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Ginnie and Lottie Moon
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Ginnie and Lottie Moon Confederate Sister Spies
In her teens, Lottie was courted by a young man from Indiana, a clean-shaven Ambrose Burnside. Legend has it that she jilted him at the alter. Ironically, as we all know, he was to appear later in the life of the Moon sisters. Eventually Lottie married Jim Clark who later became a judge. Ginnie moved in with her sister and brother-in-law after a failed attempt at college life. With now-Judge Jim Clark being pro-Southern, and the Moon girls naturally Southern sympathizers, it was only fitting that Lottie and Ginnie began their life as spies, albeit operating in different directions and employing different methods. Lottie's first 'assignment' was to deliver a message to General Kirby Smith. Dressing as an old woman, she headed for Lexington, Kentucky where she found Southerner Col Thomas Scott who gave the papers to General Kirby. An accomplished actress, she bluffed her way back to Oxford by train. As she carried more messages and information for the Confederacy, the interest of the Canadian Confederate sympathizers was piqued. They invited her to Toronto. Her coup de grace came when, using forged documents supposed making her a British subject, Lottie made her way to Washington and talked Union officials into giving her a pass to Virginia. After delivering her messages, she then headed home. All this time Ginnie was in Memphis staying with their mother who had moved there after Dr. Moon's death. However, instead of staying in mourning, Ginnie and her mother wrapped bandages and nursed the wounded soldiers as the Yankees got closer to Memphis - and the cotton. Ginnie started making trips, with information and supplies often passing through enemy lines by pretending to meet a lover. Once, while in Jackson, Mississippi, she learned that urgent information had to be sent to the Knights of the Golden Circle in Ohio. She volunteered to make the trip provided she could take her mother. She reasoned they would not be suspect because they had relatives in Ohio. Ginnie and her mother made the journey to Ohio
and gathered the necessary papers and supplies to return to the South. However,
unbeknownst to them, they were under suspicion by Union agents as they prepared to return to Memphis by boat from Cincinnati. As the boat was about to depart, a Yankee Captain entered their cabin with orders to search them. Ginnie rebelled, pulled out the small Colt revolver that she was known to carry, and screamed at the officer that she was a friend of General Burnside. The officer backed down and left her alone long enough for her to literally swallow the most
important of the dispatches she carried. During
the meeting, Lottie showed up in disguise and tried unsuccessfully to convince her former beau - General Burnside - to release them.
Then fate stepped in when Burnside saw through her disguise and promptly added Lottie to the group under arrest. However, no action was ever taken against the Moon ladies even though they had
traveled to all 4 corners for the Confederacy. The most serious charges were dropped,
but Ginnie was required to report to the Yankees on a daily basis. They eventually
tired of this and she was finally ordered out of the Union area. |