Disguised as a man in uniform, Pauline Cushman-Fryer left the theater stage to become a Union spy, playing the role of a lifetime in the deadly theater of war—only to be jailed and threatened with hanging.

Brevet Major Pauline Cushman-Fryer: Civil War Spy

Performed by Constance Smith, Pauline Cushman-Fryer tells us how she became a Union Spy, was almost hanged, was granted the rank of Major by Abraham Lincoln, and died lonely in San Francisco from an overdose of opium.