Who does Kerry Washington portray?

Kerry Washington portrays the cute, young, "smart as a whip" Charity Adams.  She interrupted her college studies (triple major of Mathematics, Physics, and Latin, with a minor in History) to enlist.  A 26-year-old lieutenant colonel  in the army!  Boy did she have a time with the crusty, old, "good boys" that the military favored!  Her retort to an overbearing, puffed up general was "Over my dead body, sir".  She then began to file charges against him.  By the completion of the war, Lieutenant Colonel Adams was the highest ranking African-American woman in the military.