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.