One final factor that should be considered is her personal motivation for writing her book. One cannot read it without concluding that she was at the very least an opportunist. She admitted that her reasons for writing the book were pecuniary rather than patriotic, educational, or literary. Certainly the character she revealed in her book was capable of taking advantage of a reading public inclined to buy romantic literature. She made no attempt to hide her ability to tell a convincing lie and even defended it by saying that ‘lying was as necessary as fighting in warfare.’ As a double agent her very life depended on her ability to tell a believable lie. Thus she was quite capable of using her wits and the gullibility of her readers in order to support herself and her child.

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In the end we will probably never know conclusively if Madame Loreta Janeta Velazquez was a brave soldier and spy or merely a literary opportunist–or both. If we assume that all of her claims must be confirmed by other evidence in order to be judged true, then we must conclude that much of her story is untrue simply because there is not enough evidence available to substantiate it. And since in every lie there is usually a seed of truth, we may definitely assume that Madame Velazquez has expanded on that seed.

This article was written by Sylvia D. Hoffert and originally appeared in the August 1999 issue of Civil War Times magazine.

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