Pauline Cushman was born in New Orleans in 1833. At eighteen Cushman went to New York where
she began an acting career. She toured the United States in a variety
of different plays.
On the outbreak of the American Civil War
Cushman was asked to become a Union Army
spy. In 1863 she toured Tennessee and after visiting the camp of General
Braxton Bragg of the Confederate
Army, she managed to discover his battle plans.
Cushman was captured and sentenced to death. While waiting to be executed
in Shelbyville, the Union Army captured
the town and freed Cushman. Despite her narrow escape, Cushman agreed
to carry out further spying missions behind the Confederate lines.
She provided considerable information for General William
Rosecrans and President Abraham Lincoln
awarded her with an honorary major's commission.
After the war Cushman toured the country dressed in uniform lecturing
on her spying exploits. A friend, Ferdinand
Sarmiento, wrote her biography,
The
Life of Pauline Cushman
(1865).
Cushman suffered from arthritis and rheumatism in her final years.
Racked with pain, Pauline Cushman committed
suicide by taking an overdose of morphine in San
Francisco on 7th December, 1893.