Belle Peterson was a
young country girl who lived near Ellenboro, Wisconsin. A soldier who saw her
at that time says that she was “just an ordinary girl, neither good nor bad
looking.” But she was adventurous, and one day surprised her father by telling
him that she was going away from home for some time. Her family learned later
that she had enlisted in a Wisconsin regiment. The date of her enlistment is
not certain, but it was probably late in 1862; she served in the army for some
time, possibly as a spy or a scout. Those who saw her in uniform, say that she
made a fair-looking soldier, and that no one would have suspected that she was
a woman. (Ref. Wisconsin Women in the War
Between the States by Ethel Alice Hurn.)
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