Loreta Janeta (June 26, 1842 – 1923), was an American woman who wrote that she had masqueraded as a male Confederate soldier during the American Civil War, though her story has been brought into question by recent scholarship. The book she wrote about her experiences says that after her soldier husband's accidental death, she enlisted in the Confederate States Army in 1861. She then fought at Bull Run, Ball's Bluff, and Fort Donelson, but was discharged when her sex was discovered while in New Orleans. Undeterred, she reenlisted and fought at Shiloh, until unmasked once more. She then became a Confederate spy, working in both male and female guises, and as a double agent also reporting to the U.S. Secret Service. She remarried three more times, being widowed in each instance. According to William C. Davis, she died in January 1923 under the name Loretta J. Beard after many years away from the public eye in a public psychiatric facility, St. Elizabeths Hospital. The Woman in Battle Velázquez recorded her adventures in her 600-page book, The Woman in Battle: A Narrative of the Exploits, Adventures, and travels of Madame Loreta Janeta Velázquez, Otherwise Known as Lieutenant Harry T. Buford, Confederate States Army (1876) to support her son. The Confederate general Jubal Early refused to accept her memoirs as fact, and modern scholars have cast doubt upon the veracity of the book's report. Birth and family According to her book, Loreta Janeta Velázquez was born in Havana, Cuba, on June 26, 1842, to a wealthy Cuban official and a mother of French and American ancestry. She also used the name Alice Williams. According to her own account, Velázquez was of Castilian descent and related to Cuban governor Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar and artist Diego Velázquez. Her father was a Spanish government official who owned plantations in Mexico and Cuba. He felt a deep resentment towards the United States after losing an inherited ranch in the Mexican–American War at San Luis Potosi. This animosity perpetuated the estrangement between Velázquez and her father after her elopement with an American soldier. Velázquez learned the English language at school in New Orleans in 1849, while living with an aunt. Her father's wealth as a plantation owner allowed her this opportunity to travel and continue her education. While in New Orleans, Velázquez took to fairy tales and stories of heroism, citing Joan of Arc as a