Her story ends at this point. Her final plea was that the public would buy her book so that she could support her child. She was not ashamed of her behavior and hoped that her conduct would be judged with ‘impartiality and candor’ and that credit would be given her for ‘integrity of purpose.’ She offered no apologies for her conduct. ‘I did what I thought to be right,’ she said, ‘and, while anxious for the good opinion of all honorable and right thinking people, a consciousness of the purity of my motives will be an ample protection against the censure of those who may be disposed to be censorious.’

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The historical validity of the Velazquez claims remains to be determined. Historians themselves are divided on the issue. Mary Massey in the Bonnet Brigades takes note of the ‘incredible’ Velazquez claims but maintains that while they are not provable, she could have done some of the things she claimed. Ella Lonn in her book on foreigners in the Confederacy describes Velazquez as’strange and romantic’ and appears to accept her story as true while at the same time admitting that the only evidence which exists in the matter is The Woman in Battle. Katherine Jones includes an except from the Velazquez book in her two-volume Heroines of Dixie along with unquestionably legitimate memoirs and in that sense leaves the impression that the Velazquez story is as much a historical record as that of Kate Cumming or Mary Boykin Chestnut.

At least one of Madame Velazquez’ contemporaries challenged her story. In the winter of 1877-78 Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, who was then in New Orleans happened upon The Woman in Battle. After a cursory examination he satisfied himself that ‘the writer of that book, whether man or woman, had never had the adventures therein narrated.’ Some time later at his hotel he met a man from Richmond who told him that he had met Madame Velazquez on a train and was so intrigued by her story that he had bought her book. Recognizing the book that the man showed to him, Early protested that’she could not be what she pretended to be.’ He then pointed out’several inconsistencies, absurdities, and impossibilities’ in her narrative in order to prove his point. Subsequently Early had a brief interview with Velazquez after which he was even more convinced that her story was untrue.

In May of 1878 General Early received a letter signed by Madame Velazquez protesting his alleged attempt to injure her book by publicly questioning the truthfulness of her story. She maintained that her view of the war could never be the same as his because they were never in the same position to observe, nor did they ever have access to the same information. ‘I do not pretend,’ she said in her letter, ‘to know even one truth that transpired upon any one battlefield I served upon. I only endeaver [sic] to give the most important facts that came under my immediate observation.’

One of Early’s objections to her story was that she had failed to identify many of the people she talked about, thus making it impossible to check her story. In her letter she explained that she had left out the names in order to condense her manuscript and also had wanted to protect the families of men she claimed were defrauding the government. She then gave as personal references the names of Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, ex-Governor John C. Brown of Tennessee, and Congressman John M. Glover of Missouri, and sent the letter through Congressman William H. Slemons of Tennessee.

Apparently Early did not quite know how to react to her letter. On one hand he was tempted to ignore her and the book as not worthy of comment. But on the other hand he felt that her book was so full of inaccuracies that he had a duty to expose it. So on May 22 he sat down to answer her letter. Directing his comments to Congressmen Slemons, he proceeded to point out inconsistencies in her story page by page. He was incredulous at her recruiting expedition. ‘This battalion has been raised without the instrumentality of the Governor of Arkansas, or of the President of the Confederacy, or without her saying to either as much as, ‘by your leave,’ and carried just where she thought proper, all the expenses being paid out of her own pocket; though where the money came from is an unsolved mystery. . . .’

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