Depending on whom you ask, the story of Loreta Janeta Velazquez could be fact or fiction.
From her own accounts, Velazquez disguised herself as a man in order to fight in the Civil War under the name of Harry T. Buford.
Historians learned about Velazquez’s military escapades in her 1876 book, “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.” According to the American Battlefield Trust, “some of the incidents in the book have been verified, but there are many facts still in question.”
It’s a fact that Velazquez was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1842. She moved to New Orleans in 1849 to live with her aunt and attend school. She was 14 when she eloped to Texas with an army officer. When her husband wouldn’t allow her to join the Confederate Army with him in 1861, Velazquez found another way.
She put on a Confederate uniform, a fake mustache and goatee, and ranked herself as a lieutenant. As Buford, she fought in many battles, including the Battle of First Manassas (Bull Run) and the Battle of Ball’s Bluff.
A few times, Velazquez ditched her male disguise to serve as a spy and secret-service agent.
During a burial detail in 1862, “she was wounded in the side by an exploding shell, and an army doctor discovered her true gender,” the American Battlefield Trust states. “Velazquez decided … to end her career as a soldier, and she returned to New Orleans.”
No one knows for sure when she died, but the best guess is 1897.
“In response to those who criticized the account of her life,” the American Battlefield Trust states, “she said that she hoped she would be judged with impartiality, as she only did what she thought to be right.”
For more tales from New Orleans history, visit the Back in the Day archives.
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