On the Friday evening of 28 June 1861, nearly 60 passengers boarded the packet St. Nicholas for a voyage from Baltimore to Washington. Because the Civil War had begun two months earlier and the passengers had to be searched for weapons and/or contraband, the boarding process took some time. There was a further delay when one of the last passengers, a stylishly dressed woman who registered as Madame la Force, was accompanied by a number of large trunks that had to be hauled aboard and wrestled below to her cabin.
The young woman spoke fluent French and little English, but she soon was communicating with the male passengers and crew in more fundamental ways. She flirted shamelessly, tossing her head coquettishly and peering through a veil that covered her eyes and cheeks but not her red lips. Most of the ship's officers were mesmerized by the charming woman, but the ship's captain later said, "I didn't like the appearance of that French woman at all. She sat next to me at table so close that our legs touched." Another passenger reported that the "young woman behaved so scandalously that all the other women on the boat were in a terrible state over it."
Later that night, when passengers normally retired to sleep in their cabins, one of the crew noticed that many of the male passengers remained on deck. He surmised they hoped to see more of the French tease. He was later shocked to find that all of these men were eventually invited to her cabin.
George Watts, a former Sailor in the U.S. Navy, was among those men who had remained on deck. He was nervous, and when someone touched him on the arm, he "whirled around like somebody had stuck a knife in me."
"You're wanted in the second cabin," the man told Watts.
Looking anxiously about, Watts followed the man to the cabin. When he entered, he saw the "frisky French lady" removing her dress. As the cabin full of men watched, she also removed her wig and makeup!
From the feminine crinoline cocoon emerged Confederate Colonel Richard Thomas, dressed in a fine regimental uniform. The other men began opening the "lady's" trunks and arming themselves with the cutlasses, carbines, and pistols they found inside.
It did not take long for the armed men to capture the ship and, after putting the crew and innocent passengers ashore and bringing aboard an additional contingent of Confederate soldiers, the St. Nicholas, now the CSS Rappahannock, headed out into the Chesapeake and captured a number of prizes.
Like the battle at Bull Run a short time later, this early Confederate success was demoralizing to the Union cause and was widely hailed in the South. The colonel and his daring accomplices were lionized in Virginia, and at a ball given in their honor, much to the delight of those attending, the colonel appeared dressed not in regimental uniform but in the feminine attire that had served as his earlier "camouflage."
But just as the fortunes of war were to eventually change in favor of the Union, so went those of the audacious, skirted colonel. When he tried a similar venture a month later, the plan went awry and, once again dressed in hooped skirts, he was led off to a Union prison.