I would like to introduce you to another fascinating tale from my latest book, The Pig War & the Pelican Girls. Both general readers looking for a good story and armchair historians will find this collection of forgotten American history a fascinating read - 21 main stories plus 21 shorter footnotes to history, like this story about Civil War "soldier girls." The book is available now at your favorite local and online bookstore.
The general historical overview of the Civil War paints a picture of it being a man’s war. Men took up their guns and were either drafted, volunteered, or forced into service to fight the incredibly bloody battles while the women were relegated to maintaining the farms back home or acted as nurses for the wounded. The truth is that women, on both the Union and Confederate sides, took up arms themselves to fight.
A wonderful story of these “soldier girls” is that of Private Franklin Thompson who fought with the Union’s 2nd Infantry Unit. Thompson was, in reality, Canadian born Sarah Evelyn Edmonds.
Sarah enjoyed the physical work and was described as energetic and adventurous. She loved to ride horses, became an excellent marksman, and a strong swimmer. When her family arranged her to marry an older man at the age of fifteen, she ran away and soon disappeared, taking up the male identity of “Frank Thompson.”
After moving to Flint, Michigan, the Civil War broke out and Sarah made the decision to volunteer to fight with the Union army. So how did Sarah pass the physical required to join the military? The requirements were hardly stringent: the volunteer must not be blind, lame, have all of their limbs, and not be subject to having fits. For the physical exam, they were not required to strip down, only to have a firm handshake. Sarah, with her physical abilities, was a shoe in to pass the physical.
Sarah was able to remain incognito by bathing in streams and creeks near the troop’s encampments and slept in her clothes. While she was assigned to being the regiment’s male nurse, she did encounter the realities of war taking part in both battles of Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Antietam. Afterwards, she volunteered to become a Union spy. Shaving her head, donning a curly wig, and painting her exposed skin with silver nitrate, she posed as a slave named “Cuff” and infiltrated a group of Black laborers working in a confederate camp in Yorktown. After overhearing Confederate plans for an attack, she slipped away in the cover of darkness and relayed the intelligence to the Union army who made a surprise attack on the rebels and scored an impressive victory.
Eventually, Sarah deserted because she had contracted malaria and did not want to have her cover blown. Sarah relinquished her identity of Frank Thompson and married. When she attended the regiment’s reunion, the men were shocked and surprised that Frank Thompson was actually Sarah Edmonds.
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