Mary Jane Green

{{Infobox spy

|name = Mary Jane Green

|image =

|caption =

|birth_name =

|birth_date = 1839 or 1846

|birth_place = Sutton, Braxton County
(now West Virginia)

|death_date = unknown

|buried =

|nationality = {{Flagicon|United States|1863|size=23px}} United States of America

Confederate (American Civil War)

|education = Illiterate

|occupation = Spy, Mail Carrier

|known_for = Bushwhacking in Braxton County

|criminal_penalty = Imprisonment, on seven occasions.

|spouse = {{marriage|William Watson|September 29, 1864}}

|allegiance = {{flag|Confederate States of America|1863}}

|criminal_charge = Spying, Bushwhacking, Bad Temperhttps://civilwartalk.com/attachments/63-20-7c-20american-20civil-20war-20forums-txt-http-3a-2f-2fbooks-google-com-2fbooks-3fid-3dca-png.272751/ {{Bare URL image|date=March 2022}}}}

Mary Jane Green was a Confederate spy and bushwhacker.

Arrested multiple times for acts like smuggling intelligence and sabotaging telegraph wires, she was infamously rebellious, once attacking a guard who had untied her with a brick. Green fervently supported the Confederacy. Records last place her being transferred between prisons during the Civil War.

Early life and education

File:Mary Jane Green Wedding Record.jpeg

Not much is known about Mary Jane Green's early life. She claims to have been born in Sutton, Braxton County (currently known as West Virginia). Green's level of education was unknown, but she was illiterate.{{cite book |last1=Sutherland |first1=Daniel E |title=A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War |date=2009 |publisher=NC: University of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-1-4696-0558-6 |pages=55–118 |jstor=10.5149/9780807888674_sutherland |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9780807888674_sutherland}} Considering her lack of education she probably came from a poor family. According to public records, she was likely either born around 1839 or 1846, as there was a Mary Jane Green living in Sutton who was 11 at the time of the 1850 census.{{cite web |title=Braxton County, WV 1850 Federal Census Index |url=http://www.us-census.org/image-index/wv/braxton/1850/g-h.htm |website=The USGenWeb Census Project |access-date=12 December 2020}} Records indicate that she may have also been the Mary Jane Green who married William Watson during the war, in Jefferson, West Virginia in 1864, at age 18, which puts her age closer to surviving descriptions of her.{{cite web |title=Marriage Record Detail...1864 Mary Jane Green & William Watson |url=http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=10720170&Type=Marriage |website=West Virginia Department of Arts, Agriculture, and History |access-date=12 December 2020}} She had three brothers, who also became guerillas.{{cite web |last1=Major and Provost Marshal General Darr |first1=Jos. Jr. |title=Telegram from the office of Provost Marshal General |url=https://civilwartalk.com/attachments/63-20-7c-20american-20civil-20war-20forums-txt-http-3a-2f-2fbooks-google-com-2fbooks-3fid-3dca-png.272751/ |website=Civil War Talk |access-date=12 December 2020}}

Civil War

At the time of her first arrest in August 1861 for smuggling confederate intelligence, Green was described as a teenager.{{cite book |last1=Lesser |first1=W. Hunter |title=Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided |date=2005 |publisher=Sourcebooks |isbn=9781402250101 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4LzcCgAAQBAJ}} She was incarcerated in Wheeling, Virginia until that December, when she managed to offend General Rosencrans so greatly that he had her sent to her home county in hopes that the Union troops there would shoot her. She was required to swear an oath to the U.S. in order to be released, which she did with no sincerity.{{cite book |last1=Sutherland |first1=Daniel E |title=A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War |date=2009 |publisher=NC: University of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-1-4696-0558-6 |page=90|jstor=10.5149/9780807888674_sutherland |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9780807888674_sutherland}} Upon her release she was arrested again in May 1862, this time for cutting telegraph wires near Weston, Virginia in men's clothes. That April she was released on parole and then re-incarcerated for a bad attitude.{{cite web |last1=Major and Provost Marshal General Darr |first1=Jos. Jr. |title=Telegram from the office of Provost Marshal General |url=https://civilwartalk.com/attachments/63-20-7c-20american-20civil-20war-20forums-txt-http-3a-2f-2fbooks-google-com-2fbooks-3fid-3dca-png.272751/ |website=Civil War Talk |access-date=12 December 2020}} She was reportedly arrested seven separate times.

Green was steadfastly loyal to the Confederacy and raged and spat vitriol at every Union soldier she encountered, even while arrested. At one point in Antheneum, she had to be tied down, and when a guard took pity and untied her after she calmed, Green attacked him with a brick.{{cite book |last1=Lesser |first1=W. Hunter |title=Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided |date=2005 |publisher=Sourcebooks |isbn=9781402250101 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4LzcCgAAQBAJ}}

The last known records of her are during the Civil War, when she was transferred from prison in Atheneum to the official Union and Confederate exchange point in City Point, Virginia.{{cite book |last1=Marken |first1=Karissa A |title=They Cannot Catch Guerrillas in the Mountains Any More Than a Cow Can Catch Fleas": Guerrilla Warfare in Western Virginia |date=April 2014 |publisher=Liberty University |pages=75–76 |url=https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1325&context=masters}}

Mary Jane Green

Early life and education

Civil War

See also

References

Further reading