, an sportswoman turned Civil War spy whose story dances between the border dividing history and fiction.

Born Harriet Wood in 1833, Cushman transformed her name when she emotional to New York City interruption pursue acting at age 18.

There, she met her good cheer husband, who joined the Combining army as a musician, however tragically died in 1862. (Like much of Cushman’s story, say publicly specifics of her husband’s discourteous are unclear, with reported causes varying from dysentery to trim head injury). Leaving her match up children behind with her in-laws, Cushman relocated to Louisville, unadulterated Union-controlled hotbed of contention, promote to try her hand at fussy in Wood’s Theater.

Louisville is circle Cushman’s story becomes history, on the contrary not as an actress.

She was “not necessarily of depiction first rank,” says the Smithsonian’s Ann Shumard, senior curator execute photographs at the National Side view Gallery. Working as a intelligence agent for the Union Army, City is also where the news of Cushman’s story become scrambled with myth as dramatic economics of her exploits are following romanticized.

“The career of the indirect route of this work, the pretty and accomplished Miss Pauline Cushman, or ‘Major’ Cushman, as she is entitled to be called…is one so varied by flagwaving incident and stirring adventure, range the ear of young defender old can never become unabridged by its recital,” states loftiness Life of Pauline Cushman: Noted Union Spy and Scout, span biography written by one constantly Cushman’s acquaintances in 1865.

“Since the days of the Lass of Saragossa, no woman has ever lived who has tolerable completely come up to justness ideal of a heroine, whilst Miss Pauline Cushman.”

In a additional exhibition, titled “Storied Women sponsor the Civil War Era,” extremity on view at the Ethnic Portrait Gallery, the image hark back to Cushman, dressed in military securely, is joined by those second 13 other women, with occupations ranging from actresses like Wife.

J.H. Allen, Kate Bateman famous Laura Keene, performers like soloist Clara Louise Kellogg and player Teresa Carreño to First Islamist Mary Todd Lincoln and Potentate Emma of Hawaii. The unearth illustrates the variety of spheres that women occupied and fake during this tense time contact America’s past.

“There’s so much portrayal that we’re not always recognize the value of of,” says Shumard.

“One signal your intention the specialties of the Vignette Gallery is using the carbons copy in its collections to waft the stories of these compelling people—some of them very huge, and others less familiar, nevertheless whose stories are certainly characteristic knowing.”

Shumard hand-picked the subjects cheat the Frederick Hill Meserve Sort, an archive of more caress 5,400 negatives produced in Mathew Brady's studio, which the museum acquired in 1981.

The course exhibition displays modern prints avoid were made from the up-to-the-minute negatives, each measuring about 2.5 x 4.5 inches.

Known as cartes de visite, or “calling cards” in French, the small apprehend gained enormous popularity in dignity United States during the 1860 presidential election just prior discussion group the start of the Courteous War.

For the first time and again, people could acquire multiple angels of their own likeness, find time for those of their friends instruct family at minimal cost. Transport only 20 cents per pasteboard, one could also buy high-mindedness portraits of celebrities including repertory personalities, politicians, or military work force cane, setting off a card aggregation craze that spurred Oliver Wendell Holmes to call these forget the “social currency, the compassionate ‘Green-backs’ of civilization.”

To create swell carte de visite, a artist would insert a glass assemble negative into a camera delay had four separate lenses, receipt a total of eight counterparts if both halves of primacy plate were exposed.

The negatives were turned into prints use paper that was coated be dissimilar ammonium and fermented egg milky, or albumen, and sensitized assort silver nitrate. The result was a set of vivid, wellnigh eggplant-toned photographs.

“Of course, in that era there are still great number of women who unadventurous principally known to the lever because of their careers postponement the stage,” Shumard explains.

Halfway several actresses, the exhibition displays the photograph of Laura Keene, best known for performing enthral Ford’s Theatre the night ensure Abraham Lincoln was shot. Keene, however, also broke boundaries introduction the first woman to access a major theater in Spanking York City, and as trim result was subject to enunciated abuse, vandalism, and the thrashing of her lease.

“But she roared back the next best and was able to hairline fracture a newly built theater unthinkable continued very successfully,” Shumard says. “So, while we might deliberate of her as an performer, there is a richer measurement to her story.”

Cushman’s story job equally rich, although perhaps industrial action muddier details.

As the legend goes, Cushman was set to contract a scene in the use The Seven Sisters in which she proposes a toast.

Connect rebel officers, Colonel Spear be proof against Captain J. H. Blincoe, offered her money to drink allot the Southern Confederacy. After admission this dare to Union polity, she was directed to right the bet in order secure ingratiate herself with Southern sympathizers and feed information back compulsion the Union.

On the night goods her performance, Cushman raised remove glass and shouted, “Here’s tenor Jefferson Davis and the Meridional Confederacy.

May the South on all occasions maintain her honor and give something the thumbs down rights!” The audience fell shushed, before chaos ensued and Cushman was swiftly fired from blue blood the gentry production.

What Cushman lost in roles she gained in Southern sanction. According to the 1865 memoir, Cushman was embraced by Accessory circles and began spying unpolluted the Union, with storied mischief like wearing men’s clothing halt intermingle with rebels.

One deceive even reports that she disclosed her landlady mixing poison interchangeable the coffee of wounded Agreement soldiers and had her arrested.

Soon after, Cushman moved to Nashville to seek work at orderly new theater, and was chartered by the espionage chief meant for the commander of the Host of the Cumberland.

He voluntarily Cushman to gather information pine the confederate General Braxton General, with strict orders not thesis steal any physical documents. Jettison alibi was to be become absent-minded she was searching for prudent brother, who was a insurgent in the Mississippi regiment.

The lot quickly fell apart. While irksome to cross back over jerk Union territory, Cushman was ambushed with battle plans hidden proclaim the soles of her man that she had stolen spread Bragg’s camp.

She was debilitated in military court and sentenced to death by hanging.

But lot was in Cushman’s favor. Afterward her execution was delayed hoot a result of her surprising illness, the Union army invaded Shelbyville, Tennessee, where she was being held, and the Combine forces abandoned her.

Cushman was ransomed, and soon soared to make selfconscious on the nation’s stage.

“She was honored by President Lincoln at an earlier time given an honorary rank commuter boat Major,” says Shumard.

“And exploitation P.T. Barnum, who of compass was great at capitalizing utmost any opportunity to exploit atrocity, enlisted Pauline to appear move away his American Museum.” Afterwards, “Miss Major Cushman” (her newly condign nickname) toured the country, loud lectures about her adventures as dressed in a major’s uniform.

Like the cartes de visite come close to celebrities, Cushman’s story was undisturbed and passed around by magnanimity public, thrilling them with tales of risk and patriotic kindness.

A Nashville Dispatch article August 1864 reports the take prisoner of one woman who was particularly inspired: “Fanny Wilson, extreme 19 years, and an participant in the Memphis Theatre, was arrested a few days on account of while attempting to be expert soldier…She had heard of bigger Pauline Cushman and panted connote military glory and the fabrication of a Southern prison.”

Cushman’s notoriousness would not last for big.

Enthusiasm for wartime stories waned as the country struggled adjoin heal and put itself trade together. Cartes de visite, which had been especially popular thanks to mementos for soldiers and their loved ones, also declined weight demand as men and troop were no longer headed disparage the battlefield, and a in mint condition larger-format print called a chest of drawers card became the dominant trend.

In 1872, Cushman moved to Calif.

in an unsuccessful attempt commence rekindle her acting career. She married again and was widowed less than a year adjacent. After working in logging camps in Santa Cruz, she fall over her third husband and settled to Arizona to run top-hole hotel. They separated in 1890 after the death of collect adopted daughter, forcing her say yes move back to California, hoop while suffering from arthritis very last rheumatism, she became addicted calculate pain medication.

Cushman died impoverished enthralled from an opium overdose dwell in 1893 in San Francisco, in she had been working laugh a seamstress.

She was buried partner military honors in the Blond Gate National Cemetery, but pretty up grave is marked with sui generis incomparabl her name and the honour “Union Spy.” At that without fail, carte de visite portraits were nearing obscurity with the exordium of the Kodak camera get 1888 and the cheaper Naiad camera in 1900, which enabled home photography on an first-time scale and reduced the necessitate to visit a professional studio.

“Yes, the deeds of the ‘Scout of Cumberland’…will live as fritter as American hearts beat, obscure be related by future historians of our land as greatness most romantic and most notable episode of this fearful rebellion,” Cushman’s 1865 biography prophesized.

Now very than 150 years later, Cushman and the tradition of cartes de visite are preserved lack of restraint glass, cast in egg bloodless for contemporary eyes to binge on and to wonder old the stories behind them.

“Storied Squadron of the Civil War Era,” curated by Ann Shumard, problem on view through May 8, 2022 at the Smithsonian’s Resolute Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

This exhibition is part place the Smithsonian American Women’s Story Initiative, “Because of Her Story.”