When the War between the States broke out in 1861, 23-year-old Antonia Ford (1838-1871) was living a life of quiet comfort in Fairfax, Virginia. Her father Edward, whose family had long been established in the Old Dominion, was a prosperous merchant and the foremost citizen of the little community surrounding the country court house. Antonia's brother Charles enlisted in the Confederate Army, serving as a lieutenant in JEB Stuart's Horse Artillery before losing his life in combat at the Battle of Brandy Station, and the family opened its home to Southern troops stationed near the court house.
When the Army of the Potomac moved out of Washington, DC, in June of 1861 on its way to what would become the Battle of First Manassas, its path led through Fairfax Court House. An intense skirmish with Confederate troops near the court house resulted in the death of John Quincy Marr of the Warrenton Rifles, the first Confederate officer to die in battle. Southern troops evacuated Fairfax following the skirmish, and Union troops occupied the town. Federal soldiers moved in to the Ford home and used it much as their Confederate counterparts had done.
The presence of Federal officers under her roof did nothing to diminish Antonia's enthusiasm for the Southern cause. She listened carefully to all that was said and watched all that was done and reported as much as she could to JEB Stuart, whose troops operated in the area of Fairfax Court House. On at least one occasion, just before the Battle of Second Manassas in August 1862, she saved Southern troops from certain disaster by reporting a Union plan to use Confederate colors to draw them away from their assigned positions. Because no one could be prevailed upon to deliver the message for her, she drove herself 20 miles by carriage through the rain and past Union troops to deliver the intelligence to Stuart.
In recognition of this exploit and of her other many services, Stuart awarded her a commission as an honorary aide-de-camp on October 7, 1861. The commission read as follows:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:Know ye: that reposing special confidence in the patriotism, fidelity and ability of Miss Antonia Ford, I, James E.B. Stuart, by virtue of the power vested in me, as Brigadier General in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States of America, do hereby appoint and commission her my honorary aide-de-camp, to rank as such from this date.
She will be obeyed, respected and admired by all lovers of a noble nature.
Given under my hand and seal at the headquarters, Cavalry Brigade, at Camp Beverly, this seventh day of October, A.D., 1861, and the first year of our Independence.
James E.B. Stuart
Brigadier General, C.S.A.
Antonia promptly hid the commission in her mattress, and when a Union soldier was sent to search the house for evidence that the Fords were engaging in espionage, she secreted the paper and other heirlooms under her voluminous hoopskirt and refused to arise from her chair in the library. "I thought not even a Yankee would expect a Southern woman to rise for him!" she snapped. Gallantry prevailed, and the soldier left empty handed.
In December of 1862, with his infantry at Fairfax Station and his cavalry in nearby Vienna, Union Brigadier General Edwin Stoughton established his headquarters at Fairfax Court House. Antonia monitored the movements of Union troops and officers as well as she could and reported to Stuart and to John Singleton Mosby, a commander of irregulars whose men had been raiding Union supplies and otherwise harrassing Northern troops for some time.
On March 8, 1863, Stoughton hosted a party for his mother and sister, who had traveled out from Georgetown to visit him and were staying in the Ford home. Following the evening's merrymaking, when perhaps no one in the Union ranks was taking the task of guard duty very seriously, Mosby and his men moved into Fairfax Court House and captured a number of officers and about 50 horses. Although their original objective had been Colonel Percy Wyndham, they soon learned from captured Union sentries that Stoughton himself was in the vicinity. Delighted to find such a high-profile target of opportunity, Mosby himself roused Stoughton from a sound sleep and took him prisoner in his nightclothes. Upon hearing the news, President Abraham Lincoln remarked dryly that he could always make more brigadier generals but that he couldn't make more horses.
Although Mosby would later explicitly deny that Antonia had provided him with the information that led to the raid, she was a natural suspect because of her known association with JEB Stuart. In the wake of the debacle, Union efforts to ferret out the spy at Fairfax Court House intensified. Under the direction of Secret Service head Lafayette Baker, a female agent posing as a refugee from New Orleans was given the task of gaining Antonia's confidence. Dressed in faded calico, Frankie Abel fooled the residents of Fairfax as well as Antonia. She was taken in by the Fords, who gave her stylish clothes to wear and a place to stay. She and Antonia traded stories of their service to the Confederacy, and after two months, Frankie had so gained Antonia's confidence that she showed the woman her commission from Stuart. After Frankie's departure for New Orleans a few days later, Federal agents moved in quickly and placed Antonia and her father under arrest. The elder Ford was released shortly thereafter, but Antonia was held until May 20, when she was exchanged. She was, however, soon rearrested and escorted to Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C.
Although there was little danger of the Union hanging a woman for espionage at this stage of the war, the confinement was nonetheless arduous, and when Antonia was finally released, she was pale and weak, and her appearance had suffered. Ironically, the Union officer who had delivered her to the prison, Major Joseph Willard, had been quite taken with Antonia before her arrest and had been courting her. During her confinement, Major Willard worked diligently to win her release and in the wake of his eventual success proposed to Antonia.
Willard resigned his Army commission, and on March 10, 1864, he and Antonia were married. Some reports give the place of the marriage as the Presbyterian church in Washington where the Lincolns worshipped; others give the location as the great parlor of the Metropolitan Hotel in Washington, D.C. In any event, after a wedding trip to Philadelphia and New York, Antonia and Joseph settled into a sumptuous home at 14th and G Streets in Washington. After just seven years of marriage and the birth of three children, Antonia passed away and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Many were convinced that her untimely death was a direct result of her confinement in Old Capitol.
Joseph never remarried and died a recluse in 1897. Only one of the Willard children, Joseph, survived to adulthood. He was educated in Virginia schools and took a degree in law from the University of Virginia. He served as ambassador to Spain under President Woodrow Wilson and later as lieutenant governor of Virginia. Upon his father's death, he inherited the reknowned Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., and married Virginian Belle Wyatt, with whom he had two daughters -- Belle, who married Kermit Roosevelt in 1913, and Elizabeth, who married a son of the Fifth Earl of Caernarvon, one of the discoverers of King Tut's tomb.
The present-day county health center in Fairfax is named for Joseph, and the Belle Willard School is named for his wife. Although Antonia's wartime home is no longer in the Ford family, it still stands in Fairfax City today, where it houses several law offices and business firms. On July 4 of this year, the Women's Club of Fairfax opened an exhibit on the life and times of Antonia Ford. The exhibit, which will remain on permanent display in the Ford house, features photographs, historical documents, written texts, and the charter of the Antonia Ford chapter of the Children of the Confederacy.
The Antonia Ford Chapter is proud to bear the name of this young Southern patriot, who risked all to serve her fledgling country in its hour of need and may well have paid the ultimate price for doing so.