Embedded Files
Frances Clayton enlisted as "Jack Williams"
In Healing Wars, we see a female soldier disguised as a man. Though rare, it was certainly not unheard of for women to adopt a male identity in order to fight. In the Civil War alone, there are an estimated 500-1,000 such "disguised soldiers," and other historical conflicts report similar numbers.
While we most often hear of men's contribution to wartime, the contribution of women is just as large - both on the battlefield and the homefront.
THE DISGUISED SOLDIER
THE DISGUISED SOLDIER
Both the Union and Confederate armies forbade women to enlist, so women that wanted to fight had to assume masculine names, dress as men, and put forth pain-staking effort to hide their female identity. Because they passed as men, and because identification documents did not exist, it is impossible to know for sure how many women soldiers served in the Civil War. Additionally, not every female soldier was revealed as a woman; most often, the soldier's peers only learned of her identity in death or after injury. Upon discovery, the soldier would be discharged.
When soldiers were revealed as women, their stories comprised some of the gossip of both army and civilian life. These soldier-women were no secret. The literate public was enamored by them, fascinated by the simple fact that they had been in the army more than their actual military exploits, though most articles did provide specific details about a woman's army career. Much of the information we have today is from these obituaries.
On several occasions, the U.S. Army tried to deny the official existence of women soldiers. Despite their erasure, we know the stories of several such women:
Lizzie Compton enlisted at the age of fourteen, and served in seven different regiments. She holds the record for the most reenlistments. She was discharged after the discovery of her sex while being treated for injuries from a riding incident.
Sarah Collins, a 16 year old schoolgirl who enlisted in the Wisconsin regiment with her brother. Though she cut off her hair and wore men's clothing, Collins' sex was suspected because of how she put on her shoes and socks, and she never left for the war.
Elizabeth A. Niles enlisted with her husband in the 14th Vermont Infantry and participated in battles including First Battle of Bull Run, Antietam, and Gettysburg. Despite injuries, she remained undetected, and mustered out in 1864 with her husband.
Wikipedia hosts an extended list of known women that fought as men during the Civil War.
Elizabeth A. Niles' obituary
ALBERT CASHIER
ALBERT CASHIER
Perhaps the most well known "disguised soldier" in the Civil War is Jennie Hodgers, who served in the 95th Illinois as Albert Cashier. Albert D.J. Cashier was an Irish-born immigrant who enlisted in July 1862 after President Lincoln's call for soldiers. An eighteen year old at the time, Cashier served a three year term and fought in approximately forty battles.
After the war, Cashier returned to Illinois and did something unusual among other disguised soldiers: Cashier continued to live as a man for the next 50 years. Cashier died on October 10, 1915 at the age of 71, and their death began efforts to track Cashier’s identity back to birth. Albert Cashier was buried in uniform, given an official Grand Army of the Republic funeral service, and was buried with full military honors. Posthumously, several historians and authors have suggested that Cashier was a trans man, due to living as a man for at least 53 years.
Cashier's legacy has been cemented in various media:
A biography, Also Known As Albert D. J. Cashier: The Jennie Hodgers Story by Lon P. Dawson
A novel, My Last Skirt by Lynda Durrant, based on Cashier's life
A musical, The Civility of Albert Cashier, by Jay Paul Deratany, Joe Stevens, and Keaton Wooden
The Albert Cashier musical adopts the idea that Cashier was the first known trans soldier. To the right is a clip from the musical, a song entitled "Bullet In a Gun." The song is performed by Dani Shay, a well-known nonbinary performer.
NON-combat contributions
NON-combat contributions
As men were called to war, women with husbands took over all household duties and had to support their children and loved ones. In the North, some women and children worked in factories and cloth mills for 12 hour days to earn less than $2 a week (the military paid $13/month). Women who did not have to run businesses or work banded together to sew bandages and clothing for troops, or gather supplies, or cook food. Some single women joined the the likes of Clara Barton and became nurses for the wounded.
Harriet Tubman
Other women served as informants for the war effort. These included:
"Wild Rose" Rose O'Neal Greenhow, the ringleader of a network of anti-Union spies. She gleaned critical information from politicians and diplomats and passed their secrets to Confederate contacts. Confederate President Jefferson Davis credited Greenhow for his army's success at the First Battle of Bull Run.
Harriet Tubman, best known for ushering slaves to freedom in the Underground Railroad of the 1850s. She recruited groups of Black men who infiltrated Confederate lines, posed as servants or slaves, and gathered military intelligence. Tubman led an armed expedition along the Combahee River which disrupted Confederate supply lines and liberated 700 slaves.
Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union spy from Richmond, Virginia. During the war, Van Lew and her mother brought clothes, food, and medicine to Union soldiers in Richmond's Libby Prison. Van Lew helped men escape, smuggled out letters for them, and gathered information about Confederate strategy from prisoners and guards. In 1863, she became the head of an espionage network and sent coded messages to Union officers using invisible ink and hollowed-out eggs and vegetables.
women in the war today
women in the war today
While the U.S. military has been, at times, one of America's most progressive institutions, it also tends to embody a traditional, conservative, and "macho" culture. Women were formally allowed into the military in 1948, but it was not until Obama's presidency that all combat positions were available to women. Today, women represent approximately 16% of enlisted forces and 19% of the officer corps. Issues of representation are slowly improving, but the "macho" culture of the military contributes to a list of key issues women face while in service.
These issues include (but are not limited to) retention, homelessness, gender discrimination, and military sexual trauma. Military sexual trauma (MST), defined by the Veteran's Affairs Department, refers to sexual assault or sexual harassment experienced during military service. Veterans of of all backgrounds and gender identities have experienced MST, but women - especially Black women - are disproportionately affected. Data from the VA's universal screening program reveals that about 1 in 3 women and 1 in 50 men have experienced MST.
Because the trauma occurs while in the military, where a soldier expects their unit and the institution to support them, survivors of MST are subject to unique barriers that might prevent one from speaking out. These include having to continue to live and work with (and even rely on) the perpetrator(s), worry about damaging unit bonds, living far away from sources of support, and the fear that others finding out will hurt your career prospects.
Many instances of MST go unreported, and those that are reported might be swept under the rug or ignored by superiors. Some are reported, but female veterans' disability claims for PTSD related to MST are denied at a significantly higher frequency than claims unrelated to MST. In the recent past, as more civilians learn about the epidemic of military sexual trauma, organizations have formed to combat the issue.
For more information, you can visit these sites: Protect Our Defenders, Make the Connection, American Civil Liberties Union
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