Agnes Salm-Salm

Agnes Salm-Salm (December 25, 1844 – December 21, 1912) was the American wife of Prince Felix zu Salm-Salm, a Prussian mercenary beside whom she played a role in the American Civil War, the Mexican Civil War between President Benito Juárez and the Austrian archduke Maximilian I of Mexico, and the Franco-Prussian War. Family and childhood She was born Agnes Elisabeth Winona Leclerc Joy in Franklin, Vermont, the daughter of American general William Leclerc Joy (1793–) and his second wife, Julia Willard (died 1882). Her paternal grandfather was Mica (Micah) Joy (1753–1826) who married Mercy Terrill (1764–1843). She was described as red-haired, strong willed, small, and dainty. Little is known of the early life of Agnes Salm-Salm. Many scholars believe that she worked in a circus, then as an actress in Cuba. In 1861 she returned to the United States but soon left her home in Vermont to visit her sister in Washington, D.C. who was getting married. Agnes stayed around Washington when she met Prince Felix Salm-Salm, a soldier of fortune, and a distant relation to the Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary.<ref name=Vermontencyclopedia>John J. Duffy, Samuel B. Hand, Ralph H. Orth,The Vermont Encyclopedia, UPNE, 2003, p. 185.</ref>