Pauline Cushman’s birth name was Harriet Wood. She was born June 10, 1833 in New Orleans. After her father lost his merchant business her family moved to Michigan. She had six brothers, and she hunted, tracked animals and canoed better or as well as them. Pauline was a struggling actress but one night while she was performing in Louisville, Kentucky, she had been dared by a Confederate troop to interrupt the show to toast to Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy, she said “Here’s to Jefferson Davis and the Southern Confederacy. May the South always maintain her honor and her rights!” Pauline saw this as a benefit to the Union, so she contacted the Union Army’s local marshal and offered this as a way to get herself close to the Confederates and
