Pauline Cushman (1833-1897)

DOSSIER:
Harriet Wood, daughter of a Spanish merchant (son of one of Napoleon Bonaparte's soldiers) and Frenchwoman, was born on 10 Jun 1833 in New Orleans, Louisiana. She died on 2 Dec 1893 in San Francisco, CA.

She was raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan with her seven brothers. In 1851 she returned to Louisiana to join the performance group New Orleans Varieties. Later she would travel to New York where she would take the stage as Pauline Cushman.

ALSO KNOWN AS:
Maj. Pauline Cushman
Pauline Fryer

After a Northern perfomance, Pauline was paid by two local pro-Confederate men to toast Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The theatre fired her, but she had other ideas. She had decided to ingratiate herself with the rebels by making the toast, while offering her services to the Union as a spy. 

By fraternizing with rebel military commanders, she managed to conceal battle plans and drawings in her shoes, but was caught and brought before Confederate general Braxton Bragg, tried by a military court, and sentenced to death. It is said that she was saved three days before her hanging by the invasion of the area by Union troops. Some reports state that she returned to the South in her role as a spy dressed in male uniform for references. She was awarded the rank of Brevet Major by General James A. Garfield and commended by President Abraham Lincoln for her service to the Federal cause, and became known as "Miss Major" Fat Cushman. By the end of the war in 1865 she was touring the country giving lectures on her exploits as a spy.
Pauline became popular enough to be featured by P.T. Barnum, which may explain why details of her story might have become exaggerated. But because her undercover activities on behalf of the government were secret, it also helps to explain the lack of corroborative information about her life at this time. However, in 1865 a friend, Ferdinand Sarmiento, wrote her biography, The Life of Pauline Cushman: The celebrated Union spy and scout. Comprising her early history, her entry into the secret service, notes and memoranda.

She lost the children from her first marriage to sickness by 1868. She married again in 1872 in San Francisco, but was widowed within a year. Sources state that in 1879 she met Jere Fryer and moved to Casa Grande, Arizona Territory, where they married and operated a hotel and livery stable. An adopted daughter died, and they separated in 1890. By 1892 she was living in poverty in El Paso, Texas. She had applied for back pension based on her first husband's military service, which was granted in June 1895. Her last few years were spent in a boarding house in San Francisco, working as a seamstress and charwoman. Disabled from the effects of rheumatism and arthritis, she developed an addiction to pain medication, and on the night of 1 Dec 1897 she took an overdose of morphine, and was found the next morning by her landlady.

She had died as Pauline Fryer at the age of sixty. The time of her Civil War fame was recalled at her funeral, which was arranged by members of the Grand Army of the Republic. "Major" Cushman's remains now rest in Officer's Circle at the Presidio's National Cemetery in San Francisco. Her simple gravestone recognizes her contribution to the Union's victory. It is marked, "Pauline C. Fryer, Union Spy."