Alias Dragonfly Read online

  “Can’t be too well armed.” He said.

  Mr. Oliver Washington was standing by the cabin door. He looked uneasy, and never smiled.

  Jake Whitestone settled next to me on the sofa.

  “Don’t worry about anything. I’ll take care of you, Madeline.” He said, groggily. Before I could reply, or argue, he was fast asleep.

  “I’ll take care of myself,” I whispered, brushing back a wisp of a black curl that had fallen over his brow.

  I guess I can tell you that the sun was setting over a bluebell-studded meadow. Through the window, I saw the guards walking back and forth.

  It would be really quiet, peaceful, even, if Mike would stop humming.

  Will she slip past them, glowing like fox fire through the trees on her way to find me, to do battle with me? It is not over between us, that I know.

  I fear it will be a long war, Miss Bradford, Mr. Webster told me once. Should you survive, you will have many more missions. You must continue to muster up all that you are, and all that you know to keep fighting this righteous battle.

  I will keep fighting. Whatever happens next, I am ready.

  (Continue reading for more information)

  A Note from Jane Singer

  to Readers

  Her timing was perfect. She gazed at me from a nineteenth- century, hand-tinted ambrotype—cool eyed, aloof and solemn, with a tiny mark on her forehead in the shape of a comet or a falling star—a teenage girl lost in time. She’d been resting for who knows how long in a dusty case in the back of a used bookshop. I like to think she was waiting for me.

  I’m a tale spinner—a novelist and a researcher. I’m hooked on all things Civil War, and have been ever since I was a little kid prowling around battlefields, never wanting to leave, and somehow knowing that the war that began 150 years ago would always be important to me.

  I’m especially interested in the spies who worked undercover, different kinds of soldiers who provided intelligence and helped the effort for both the Union and Confederate sides. So when I found the photo, I was in the middle of outlining a book about a fifteen-year-old spy I called Madeline Eve Bradford, a lonely, homebound misfit with an amazing memory. Maddie landed smack in the middle of Civil War DC and found her true calling as a Union agent working for Detective Allan Pinkerton.

  Even better, I learned that Pinkerton was the first in US history to hire women, not just as clerks, but as detectives. He used his teenage son as a dispatch carrier and had several women of unknown ages working for him when he started his detective agency in Chicago, even before he became the top spy in DC, so I took the liberty of having him hire Maddie. And I gave her a voice.

  Writing in the first person is my favorite way to tell a story. As an actor, when I play a role, I think a lot about the characters. Not just what they look like, but how they sound, the way they move, what gives them the shivers, how they love, or shine, and what choices they make.

  While Maddie, Jake, Nellie, Mike, Aunt Salome, Isaac and Summoner Bradford—some of the other people you’ve met in Alias Dragonfly—are fictional characters, they are based on stories of some of the spies Pinkerton used. But in Alias Dragonfly, they do not change the course of history. Nope. Don’t want to do that. Instead my bunch moves through real events in real time, in a very real world; interacting with people who actually existed during the Civil War.

  I’ll list the real players here so if you want to know more about them, have a look at the list of books I recommend.

  Who Was Really Who

  (Researching the lives of spies can be really challenging. They obscured their identities, created blinds, appeared and disappeared like wisps of smoke.)

  Allan Pinkerton: Chicago detective, and the head of General George McClellan’s secret service. (You can read all about “Little Mac.”)

  Timothy Webster: Maddie’s trainer, Detective Pinkerton’s top spy. His story is big, scary, and ultimately very sad. You’ll learn more about Timothy in the next book in the series, Alias Sparrow Hawk.

  Kate Warn: The head of Pinkerton’s female detectives. I’ve done a whole lot of work on the mystery of Kate. Check out my website for more details of how I uncovered her true identity.

  “Hattie Lawton,” was probably an alias. I think she was based on a very fearless young spy in Pinkerton’s autobiographical account of his time in the war.

  Mrs. Smith and Agnes Crawford: I found these women in an 1860 DC census living with Kate Warn. A biography of Pinkerton said Kate ran a training center for spies at the beginning of the war.

  Rose Greenhow, and “Little Rose.” Mama Rose was a society matron in DC. She was able to worm secrets out of the politicians and Union officers she hung around with, and pass intelligence straight through enemy lines to the Confederates. She was a big deal. “Little Rose” was, well, a passionate kid who hated Yankees for what they did to her mom. Can you blame her?

  Rose writes that she had a female Pinkerton detective in her house before she was taken to the Old Capitol Prison. So, I got Maddie inside. Her saga continues. Like the young men and women working behind the lines everywhere, who are tested by war and loss, she will be forever altered, as will I.

  —Jane Singer

  Alias Dragonfly

  Discussion Guide

  1. Based on what you have learned about Maddie Bradford and the time she lived in, what opportunities would an isolated, rural, nineteenth-century girl like her have? Would she have been able to further her schooling, have a life apart from her parents and her town, go to college and escape the fate of most women at that time? What freedoms have you as young men and women enjoyed that Maddie would be amazed to hear about?

  2. Discuss how Maddie’s accident made her feel like an outcast and a misfit, but gave her the remarkable abilities she later uses as a spy. Have you ever met a person like Maddie, someone who is so different from you that they make you feel uncomfortable?

  3.Does Maddie seem like a typical teen to you? Do you relate to her insecurities, her impulsiveness, and her bravery?

  4. How did the war alter Maddie’s future?

  5. If you lived during the Civil War, what side would you have been on? Would it depend on what part of the country you grew up in, or what your parent’s believed, or how you felt about slavery? Do you know people living today for whom the Civil War still stirs strong emotions? If so, why?

  6. What made Maddie such a great spy? How did she convince Timothy Webster that she was right for the job? And why did Detective Allan Pinkerton allow her to work for him? Why do you think Maddie’s time in Aunt Salome’s boardinghouse convinced her to disguise herself as a boy and go to her father’s camp? Did other women of the time actually become soldiers and fight alongside men? What did Rose Greeenhow represent to Maddie and others who knew of her extremist sensibilities? Did you have sympathy for Rose and her daughter? How was Rose different from the fanatics we read about today? Or do you think Rose was a patriot who believed in the Confederate cause?

  7. What did Maddie see in Jake Whitestone that made her sympathetic to him? Did reporters like Jake play a large role in the Civil War? The push-pull of their relationship was confusing to Maddie. Why?

  8. What were Maddie’s views about slavery? And what does Nellie represent? Were there other African-American men like Isaac risking their lives to help slaves achieve freedom?

  9. Maddie says she is a different kind of soldier in the war. Do you think a girl like Maddie would ever be able to resume her old life again if she survives the war? Would an organization like the CIA employ a girl like Maddie to work in the intelligence community today? How do you think the young men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have been hardened and changed by their war experiences? Because then as now, spies are offered no protections under the laws of war, how would you feel if you were fighting for your country out of uniform? Would you be able to survive a capture? How hard would it be not to betray your superiors, your friends, and your country?

  10
. If you could tell Maddie about what happened after the Civil War, how do you think she would feel about the Reconstruction era, African-Americans and women gaining the right to vote, the harsh Jim Crow laws that were enacted, the Ku Klux Clan, the hard-won struggle for civil rights, and finally the election of a bi-racial president?

  11. Do you think you have a more hopeful view of the world than Maddie did, or are you pessimistic about your future? She says, “Don’t love a spy.” Why? Could you love someone who is not what they seem? Do you know anyone who has a secret life? Did Maddie’s hunger to know her deceased sister Nancy and invent a life for her have anything to do with the way Maddie reacts to the girl who the Confederates have sent to kill her?

  Reading List

  The Civil War is such a popular subject. Thousands of books, and counting, have been written about it, so picking some can be overwhelming. My own home library is crammed with just about every aspect of the war you can imagine, and I haven’t even scratched the surface. So where to start? Here are some books that will give you the basics and then some. It’s how I started. Most are in libraries and some are ebooks now. How good is that?

  The Basics

  Davis, Kenneth C. Don’t Know Much About the Civil War. Perennial: An Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers: 2004.

  Gaffney, Dennis and Gaffney, Peter. The Civil War. Hyperion: New York: 2011.

  Ward, Geoffrey C. The Civil War: An Illustrated History. Based on a documentary film script by Geoffrey C. Ward, Ric Burns, and Ken Burns. Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1889. (A beautiful big book. If you want to see it come to life, watch Ken Burns’ film series, “The Civil War.”)

  About Spies

  Winkler, H. Donald. Stealing Secrets: How a Few Daring Women Deceived Generals, Impacted Battles, and Altered The Course of the Civil War. Cumberland House, 2010.

  Markle, Donald E. Spies and Spymasters of the Civil War.

  Hippocrene Books, New York: 2000.

  Mackay, James. Allan Pinkerton: The Eye Who Never Slept. Mainstream Publishing: Edinburg and London: 1996.

  Van Doren Stern, Philip. Secret Missions of the Civil War. Bonanza Books: New York: 1959.

  Blackman, Ann. Wild Rose: Rose O’Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy. Random House Publishing Group. New York: 2005.

  Varon, Elizabeth R. Southern Lady, Yankee Spy. Oxford University Press, 2003.

  Kline, Michael J. The Baltimore Plot: The First Conspiracy to Assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Westholme Publishing, 2008.

  Blanton, DeAnne and Cook, Lauren M. They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War. Louisiana State University Press: 2002.

  Pinkerton, Allan. The Spy of the Rebellion. G.W. Carleton & Company: New York, 1883. (A word of warning: Pinkerton wrote this book long after the war ended. He loved a good story and because many of his papers were destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1971, the rest are in the Library of Congress, you should take him with a grain of salt.)

  Acknowledgements

  To my wonderful family, for their love, their support, for putting up with my endless hours spent on “that old war.” Chuck Eckstein, Jessica Masser, Lisa, Miles and Raleigh Singer, Hariet Eckstein, Missy and David Burgess, and Judy Oppenheimer.

  My cherished friends: Larry Masser, Cindy Borden, Mike Nelson and Susan Chieco, Susanne and Marty Malles, Simone Study and Clay Holmes, Heth, Jed and Rhoda Weinstein, Erik Seastrand, Joanna Rubiner, Becky Bonar, Ken Deifik, Candace Michaels, Sharon Vincuilla and all the angels of Lend A Paw and New Leash On Life, and Dr. Sandra Fallon.

  And my fellow “history detectives,” John Stewart, David W. Gaddy, Laurie Verge, John Stanton, Joan Chaconas, and Professor Robert S. Davis.

  To my agent Robert Astle, Deborah Smith and Debra Dixon of Bell Bridge Books, Dee Dee De Bartlo, Gretchen Crary, Corinne Ray of February Partners, and Joel B. Michaels. Thanks and more to all of you.

  And of course to Caspy, our brave and whimsical social therapy dog, and Angus, the sweetest four-legged creature I’ve ever known.

  Table of Contents

  Alias Dragonfly

  Dedication

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  A Note from Jane Singer to Readers

  Alias Dragonfly Discussion Guide

  Reading List

  Acknowledgements