VIDEO ~ SISTERS IN ARMS: WOMEN SOLDIERS OF THE CIVIL WAR

INTRODUCTION

Both the Union and Confederate armies forbade the enlistment of women. Women soldiers of the Civil War therefore assumed masculine names, disguised themselves as men and hid the fact that they were female. Because they passed as men, it's impossible to know with any certainty how many women soldiers served in the Civil War. Estimates place as many as 250 women in the ranks of the Confederate army.

Some soldiers were revealed as women after getting captured. In his memoirs, General Philip Sheridan reported an extraordinary incident one day when two female soldiers were accidentally discovered in his command. A cavalry soldier, along with a teamster from Tennesses, got drunk on apple cider while on a foraging expedition in Kentucky. They fell in a river and were discovered to be female when they were saved and resuscitated. Sheridan personally interviewed them the next day and recorded the incident with some bemusement ... referring to them as "she dragoons." He wrote:

"The East Tennessee woman [the teamster] was found in camp, somewhat the worst for the experiences of the day before, but awaiting her fate contentedly smoking a cob-pipe. [The Cavalry soldier] proved to be a rather prepossessing young woman. How the two got acquainted I never learned, and though they had joined the army independently of each other, yet an intimacy had sprung up between them long before the mishaps of the foraging expedition."

More often than dramatic disclosures of this kind, the discovery of women in male disguise was due to happenstance. A young woman was found in Captain Gerard's company of the 66th Indiana infantry after fooling the soldiers for some time. One day, by chance, her uncle visited the camp, accidentally met and recognized her. She was discharged immediately.

During the 1861 Kanawha Valley Campaign in West Virginia, a young soldier was discovered to be a woman after serving three months in the 1st Kentucky infantry when she aroused suspicion by the way she pulled on her stockings. A newspaper correspondent covering the campaign reported: "She performed camp duties with great fortitude, and never fell out of the ranks during the severest marches. She was small in stature, and kept her coat buttoned to her chin."

Among the numerous cases of soldiers whose careers were ended by pregnancy is one reported by Civil War nurse, Harriet Whetten. On August 21, 1862 she recorded in her diary that she had discovered a woman among the hospitalized Union soldiers in her care who was pregnant and had to be sent home. Several of the soldiers whose careers were ended by motherhood were veteran sergeants and even officers. When a female sergeant in the 74th Ohio infantry gave birth after 20 months in the service, General Rosecrans (April 17, 1863) termed it "a flagrant outrage ... in violation of all military law and of the army regulations."

On the flip side, officers often knew that one of their soldiers was a woman, but let them continue in service. Charles H. Williams served three months in Company I of an early Iowa regiment and was discovered when the regiment mustered out. A newspaper report described her as having small and rather delicate hands, large and lustrous eyes and jet black hair. "She was born in Davenport where her mother now resides," the newspaper stated. "Captain Cox learned her sex but allowed her to remain."

Another officer detected a female soldier from Cincinnati, Ohio in his ranks and was persuaded to let her remain. "She looks as brave as any soldier in the division," he reported, "I say bully for her, and if I could get 100 of such I would send a company."

Mollie Bean

Mollie Bean was a North Carolina woman who, pretending to be a man, joined the 47th North Carolina, a unit of the Confederate army.

She was captured in uniform by Union forces outside Richmond, Virginia on the night of February 17, 1865. When questioned at the provost marshal's office, she said she had served with the 47th for two years and been twice wounded. (North Carolina Troops 1861-1865—a Roster, vol. XI, editor W.T. Jordan). Given that unit's record in 1863, her statement indicates she may have fought at the Battle of Gettysburg.

The Richmond Whig, which reported the case on February 20, 1865, assumed that other soldiers knew of Bean's true gender and insinuated that she may have had sexual relations with one or more of them. Neither assertion was based on any concrete evidence, Bean's own testimony or that of any other soldier in her unit.

Subsequently, she was accused of being both a spy and "manifestly crazy", and incarcerated at Richmond's wartime prison Castle Thunder.

Mary & Mollie Bell

Battle of Cedar Creek

Two cousins, Mary and Mollie Bell, fought for the Confederacy as Pvts. Bob Martin and Tom Parker. They enlisted in the cavalry company, were captured by Union forces and were rescued by John Hunt Morgan's men. They next enlisted in the 36th Virginia Infantry.

A regimental historian of the 36th Virginia reports that while on picket duty, "Martin" killed three Yankees and was promoted to Corporal. At Belle Grove during the battle of Cedar Creek, October 19, 1864, their captain (in whom they had confided) was captured. When they tried to confide in the lieutenant who took command, he turned them in to General Early who admitted there were at least six other women in his army. Though Parker and Martin had served under Early for two years, he put them on a train to Richmond where they spent three weeks in Castle Thunder Prison before being sent home to Pulaski County, Virginia ... still in their uniforms.

Interviews with their former comrades confirmed that Parker and Martin had been "valiant soldiers" who never shirked their duty.

 

Mary Ann Berry

Mary Ann Berry from Lewiston, Maine was 21 years old when she met Ivory Brown from Parsonsfield, Maine. They married in 1861, the year the Civil War began.

He enlisted with the 31st Maine Infantry Regiment in 1864 and Mary decided she would go with him. Not surprisingly, she was rejected by the Army. She persisted, however, and took on clerical jobs for the regiment. Eventually, she went south with the regiment as a field nurse.

Records of her service cannot be found, but in 1930 she was interviewed by a reporter to whom she told her story. Besides nursing and caring for soldiers, she told the reporter that she also fought beside them. When asked, "Did you carry a musket and fight with the Union Men?", she replied, "Yes, sir. I carried a musket ... a 16-shooter [possibly a Henry Repeater rifle], a sword and a dirk, too, to fight my way through like the rest of them."

Mary was standing next to her brother-in-law at the siege of Petersburg when he was killed. It's possible that she was disguised as a soldier, since General Grant had issued orders that no women be allowed at the front. Ivory was also injured at Petersburg and Mary was there to care for him. He was discharged in June 1865 after which the couple went home to Brownfield, Maine. Ivory died in 1902. Mary outlived him by 34 years, dying in 1936 at age 96.

Sarah Malinda Blalock

Sarah Malinda Pritchard Blalock enlisted in Co. F of the 26th North Carolina Infantry posed as Pvt. Samuel Blalock. Her husband was William McKesson (Keith) Blalock. They were residents of a western North Carolina mountain region with strongly divided sentiments about secession and the Confederate cause. As a professed "Lincolnite," Keith often was pitted against friends and relatives.

Keith was forced by community pressures into enlisting for the Confederacy. Malinda's sentiments originally were pro-South, but out of loyalty to her husband, she planned to desert with him at the first opportunity. Somehow the circumstances never quite developed that would allow them to carry out their plan.

Keith and Malinda fought together in three battles garbed in Confederate gray until March 1862 when Malinda was wounded in the shoulder. Keith carried her to the surgeon's tent, and in the process of removing the bullet the surgeon discovered that "Sam" was a woman. Keith pleaded with the surgeon not to expose her, but the surgeon agreed only to give Keith a short time to work out his next course of action.

Distraught about the probability of being separated from Malinda, Keith deliberately rubbed poison oak all over himself. By the next morning, his skin was blistered and swollen and he had a high fever. Fearing that he had small pox, the physicial confined him to his tent under guard to avoid contagion. It was decided to give him an immediate medical discharge on April 20, 1862.

Malinda quickly informed the incredulous Colonel Zebulon Vance (later Governor of North Carolina and a U.S. Senator) that she was a woman. After a surgeon verified her claim, she was discharged on the same day.

The Confederate records for Mrs. S. M. Blalock, 26th, Company F, state, "This lady dressed in men's cloths, Volunteered [sic], received bounty and for two weeks did all the duties of a soldier before she was found out, but her husband being discharged, she disclosed the fact, returned the bounty, and was immediately discharged April 20, 1862."

Keith and Melinda slowly found their way home to the mountains of western North Carolina to recuperate. Under constant threat of recall to Confederate service, they became outlaws and embarked on a campaign as Federal partisans and guerrillas in the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina and East Tennessee. They guided Union sympathizers and escaped Union prisoners through the mountains to safety in the North. Toward the end of the war they served as scouts and raiders with the 10th Michigan Cavalry.

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. 

MAP ~ CIVIL WAR BATTLEGROUNDS

Frances Clailin

Battle of Fort Donelson

Frances Clalin was born in Illinois in the 1830s and married Ohio-born Elmer L. Clayton with whom she had three children.

Clalin' story as a woman who disguised herself as man to fight in the war was the subject of several newspaper reports, many containing conflicting information. Most agreed that Clalin, disguised as a man and using the name Jack Williams, enlisted with the Union army with her husband during the fall of 1861. Despite living in Minnesota, Frances and Elmer enlisted in the Missouri artillery regiment. 

She is known to have fought in the Battle of Fort Donelson in Tennessee, February 13, 1862, where the Union won after three days of fighting. During this battle Clalin was wounded, but was not discovered. She and Elmer served side-by-side until he died during the Battle of Stones River (or Murfreesboro) on December 31, 1862. He was only a few feet in front of Fances at the time, but some sources say that she didn’t stop fighting - she stepped over his body and charged when the commands came.

It’s unknown which units specifically the Clailins fought in, but Frances is said to have served in both cavalry and artillery Cakes. She was engaged in 17 battles besides Fort Donelson and reports say she was wounded a total of three times and taken prisoner once.

“Frances Clayton took up all the manly vices. To better conceal her sex, she learned to drink, smoke, chew and swear. She was especially fond of cigars. She even gambled, and a fellow soldier declared that he had played poker with her on a number of occasions.” —DeAnne Blanton & Lauren M. Cook, They Fought Like Demons

She was tall and masculine, had tan skin, stood erect and walked with a soldierly stride. She was said to be a good horseman and swordsman ... a respected person who commanded attention in the way she acted. One report said that she did her duties at all times and was considered to be a "fighting man".

There are two stories about how Clalin was discovered to be a woman. One is that after the battle at Stones River in 1863, Clalin let her true identity become known and was discharged a few days later in Louisville. The other is that she was wounded in the hip at Stones River and was discharged after being discovered.

After being discharged Clalin tried to get back to Minnesota to collect the bounty owed her and Elmer, as well as to get some of his belongings. It’s also speculated that she wanted to reenlist, but was unable to. Her train was attacked by a Confederate guerrilla party and she was robbed of her papers and money. She then went from Missouri to Minnesota, to Grand Rapids, Michigan and on to Quincy, Illinois. In Quincy a fund was created to aid her quest for payment by former soldiers and friends. Frances was last reported to be headed for Washington, DC.

Clalin became popular with the newspapers of the time. Her story, which was often jumbled up, was published in about six different papers. In some articles it was stated that Clalin had been wounded and discovered at Stones River where her husband died, but others said she was wounded at Fort Donelson and was able to keep her identity a secret until her husband died, after which she went to her superiors with her secret.

According to Clalin, she was actually wounded at Donelson and was able to keep her identity unknown. She corrected these misunderstandings in her last interview, but she never stated what specific regiment she had served in. This was probably never asked of Clalin, because the reporters were more interested in the story of a devoted wife, rather than the actual details of Jack Williams’ soldier life.

Amy Clark

Battle of Shiloh

One of the most famous Confederate female soldiers, who served in both cavalry and infantry, was Mrs. Amy Clark. At the age of 30, she enlisted as a private in a cavalry regiment with her husband Walter, so she wouldn’t be separated from him. Also known as Anna, she used the name Pvt. Richard Anderson and fought with Walter until his death at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862.

A newspaper story from Mississippian on December 30, 1862 reported:

"Among the strange, heroic and self-sacrificing acts of woman in this struggle for our independence, we have heard of none which exceeds the bravery displayed and hardships endured by the subject of this notice, Mrs. Amy Clarke.

Mrs. Clarke volunteered with her husband as a private, fought through the battles of Shiloh, where Mr. Clarke was killed -- she performing the rites of burial with her own hands. She then continued with Bragg's army in Kentucky, fighting in the ranks as a common soldier, until she was twice wounded -- once in the ankle and then in the breast, when she fell prisoner into the hands of the Yankees. Her sex was discovered by the Federals and she was regularly paroled as a prisoner of war, but they did not permit her to return until she had donned female apparel. Mrs. C was in our city on Sunday last, en route for Bragg's command."

She may have re-enlisted after her release from prison because the following August she was seen wearing lieutenant's bars at Turner's Station, Tennessee, and was recognized as the heroic Amy Clarke, causing a sensation among the soldiers. A Texas cavalry soldier who saw her, wrote a letter home to his father saying:

“One of the soldiers directed my attention to a youth apparently about seventeen years of age well dressed with a lieutenant's badge on his collar. I remarked that I saw nothing strange. He then told me that the young man was not a man but a female.”

PRIVATE MATTERS

Army life in the 1860s differed significantly from the modern military. Although living and sleeping arrangements were as close or closer than they are today, the fact that the majority of soldiers lived outside throughout the war, with the latitude to wash and attend to sanitary matters out of sight of comrades, made it possible for females in the ranks to avoid the scrutiny that would give them away. Also, societal standards of modesty ensured that no one would question a shy soldier’s reluctance to bathe in a river with his messmates or to relieve himself in the open company sinks.

Stg. Herman Weiss, 6th New York Heavy Artillery, explained to his wife how a woman in his regiment had maintained her male persona for close to three years: “It is no wonder at all that her tent mates did not know that she was a woman for you must know that we never undress to go to bed. On the contrary we dress up, we go to bed with boots, overcoat and all on and she could find chances enogh when she would be in the tent alone to change her clothes.”

Daily bathing, particularly for soldiers on the march, was not a concern as they often went for months at a time without bathing or changing clothes. Women who sought privacy would not have aroused a great deal of suspicion, especially since they had already established reputations as modest men when they chose to use private toilet areas.

But what about menstruation? Little is known about how 19th century women dealt with their monthly cycles, but it’s presumed women soldiers used folded rags to protect their clothing and mask the odor of blood.[1] Washing or disposing of this evidence may have been a problem for them, though bloody rags could have been explained away as the used bindings of a minor injury.

Menstruation might have ceased to be a problem, particularly during a campaign season. It’s possible that many female soldiers became amenorrheic while in the army. Amenorrhea, or the cessation of menstruation, is caused by intense athletic training, substantive weight loss, caloric deprivation or poor nutrition, and severe psychological stress.

[1] Until disposable sanitary pads were created, women often used a variety of home-made pads which they crafted from various fabrics, leftover scraps, grass or other absorbent materials to collect menstrual blood. Many probably used nothing at all. The first commercially available American disposable napkins were Lister's Towels created by Johnson & Johnson in 1896, though for several years they were too expensive for many women to afford. When they could be afforded, women were allowed to place money in a box so that they would not have to speak to the clerk and take a box of Kotex pads from the counter themselves. It took several years for disposable menstrual pads to become commonplace. However, they are now used nearly exclusively in most of the industrialized world.

Frances Louisa Clayton

While a popular Civil War-era saying was, "Better a soldier's widow than a coward's wife," some women took it a step further. Flying in the face of Victorian conventions and the traditional view of females as frail, passive and subordinate, they enlisted in the army.

About 250 women are thought to have served in the Confederate army disguised as men, with about 400 women serving in a similar manner in the Union Army. Frances Clayton was one such female. She allegedly served in Minnesota artillery and cavalry units along with her husband.

According to contemporary newspaper reports, "the better to conceal her sex, she learned to drink, smoke, chew and swear with the best, or worst, of the soldiers."

Madame Collier

Belle Island Union Encampment

Madame Collier was a federal soldier from East Tennessee who enjoyed army life until her capture and subsequent imprisonment at Belle Isle, Virginia. She decided to make the most of the difficult situation and continued concealing her gender, hoping for exchange. Another prisoner learned her secret and reported it to Confederate authorities, who sent her North under a flag of truce. Before leaving, Collier indicated that another woman remained incarcerated on the island.

Catherine Davidson

Battle of Antietam

Catherine Davidson fought with the 28th Ohio Infantry and was wounded at Antietam. Shortly after the battle, the governor of Pennsylvania arrived and took to the field to help with the wounded. Davidson was one of the soldiers he consoled and it was he who put her in an ambulance Thinking she was dying, she gave him her ring.

She was wounded so badly in the right arm that surgeons amputated it midway between the shoulder and elbow. After her discharge from the service, she called upon the governor at the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia to thank him for his kindness to her. He was quite surprised as he had not known the soldier who gave him the ring was a woman.

He was wearing the ring that day in the hotel, and Davidson showed him her initials inside it. Governor Curtin offered it back to her, but Davidson asked him to keep it, saying, "The finger that used to wear that ring will never wear it any more. The hand is dead, bt the soldier still lives."

Frances Day

William Fitzpatrick enlisted in the 126th Pennsylvania infantry, but died in a Virginia hospital in 1862. Not until many years later was it discovered that Sgt. Frank Mayne, who deserted after Fitzpatrick's death, was really Frances Day who had joined the infantry to be with her boyfriend.

The regimental historian states that Mayne was not heard from again until long afterwards when "... in the far West, a soldier, wounded badly in a great battle, could not conceal her sex, and Frances Day then told how she had followed Fitzpatrick into the army and became herself a soldier and a Sergeant ... of her desertion upon her lover's death, the the abandon and despair which led her to seek again the ranks of the army."

Except for her deathbed confession, Day's story would never have been known.

AN INCREDIBLE DECEPTION

Even if the estimate of 400 soldier-women is accepted as an upper limit, it’s an astonishing figure. How were so many women able to accomplish this incredible deception, when it’s inconceivable that a woman could enter the military under the same circumstances today?



Confederate Uniforms

First, army recruitment physical examinations during the Civil War were only as good as the surgeon who performed them. A recruit was unlikely to face an exam more rigorous than holding out his hands to demonstrate that he had a working trigger finger, or perhaps opening his mouth to show that his teeth were strong enough to rip open a minie ball cartridge. Sarah Edmonds, alias Pvt. Franklin Thompson, described her army medical exam as “a firm handshake” with an inquiry about “Frank’s” occupation.


Furthermore, army life in the 1860s differed significantly from the modern military. The soldiers who formed the rank and file early in the Civil War were led by volunteer officers, most of whom had as much to learn about military life as those under their command. There was no boot camp with intensive physical training as there is today. And, although living and sleeping arrangements were as close or closer than today’s standard, the fact that the majority of soldiers lived outside throughout the war, with the latitude to wash and attend to sanitary matters out of sight of comrades, made it possible for females in the ranks to avoid the scrutiny that would give them away. Societal standards of modesty ensured that no one would question a shy soldier’s reluctance to bathe in a river with his messmates or to relieve himself in the open company sinks.


Union Uniforms

A second, and very large, advantage for 19th century women was that gender identification in the Victorian age was more closely linked to attire and other superficial appearances than to physical characteristics. Voluminous hoop skirts were the order of the day for women, who wore their long hair in elaborate arrangements. A woman in pants in 1861 was a sight more rare than a man wearing a dress is today. Thus, if it wore pants, most people of the period would naturally have assumed that the person was a man. In polite society, speculating further or inquiring upon what lay beneath another person’s attire would mark the questioner as less than a gentleman or lady.

Broad acceptance of a person based on superficial appearances led to many interesting comments that reveal the naiveté of Civil War soldiers regarding the women secreted among them. Capt. Ira B. Gardner of the 14th Maine enrolled a soldier in his company who served for two years before he realized she was a female. Wrote Gardner, “I did not learn of her sex until the close of the war. If I had been anything but a boy, I should probably have seen from her form that she was a female.” Robert Hodges, a Confederate soldier, related this story in a letter home: “One of the soldiers directed my attention to a youth apparently about seventeen years of age well dressed with a lieutenant’s badge on his collar. I remarked I saw nothing strange. He then told me the young man was not a man but a female.”  Members of the famous Pvt. Franklin Thompson’s brigade referred to “him” as “Our Woman” because of “his” feminine mannerisms and “ridiculously small boots.”



Godleys Fashions for August 1862

A common element of women soldiers’ stories is their ability to recognize other women in the ranks while the men around them were oblivious to their female comrades’ deception. This suggests strongly that, while women knew what to look for in order to recognize other women in male attire, the men around them were either unfamiliar with the sight of women in pants or had extreme difficulty accepting the possibility that a fellow soldier might not be male. Certainly, the ill-fitting uniforms of the Civil War armies helped to conceal feminine physical characteristics, but a reluctance to accept that a female was a soldier must have been operating, particularly in cases where women served for very long periods of time without discovery. Biases about the physical, emotional, and intellectual abilities of women, as well as beliefs about appropriate and acceptable feminine roles, precluded the concept of a female soldier and rendered many men in the armies incapable of recognizing the women among them.

Yet a third circumstance enabled women to blend into the ranks with their male comrades. A large number of young and beardless boys whose voices had yet to change served in both the Confederate and Federal armed forces, and the armies of the Civil War were youthful in the main. The presence of pre-adolescent boys in the ranks unintentionally aided the likewise beardless and high-voiced men to go undetected.

From An uncommon Soldier: the Civil War letters of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, alias Pvt. Lyons Wakeman, 153rd Regiment, New York State Volunteers, 1862-1864

Lucy Matilda Thompson Gauss

Known during the Civil War as Pvt. Bill Thompson, Lucy Matilda Thompson Gauss cut her thick hair and disguised herself by wearing a pair of her husband's suits and boarded a train for Virginia to fight alongside him during the early years of the Civil War.

She was born November 21, 1812 in Bladenboro, North Carolina. Tall and masculine ... though not without feminine charm, she was a deft horsewoman, expert with a rifle and relished hunting.

In 1861, just as the war erupted, Thompson married Bryant Gauss who soon joined the Army of the Confederacy. Fearing he would be killed and lie unidentified, the new Mrs. Gauss oiled her squirrel musket and enlisted in Company D, 18th North Carolina Infantry, Confederate States of America. Neighbors and friends sympathized with her bravery and kept her identity secret. So did Captain Robert Tate and Lieutenant Wiley Sykes, who admired her ability with a rifle, her talent for jokes as well as her husky throated singing voice. They also prized her skill to nurse the camp's sick and wounded.

Masquerading as a man, Lucy participated in a number of battles, receiving a head wound either at the First Battle of Manassas or the Siege of Richmond. In any case, an iron shell scrap tore open her scalp from forehead to crown, sent her to a hospital for two months. Somehow she managed to conceal her identity and fled back to her unit as soon as she could.

Bryant Gauss was killed at the Seven Days Battle near Richmond. Lucy Gauss obtained permanent furlough and took him for burial. She bore her first child, Mary Caroline Gauss, on January 21, 1864. After the war, the widow and small child moved to Savannah, where in late 1866, Lucy Gauss married union army veteran, Joseph P. Kenney. Together they had six children. Remarkably, Mrs. Kenney gave birth to their first at the age of 55 in 1868, and the last in 1881 at the age of 69!

Lucy kept her military exploits a secret until 1914, when she told her story to her pastor. Fearing nothing at the age of 102 but God, Lucy's motto was, "Hold your head up and die hard."

She lived in various parts of Georgia before she died in Nicholls, Georgia at the remarkable age of 112 years, 7 months and 2 days. Lucy Gauss Kenney is buried in the Meeks Cemetery near Nicholls. Joseph Kenney died September 7, 1913 at the age of 107 years 5 months and I day.

Mary Galloway

Battle of the Wilderness

The records of Catholic orders include reports of female soldiers discovered in hospitals. One chronicler of Catholic orders reports that Catholic sisters were especially given two unusual duties: acting as peacemakers between quarreling soldiers and attending to female soldiers who often were first discovered when wounded or sick. In hospitals where there were sisters, such cases were assigned to them and several different communities of sisters noted their care of such women.

Margaret Hamilton, a Catholic sister from New York, reported that while serving at the U.S. Military Hospital in Philadelphia:

"We received a large number of wounded after the battle of the Wilderness (May 5-7, 1864) and among them was a young woman not more than 20 years of age. She ranked as lieutenant and was wounded in the shoulder. Her sex was not discovered until she came to our hospital. It appears that she had followed her lover to the battle; and the boys who were brought in with her said that no one in the company showed more bravery than she. She was discharged very soon after entering the ward."

Other nurses also discovered female soldiers among their patiends. Clara Barton, whose fame spread across the country and around the world, was caring for wounded soldiers during the battle of Antietam in 1862. While giving one soldier a drink of water, a bullet tore through her sleeve and killed him. Later Barton observed that another soldier's face appeared to be "too safe," and she became suspicious when the soldier was hesitant to have his chest wound treated.

The soldier turned out to be Mary Galloway who had enlisted to be with her husband. Barton shepherded and shielded the girl and located her lover in a Washington Hospital. She persuaded the girl to reveal her true identity and go home after recuperation. Later Barton reported that the couple had named a daughter after her.

Marian Green

1st Michigan Engineers & Mechanics

When Marian Green's boyfriend enlisted in the 1st Michigan Engineers and Mechanics regiment in the fall of 1861, she saw him off to war in December. Unable to bear being away from him, she arranged with a certain surgeon to enlist in a detachment recruited for the regiment and, in summer 1862, joined the regiment along with many other new recruits and spent that summer building bridges on the Memphis and Charleston railroad.

That fall the boyfriend was taken ill and sent to the hospital. A couple of days later, Green showed up at his bedside, remaining for months to nurse him and other patients. She had kept her sex a secret as a soldier in the regiment, but the boy wrote to her parents informing them of her presence. Her parents informed the military and arranged for her return home. Later, when a portion of the regiment returned to Detroit for discharge, Marian met her boyfriend there and they were married.

Jennie Hodgers

Jennie Hodgers, daughter of Sallie and Patrick Hodgers, was born in Clogherhead, Ireland on December 25, 1844. She sailed to America as a stowaway and settled in Belvidere, Illinois. Little is known about her early life because her true identity was not discovered until a few years before her death.

By 1862, Jennie was living in Belvidere, Illinois. As the Civil War escalated that July, President Lincoln sent out a call for an additional 300,000 men to serve in the Union Army, inspiring 19-year-old Jennie Hodgers to serve her country. So, on August 6, 1862 she disguised herself as Pvt. Albert D. J. Cashier and enlisted in the Union Army’s 95th Illinois Infantry Regiment. She marked an "X" on the enlistment papers, because she couldn't read or write, and passed a cursory physical exam that involved nothing more than a quick look at the eyes and ears.

Described as five feet, three inches tall and weighing 110 pounds, she was the shortest person in her regiment. Other soldiers thought that "Cashier" was just a small man who preferred his privacy, which was not unusual in those days. She endured long marches, lived out in the open and performed all duties required of a Union soldier. Comrades later recalled she was a skilled rifleman.

The 95th Regiment mustered into Federal service at Camp Fuller, Illinois on September 4, 1862 and headed to Grand Junction, Tennessee a month later. There it became part of General Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Tennessee. They fought in the Red River Campaign, the combat at Guntown, Mississippi, where they suffered heavy casualties, and the Siege of Vicksburg. (When Hodgers was captured by the Confederates during the Vicksburg Campaign, she managed to escape by grabbing a guard's rifle and knocking him senseless with it.)  During 1864, the 95th pursued Confederate General Sterling Price during his Missouri raid. In December of that year, they fought at the Battle of Nashville, the last major battle in the Western Theater. Sent to the Gulf of Mexico, the regiment ended its military service by taking part in the siege and capture of Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely in March 1865.

Hodgers was mustered out of the Union Army with the remainder of the regiment on August 17, 1865, after serving for three years and 11 days in the ranks. She had marched thousands of miles, fought in more than 40 battles and earned a reputation for bravery and tenacity under fire.

She and her fellow soldiers returned to Illinois where they were honored with a huge public rally before returning to civilian life. Jennie had escaped the war without serious injury, allowing her to keep her identity a secret. She returned to Belvidere and soon moved on to several other Illinois towns, working at odd jobs. Still posing as Albert Cashier, she finally settled in Saunemin, Illinois in 1869 where she bought a small house.

Jennie performed many different jobs over the next 40 years: janitor of a church, farm worker, town lamplighter and handyman. She also voted in elections, long before Illinois gave women the right to vote, and gained a reputation of being a somewhat eccentric. She applied for a veteran's pension in 1899, but didn't complete the process until 1907 because it required a medical exam. She somehow convinced the examining board not to divulge her secret and the pension was granted.

Her secret began to unravel in November 1810 while at work picking up sticks at the home of Illinois State Senator Ira M. Lish. Unable to see her small form behind him, the senator backed his car down the driveway and struck her, breaking her leg. A doctor discovered her sex while examining her leg. She pleaded with them to keep her secret, and they decided that no good would be served by making her true gender public knowledge.

Jennie never recovered fully from the accident, and within months, the Senator and doctor agreed that she needed institutional care because she was totally disabled. On May 5, 1911, she was moved from Saunemin to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home in Quincy, Illinois where she was admitted as a man. In March 1914, the Home decided that the continuing decline in her mental health warranted her being placed in the State Hospital for the Insane at East Moline, Illinois. This required a court hearing, and although her gender was not referred to at the hearing, word got out and the press broke the story. At the hospital, she was forced to wear dresses for the first time in more than 50 years. She fought back for a long time before finally giving in.

She died at the Watertown State Hospital on October 10, 1915. Wearing her Union uniform, of which she was so proud and with her casket draped with an American flag, she was given a military funeral in East Moline on October 12. Her body was moved to Saunemin, where she was buried as Albert Cashier in Sunny Slope Cemetery. Upon the headstone over her grave was inscribed the masculine name she carried into battle and bore throughout her life. In the 1980s, measures were taken to correctly identify the gravesite. Visitors will now find two headstones in place - the original veteran marker and a larger memorial stone.

It took W.J. Singleton, executor of her estate, nine years to track Cashier's identity back to Jennie Hodgers. The people of Saunemin have not forgotten their little soldier of the Civil War. On Memorial Day, 1977, they erected a larger monument that bears the name Jennie Hodgers. Her name is also inscribed on the Illinois monument at Vicksburg.

What separates Jennie from the other females who dressed as men to fight in the Civil War is that she was the only one to serve for the full time that her unit served, and the only one to survive the war without anyone discovering her gender. Sooner or later, all the other women were found out and told to go home, or served as nurses in field hospitals. Why she continued to live as a man long after her military service ended remains a mystery.

Frances Hook

Frances Hook and her brother were orphans who enlisted together early in the war. She was 22-years-old, of medium build, with hazel eyes and brown hair. Even though her brother was killed in action at Pittsburgh Landing, Frances continued service, probably in an Illinois infantry regiment, under the alias Pvt. Frank Miller/Frank Henderson/Frank Fuller.

In early 1864, Confederates captured her near Florence, Alabama; she was shot in the thigh during a battle and left behind with other wounded, who were also captured. While imprisoned in Atlanta, her captors realized her gender. After her exchange at Graysville, Georgia on February 17, 1864, she was cared for in Union hospital in Tennessee, then discharged and sent North in June. Having no one to return to, she may have reenlisted in another guise and served the rest of the war.

Francis later married and, on March 17, 1908, her daughter wrote the AGO seeking confirmation of her mother's military service. AGO clerks searched pertinent records and located documentation.

Nancy Jenkins

Unidentified Union Soldiers

Nancy Jenkins, alias John Smith, was discovered wearing a Yankee uniform by the pro-Confederate Buck family of Front Royal, Virginia.

When they found her taking water from their well, she pleaded for their help, claiming she had taken refuge with a black family near town. She told them Union soldiers had barged into the home, taken her prisoner, cut her hair, forced her to wear a uniform and enlisted her in the Union army. She told them that after escaping her captors, she joined another regiment, finally obtaining a pass out of camp.

Believing her story, they took her to a Confederate provost marshal who gave her a pass to travel South. The Bucks gave her clothing and food and wished her well on her way home.

Martha Parks Lindley

6th U.S. Cavalry

When William Lindley enlisted in the 6th U.S. Cavalry, his wife, Martha Parks Lindley, did not want to be left behind. Wearing his clothes, she joined his regiment under the alias James Smith. Although she told the recruiter that she had been a soldier, she was actually a mother who was leaving her two children behind with her sister. Her husband pleaded with her to go home and take care of them, but she insisted on staying in the army. “I was frightened half to death,” she admitted, “but I was so anxious to be with my husband that I resolved to see the thing through if it killed me”

Although her husband was hospitalized in October 1862, Martha stayed with the unit until her discharge in August 1864. Life as a soldier presented many new opportunities for her, and one of them turned out to be voting. In 1864, still in her disguise as Jim Smith, she cast a ballot for Abraham Lincoln – the first and last vote of her life, since women could not legally vote until 1919.

MAP ~ UNION & CONFEDERATE PRISON CAMPS

Union & Confederate Prison Camps

1. Bell Isle—Richmond, VA 2. Cahaba Prison—Cahaba, AL 3. Camp Chase—Columbus, OH 4. Camp Douglas—Chicago, IL 5. Camp Florence—Florence, SC 6. Camp Lawton—Millen, GA 7. Camp Morton—Indianapolis, IN 8. Camp Sumter—Andersonville, GA

9. Castle Pickney—Charleston, SC 10. Elmira Prison—Elmira, NY 11. Johnson's Island—Sandusky, OH 12. Libby Prison—Richmond, VA 13. Old Capitol Prison—DC 14. Point Lookout—Point Lookout, MD 15. Rock Island—Rock Island, IL 16. Salisbury—Salisbury, NC

Harriet Merrill

On recruitment duty in Watertown, New York, Captain Jerome Taft of the 59th New York Infantry met a young prostitute named Harriet Merrill, who later arrived at the camp of the 59th and enlisted in Company G in November 1861. he was given the standard quartermaster issue of clothing and enlisted in Company G. She was not required to submit to a physical examination.

Though Taft promised he would keep her secret, he discussed her with several other officers and rumors soon spread around camp. Within two months it was no longer a secret that there was a woman among them.

In January 1862, Taft was court-martialed for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, including inducing Harriet Merrill to "don the habiliments of a male, that she might enlist." Though he was found guilty of other charges, including stealing, marauding and lying, he was not convicted of persuading Merrill to become a soldier, as it was clearly her idea.

Merrill was discharged prior to Taft's court-martial but was allowed to testify. She under oath that she "performed all the duties that the rest of the soldiers did."

 

Elizabeth Niles