Antonia Ford Willard
Antonia Ford was the daughter of Edward R. Ford, a prominent secessionist citizen of Fairfax City, who lived across from the Courthouse on Chain Bridge Road. Her brother Charles served in General JEB Stuart's artillery company and the family was good friends with Gen. Stuart.
In the early part of the War when Stuart's cavalry were frequently in the vicinity of Fairfax, he would occasionally visit the Ford family, and his then-scout, Pvt. John Singleton Mosby also made their acquaintance at this time.
When Union forces occupied Fairfax, she kept her eyes and ears open, frequently reporting on Federal movements to Stuart. In recognition for her help, Stuart gave her an honorary commission as an aide-de-camp on October 7, 1861. It was this piece of paper that would later lead to her arrest and imprisonment.
Did she assist Mosby in planning the Fairfax Courthouse raid? Both Mosby and Stuart denied it. However, it was precisely the sort of risk she would take for her beloved South. According to Kathie Fraser, (whose daughter is head of the Antonia Ford Chapter of Children of the Confederacy) on her excellent webpage on Antonia Ford (see below),
"On at least one occasion, just before the Battle of Second Manassas in August 1862, she saved Southern troops from certain disaster by reporting a Union plan to use Confederate colors to draw them away from their assigned positions. Because no one could be prevailed upon to deliver the message for her, she drove herself 20 miles by carriage through the rain and past Union troops to deliver the intelligence to Stuart."
She was imprisoned in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, on the site now occupied by the Supreme Court. She was eventually exchanged on May 20, largely through the interecession of Major Joseph Willard, heir to the Willard Hotel in Washington, the Union officer who had escorted her to prison. He had previously been stationed at Fairfax and was quite taken with her. He later proposed and they were married nearly a year after her imprisonment, on March 10, 1864.
Willard resigned his army commission and focused on running the family hotel business. Their son, Joseph, subequently moved to Fairfax, and gave the old town hall to the City and served as Lieutentant Governor. One of his daughters married Kermit Roosevelt in 1913.
The Ford home is now a law office, bearing the name of "The Ford Building" and not normally open to the public.
For more information, visit Kathie Fraser's excellent webpage on Antonia Ford, which includes the text of JEB Stuart's honorary commission which he awarded her.
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