Florena Budwin

Florena Budwin was born about 1845. She disguised herself as a man and followed her husband, John Budwin. Both were captured and sent to Andersonville where he died in that notorious Confederate prison camp.

When Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s troops got close to Andersonville, Budwin and many other prisoners were moved to the Florence Stockade in Florence, South Carolina. There were about 16,000 Union prisoners held there between September 15, 1864 and February 1865.

Florina's gender was discovered after a routine exam by a doctor, a few months before her death. She was moved to a private room and put to work in the prison hospital. She became ill with one of the many epidemics raging through the camp and died January 25, 1865. Florina is buried in the Florence National Cemetery. It is thought that she is the first woman to be buried in a National Cemetery.