Confederate Spy! Rebel Hart Civil War Heroine!

Mary

Stephen

Nancy Hart is a true story and there is a plaque about the civil war girl on Summersville Courthouse lawn, Summersville WV. Nancy Hart has become a legend in the history of the Civil War and to this day is idealized as a kind of Folk Hero......

This page is dedicated to the memory and spirit of Nancy Hart of Roane Co., West Virginia Rebel of the Hart clan following her heart and beliefs for the Confederacy.

This page is not sponsored by, or associated with any organization, but on behalf of descendants of Nancy Hart and myself. We also dedicate this page to the many people, past and present, who have worked hard to preserve and perpetuate Nancy Hart memory.

What is known is she was born abt. 1846 and her father was born in Raleigh, North Carolina and this info is from various historical societies and the Hart family resided in Boone County, Virginia 1850, this is on the 1850 U. S. Census. It must be remembered that Boone County was a part of Virginia before 1863 and after the Civil War it was a county of West Virginia..... Stephen and Mary was the only Hart family resided in the mountain districts of Roane County Virginia in 1860's and the names are on the 1870's and 1880's Roane census. Here they settled near the mouth of Triplett Run Creek which flows into the West Fork Little Kanawha River, which rises in southern Calhoun County and flows northwestwardly along the boundary of Roane County.

Stephen and Mary Hart were Christians and were trying to bring their family up right; Stephen always had family worship, no matter how busy he was. They were very firm in their family training, yet most loving and kind. They farmed and raised thirteen children to start a long line of Hart descendents.

In the Civil War, two of their sons would fight for the North and one daughter (Nancy) the South "Rebel of the Family". Despite some happy memories of Nancy the older siblings Jane, Martha, James, Charity, William, Kelly feels that their younger sister Nancy may have missed out on the sense of stability or belonging that she craved and so desperately needed as a child.

Nine years old and she got that excited look in her eyes when she carrying a musket and started to learn how to ride horseback, when she got older she squeezed in the time to learn to shoot, stalk, track, hunt, fish and look after herself. Nancy thought she may have been missing out on something cool when she did her un-enjoyable chores, help cook, clean,laundry,and look after her six younger siblings, Floyd, Catharine, Dolliver, Rebecca, Salina and John. At the beginning of her adolescence fourteen, Nancy impressions of her father and mother were that they were Christians and were trying to bring her up as a Christian and that she must obey them and girls need to learn how to cook, clean, laundry, iron, etc.

So Nancy as a teenage rebellion against authority, against her parents' pressure, religious, political beliefs and she didn't want to be like other young women who married and lived on farms. She felt that a girl's abandonment one's name upon marriage was clearly her loss of individuality and she wasn't going to take a husband and lose her individuality and anyway she wasn't sure a long-term relationship was for her. One day in 1861 she join a band of rebel raiders known as the Moccasin Rangers, they were pro-southern guerrillas in central West Virginia until 1862. The Daughter of Stephen and Mary Hart was prepared to die for her southern beliefs and even some Yankee old-timers said Nancy Hart was "Born to Rebel" with her rebel yell "Wahoo" and she was always saying to herself, Whoop! Hurrah! Yay for the president of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis..... Nancy Hart served as a Confederate scout, guide and spy, carrying messages between the West Virginia Confederate armed forces, collected intelligence, conducted sabotage and gathering contraband behind Federal lines for the southern guerrillas and Confederates Infantry Regiments and following her heart and beliefs for the Confederacy cause.

She volunteered to be a spy for General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson after learning the basics of nursing and sanitation from Ann Reeves Jarvis. She impersonates a nurse and Rebel Hart wore clothes that did not indicate any thing more than that she was a nurse. The information retrieved by Nancy spying on Union regiments was accurate and help General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson to offset their numerical disadvantages that the Confederacy faced that spring. The activities of Nancy Hart helped the Confederate General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson in his famous Valley campaign. He was one of the greatest fighting generals in the Confederacy, born in Clarksburg, Virginia on January 21, 1824. Stonewall Jackson was raised of Scotch-Irish ancestry just like Nancy. The Valley Campaign was a spring 1862 campaign through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia during the Civil War, the finest example of military strategy and speed of deployment from a civilian standpoint.

Hart family had strong feelings both for and against the Civil War and we the Hart family referred to Roane County as a struggle of "brother against brother" "father against son" "sister against brother" and "neighbor against neighbor." Nothing better illustrates this than the Hart family Stephen and Mary Hart of Roane County West Virginia.

Many unanswered questions remain:

• It is believed to be correct and has been obtained from sources we consider reliable. We do not represent, however, that it is 100% accurate or complete and it should not be considered as such. There are several other articles on Nancy Hart in the West Virginia old Historical Newspapers and Encyclopedias.
• Deserving of a distinctive place in the Ancestry of the Hart Clan are those who kept the legends alive, known as storyteller, after the American Civil War (1861-1865), Irish Storyteller kept Rebel Hart legend and spirits alive and after a hundred and fifty years the legend is still alive in the Hart Clan and the earthly spirits of the West Virginia mountains, sparkling streams, and trees.
• Anna Marie Jarvis (Born May 1, 1864, Webster, West Virginia - Died November 24, 1948, West Chester, Pennsylvania) adopted as the mother of the Mother's Day holiday in the United States of America. Her mother's in 1858, Anna Reeves Jarvis (September 30, 1832 - May 9, 1905) was the first woman to hold an official Mother's Day, in her home state of VA/WV. In 1912, West Virginia adopted an official Mother's Day; two years later, the U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution, signed by President Wilson, establishing an official national Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. Anna Marie Jarvis, daughter of Anna Reeves Jarvis, was a true inspiration behind the official establishment of Mother's Day and the first woman memorialized in the West Virginia Capitol and the Blue Ridge Mountains.