Susan Harber, ‘Smyrna Tennessee History (Facebook)’ October 16, 2016
Mary Jackson Overall
Mary Jackson Overall (1844-1929) was a Rebel spy on a high level in Middle Tennessee. As a sleuth for the Confederate Army, she had close ties to Rutherford County scouts throughout the war; and she maintained a strong presence in Smyrna.
She was born in Williamson County and was the daughter of Jackson and Mira Jordan Overall, who wed in in 1842. Upon her father’s death three years later, her mother married cousin John Jordan in 1853.
Mary toiled within an elite group of secret service agents, including Dee Jobe and Sam Davis of Smyrna, who operated out of Flat Rock near Nolensville. She was known for her sheer beauty and ability to enchant Federal officers with charm, in exchange for highly valuable information. Mary often teased and flirted with great charm, yet she was unrestrained in her mission. At a dance party, she would ably collect vital information from Union soldiers for the Confederates.
Mary Overall held an early romantic link to Sam Davis. She provided Sam his secretive papers before his capture in November 1863.
At 19 years old, Mary was an enthusiastic and resourceful young woman in Triune living as a teen in an old brick mansion on Spanntown Road (currently mapped as Arrington, Tennessee). During the Civil War, she lived with her mother and sister Sophia Overall at the home of Dr. Clement Jordan. She spied in a special intelligence circle under John Hunt Morgan, her Uncle Ned and her future husband John W. Headley. One of the more prominent assignments was to secure a complete map of Fort Negley in Nashville. With a daring carriage ride around Nashville, Mary made entrance into the fort and gathered major defensive information on Union strongholds, resulting in a vital report sent to General Morgan. Mary returned with so much information that Captain Headley declared “I can guide the Rebels into the city on one hand and out on the other.’
Mary spied for over two years while signing her name as “Mollie.” She was once intercepted by the Yankees and arrested in Triune under orders of General George Thomas. Mary admitted she was a Confederate spy and was imprisoned in the old penitentiary in Nashville. After two harrowing weeks, she was released to her uncle Ed Jordan, a Nashville banker.
In 1866, Mary Overall wed John W. Headley, a prominent and handsome Secretary of State in Kentucky in the 1890s. The twosome had served as spies for both Morgan and General Braxton Bragg. Headley would later serve during the Civil War as a Confederate agent in Canada. In 1906, he wrote a book regarding his Confederacy wartime experiences. Mary and John had four sons and two daughters. Before moving into Kentucky politics, Mary and John lived in Evansville, Indiana and worked in the tobacco industry. This couple was able to prosper and return to calm and normalcy after the Civil War, a feat most post-war Tennesseans never attained.
In 1910, Mary and John moved to Beverly Hills, California, where she died twenty years later. She is buried today at Inglewood Park Cemetery in California beside her husband.
Endurance and fortitude were virtues of the day for women such as the indomitable Mary Overall, a legend in her own time.