Blue and Gray Weekly No. 3

# Blue and Gray Weekly (August 26, 1904)

This issue of Frank Tousey's weekly contains "The Boys in Blue's Great Defense," serialized fiction by Lieut. Harry Lee, set in August 1861 during the American Civil War. Captain Jack Clark commands the Fairdale Blues, a company of young Union soldiers encamped near Hampton, Virginia. An elderly enslaved man named Pompey brings intelligence that Confederate General Magruder plans to attack Hampton that night with six thousand troops. Clark dispatches a message to General Butler requesting reinforcements and conducts reconnaissance with Lieutenant Hal Martin, encountering Confederate cavalry scouts. Clark identifies a strategic height on the Yorktown Road as a defensive position. The narrative then introduces Scott, a Union spy bearing a letter from President Lincoln instructing Clark to locate and apprehend a female Confederate spy operating near Fortress Monroe who possesses papers vital to Union operations. A search party departs from camp seeking the operative.