More on Stringfellow, and his exit from Washington.

[RJNorton]

Fascinating, John! I tried to find a story to add to yours and I found this in The Dahlgren Affair by Duane Schultz. I don't know its veracity. It talks about Stringfellow and the George Washington's Birthday Ball.

Even a Confederate soldier attended, dressed as a woman. Benjamin Franklin Stringfellow was a twenty-one-year-old scout for Wade Hampton's cavalry. When the war began, Frank Stringfellow had been teaching Latin and Greek at a school for young ladies in Mississippi. He returned to his native Virginia to join the army but was turned down four times because he weighed only ninety-four pounds and with his long, blond curly hair looked like a "beardless youth with a waist like a girl's."

When he finally talked his way into service he became a scout for Jeb Stuart, and then for Hampton. He spent much time behind Union lines in Alexandria, Virginia, spying and gathering intelligence while courting his future wife, Miss Emma Green.

Shortly before the George Washington's Birthday Ball, Stringfellow and others of Hampton's scouts captured a Union captain who was carrying a pass through federal lines for a woman who lived near Culpeper Court House, permitting her to attend the dance as his guest. Frank knew the girl and her family, and he asked them to loan him a ball gown and "other feminine fripperies" to disguise himself as Miss Sally Marsten.

Sally and her mother drilled Stringfellow in etiquette and feminine behavior and outfitted him for the dance. Under the hoop skirts he wore trousers, rolled up, so he could carry a pair of derringer pistols. When the ladies were finished, Sally burst out laughing. "Why, Frank!" she said. "You're positively beautiful."

At the Union checkpoint, a lieutenant examined Stringfellow and his pass with skepticism but decided to let him through. The new Miss Sally Marsten did not have to wait long for dancing partners. And how those Union officers loved to talk. Sally seemed so interested in their activities and asked so many charming and naive questions.

Before long, Stringfellow had learned that Fourth Corps was being moved from the West to Virginia and that the Army of the Potomac would soon have a new commander, one U. S. Grant. A talkative major let that slip two weeks before the official announcement was made.

Suddenly Miss Sally was confronted by the lieutenant from the outpost. Still suspicious, he had inquired about her escort and discovered that no one had seen him for days. Quietly, the guard took Stringfellow’s arm and compelled the impostor to accompany him to the provost marshal’s office.

They had not gone far when Stringfellow pulled out his derringers and took the lieutenant prisoner. He forced the Yankee to drive Miss Sally's horse and buggy back through federal lines. "My God," the man muttered, "how did this ever happen to me?"