Antonia Ford

Born:  July 23, 1838, Fairfax Court House, Virginia

Died:  February 14, 1871, Washington, D.C.

Resting Place:  Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, D.C.

Brief History:  She was a daughter of a local merchant and a man that supported the idea of independence named Edward R. Ford. Before entering the Buckingham Female Collegiate Institute in Buckingham, Virginia, she attended nearby Coombe Cottage, a private finishing school for young women. As the Union forces conquered the Fairfax region in mid-1861, Ford socialized among the officers and obtained valuable intelligence about troop strengths and planned movements, to which she passed along to Brigadier General J.E.B. Stuart, in whose artillery her brother, Charles, served. Ford also spied for John S. Mosby, a noted partisan ranger. Stuart showed appreciation for her service and the quality of the information he had received, nominated Ford as an honorary aide-de-camp on October 7, 1861. In early 1863, Ford was informed on by a Union counterspy named Frankie Abel, that she had thought was a friend and shown the document bearing Stuart's signature.

She was accused of performing an important part in the capture of Union general Edwin H. Stoughton, but Colonel Mosby and others later denied her collaboration, and no evidence of her guilt could be found. She was released and exchanged seven days later. Later however, she was again arrested in Fairfax by Major Joseph Clapp Willard and sent back to Old Capitol Prison. She took the Oath of Allegiance, he resigned his position in the Union Army, and they subsequently married on March 10, 1864, in Washington, D.C. The couple had three children, only one surviving infancy. Antonia Ford Willard died in Washington, D.C. as an indirect result of health issues stemming from her captivity. Her husband never remarried. Their son Joseph Edward Willard later became Lieutenant Governor of Virginia and the father-in-law of Kermit Roosevelt.