The Girl Spy Collection

The American Civil War is the setting for this film which portrays the efforts of a girl, with the aid of her boyfriend, to deliver a message to the Confederate army while the Yankees try prevent them. After disguising themselves as Yankee soldiers, Nan and her young man are recognized, chased, and the young man killed. Nan manages to deliver the message but only after being shot herself, collapsing after the commander is in possession of the important news.

"[The Girl Spy] is sent by a Confederate general to learn the Union plans of campaign. She arrives at the tavern where she overhears the plans [...] and escapes. She is pursued, but in the disguise of a boy she succeeds in eluding the enemy, once dropping from a tree to the back of a horse and riding away. Finally she delivers her notes of the Federal plans to the Confederate headquarters, and receives the thanks and praise of her superiors." —The New York Dramatic Mirror.

The opening scene of our story shows a Union powder wagon making its way down the road convoyed by a company of mounted Union soldiers. The route of this wagon is reported to Confederate headquarters by one of its spies. Nan, a girl frequently employed by the department of the Confederate army, is called to headquarters and instructed to secure the destruction of the enemy's ammunition train just reported. Nan is fitted out with a Union uniform, mounted on a fast horse and sent on her journey, previously provided with a forged order supposedly signed by a Union general which authorizes her to pass through the lines.