Nancy Hart Douglas (1846-1913)

According to legend, she did
not smile because of the
attire she had to wear
for this picture.

DOSSIER:
Nancy Hart, daughter of Stephen and Mary Hart, was born in 1846 in Raleigh, NC. When an infant, her family moved to West Virginia where she lived until the outbreak of the Civil War.

During the early years of her life on her family's farm, she became an expert with rifles, pistols and riding horses. She could reportedly operate a gun or handle a horse as well as a man. 

CODE NAMES:

None Known

She eventually moved in with her sister and brother-in-law, Mary and William Clay Price. William Clay Price was not a soldier, but would go and do things for the Confederate army in the evenings. One day the Union soldiers came to question him. They took him away and killed him down the road from his family. This fueled Nancy's rage and hatred toward the Union cause.

In early 1861, after a contingent of Union troops passed through her town, Hart's sympathy for the Confederacy prompted her to leave home and join the Moccasin Rangers, led by the infamous Perry Conley. She became a valuable asset to the Rangers, serving both as a spy and a guide to the local region. 

She became so famous and such an enigma for Union forces in West Virginia that a reward was offered for information leading to her capture in 1862. Shortly thereafter, she and a female friend were captured by Union troops led by Lt. Col. Starr and taken prisoner in Summersville, WV. Here, she was photographed unsmiling and unemotional, by an itinerant photographer. According to legend, she did not smile because of the attire she had to wear for the picture. Civil War telegrapher Marion H. Kerner, an officer who befriended Hart at the encampment, later made her story famous in the magazine, Leslie's Weekly.

That same night, Hart escaped from the Union camp on Starr's horse and joined a regiment of about 200 Confederate soldiers led by Major R. Augustus Bailey (the Moccasin Rangers had been disbanded since the death of Perry Conley). A week later, the Confederate troops overran Summersville, burning many of the public buildings and taking Lt. Col. Starr prisoner. Marion Kerner was also captured, but due to the kind treatment he had given Hart during her own imprisonment, she convinced the Confederate officers to release him. However, he was promptly recaptured after attempting to relay a telegram to Union forces. He was released at the wars end.

Francis Miller's 1911 Photographic History of the Civil War repeats the claim Hart was captured by Lt. Col. Starr of the 9th West Virginia; a photograph was taken of Hart; she killed a guard with his own gun and a week later led a Confederate unit which captured Starr and the 9th West Virginia July 25, 1862. Official records of the Civil War mention the capture of Companies "A" and "F" of the 9th West Virginia Infantry at Summerville, WV, 25 Jul 1862, but have no mention of an arrest/escape of a Nancy Hart in 1862. Likewise the Official West Virginia Adjutant General Report on the 9th W.V. does not show any casualties for July 18–25, 1862.

After the war, Hart married the former Ranger Joshua Douglas, and lived in Spring Creek and Richwood, WV during the remainder of their lives. They had two sons. Nancy Hart Douglas died in 1902 in Greenbrier County, WV and is buried on Mannings Knob near Richwood.