Loreta Janeta Velázquez was a woman of great ambition, skill, and courage who lived and fought during the American Civil War. She disguised herself as a man so that she could join a nearby regiment in the Confederacy and later became a spy to scout out Union strategies and other information that would be useful. All of Velázquez’s experiences are described in her autobiography, The Woman in Battle: A Narrative of the Exploits, Adventures, and Travels of Madame Loreta Janeta Velazquez, Otherwise Known as Lieutenant Harry T. Buford, Confederate States Army.
Loreta Janeta Velázquez was born in Cuba in 1842. At the age of seven, she moved to New Orleans for schooling, and seven years later she eloped with an officer in Texas.…