Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 111, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1917 — American Women Who fought as Soldiers [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

American Women Who fought as Soldiers

Memorial Day brings to mind many of the gentler sex who enlisted either by stealth or openly on both sides and fought bravely shoulder to shoulder with men during the Civil War-"

fN THE war now being fought over in Europe women get into men's uni- [ forms and fight battles. For Instance, there is one ■ girl by the name of Tom- ; aszeff who made a wonderful record in the Russian army ; and many a woman like her has won similar fame. Yet there has been no war in which girls and ty women have not won this kind of celebrity. The Civil war was certainly no exception. , There were many girls who fought through the war on both the Union and Confederate sides. For example. Dr. Mary E. Walker received a commission ns assistant surgeon, and went through the war with it, but there were many women who enlisted and went through hard service without making Doctor Walker’s reputation. For example, there was Frances Hook, a fourteen-year-old girl, who enlisted with her brother at Chicago. The two enlisted in the Sixty-fifth Illinois and were mustered out after three months. Frances Hook, wearing male clothes, enlisted in the Nineteenth. Her brother was killed at Shiloh, but the girl, still wearing the clothes of a nujn. fought through the war until Chickamauga, when she was captured and shot through the leg In an attempt to escape. While she was a prisoner ill Atlanta, Jefferson Davis is said to have offered her a lieutenancy if she would join the Confederate forces. Frances, it is said, replied to President Davis’ offer that she would let herself be hanged before she would take up arms against the Union. She_ had enlisted under the name of Frank Miller. In one of the regiments from Ohio a girl enlisted. She was the sister of a member of the regiment. While at Camp Jackson and Camp Dennison she handled lumber, performed sentry duty, and did other work of that sort. It was two weeks before she learned that there were two Camp Dennisons, and that her brother was at the other one. Straightway she made application for a transfer and failed. She wanted to go to the Pennsylvania Camp Dennison, and she wanted to go badly. The colonel of the regiment, a good sort of fellow named Morrow, talked to the girl for some time and made her confess that she was flying under false colors. Without much ceremony she was dismissed and home. Just after the battle of Chickamauga, Colonel Burke of the Tenth Ohio exchanged a large number of prisoners with the Confederates. He noticed a particularly clever and able young man among the prisoners he received —a boy who gave the name of Frank Henderson. The colonel became Interested enough to inquire who Frank was, and found out that he was a girl. He, or rather she, had enlisted with her brother at the outbreak of the war. They were orphans, and were devoted to each other, and she could not bear -the thought of being sep-. arated from him. He had been her only companion from bflbyhood.

At the expiration of her enlistment for three months in the regiment she was mustered out, and next enlisted in another regiment from southern Illinois, where her sex was not discovered. She was wounded two or three times, discharged and sent home, and enlisted again in the Nineteenth Illinois. She was finally captured, and a bullet wound in her leg led to the discovery of her sex. There is no braver story in all the annals of war than that of Mary Owens. She came from a place called Danviile, inPennsylvania. Iler hus* band decided to qnllst. Mary went with him; she and he went to the front together; she had eloped with him, and now she was ready to carry her decision to the limit. Man and wife, they fought together until a bullet put the man out of the running; and even then the woman fought on. A Southern bullet struck her in the chest and she went to the hospital, but-on the record were written the words, “A more faithful soldier never shouldered a musket.” s? In Brooklyn, N. Y., a girl enlisted and fought to the finish through the war until she was mortally wounded in Hooker’s advance on Lookout mountain. 2 Fanny Wilson enlisted in the Twen-ty-fourth New Jersey in order to fol-

low her sweetheart, who was a ndemfield. He knew nothing of her action, but she saw him every day and came near being assigned to the same mess tent with him. At Vicksburg Miss Wilson was shot. So was the young man; apd Miss Wilson, who nursed him, (lid not reveal her identity to him until just as the boy was dying. She stayed by him, closed his eyes, and then went to Cairo and got an engagement as a chorus girl. A little while later she enlisted again, still in male clothes, as a member of the Third Illinois. She was taken to the headquarters of the commanding officer, it being suspected that she might be a Confederate spy, but she made it clear that she was.~a-good, loyal Federal soldier. In one of t he—Pennsylvania regi - ments a bright little girl of twelve years enlisted as a drummer boy. She gave the name df“Charles Martin, and she appeared to be a clever little fellow and made herself useful to the officers of the regiment in the capacity of a clerk. She was in five battles, but always escaped without a bullet wound. Her superior officers never suspected her sex for a moment. It was nbt until she tvas taken to a hospital in Philadelphia suffering from typhoid fever that her sex was discovered. An officer of the Seventeenth Illinois, by the name of Reynolds? had his wife made a major. Reynolds himself was a lieutenant. She was a scout and spy and made no effort to conceal her sex. A girl named Annie LlllybridgevzSt: Detroit became betrothed to a lieutenant in the Twenty-first Michigan and decided to put on soldier’s clothes and serve with him until the end of the war. She enlisted in the same regiment without his knowledge and carefully hid her identity. She even went so far as to enlist in -adifferent com-

pany from his. One of her comrades, -H-fiersever-al--months, of the secret of her sex, and when he was killed in battle the girl found his body in the field. She was finally disabled 5y a shot in the arm and, het sex being- discovered,-she was sent home. Major Pauline Cushman was one of the cleverest servants the Union army had throughout the war. She was an actress who lived in Cleveland and was employed as ah officer of the Union army. As scout, spy, and soldier, the girl major made a reputation -second to none in the Northern army. Pauline Cushman^ has left a reputation only second to that of Belie Lloyd, to whom Stonewall Jackson wrote that she had saved his army. Mary Siezgle, the wife of a soldier in the Forty-fourth New York, enlisted with him and fought in the battle or Gettysburg. She served for a while as a nurse, but afterward put on male cldthes and did her share in actual fighting. One little heroine of the war had the honor of being complimented in general orders. She was a flfteen-year-old girl named Schwartz, living in a farmhouse about twelve miles from Jefferson City, Mo. On the night of August 6, 1863, a party of bushwhackers who had heard that it was a rendezvous of Union men attacked it. Th ere were four men in the house, one being the child’s father; they all fled and left her alone to confront the guerrillas. The little girl intrepidly opened the door with a revolver in her hand which the men had abandoned In their flight and said, “Come on, if you want to. Solin eof you will fall or I will.” The bushwhackers told her that if she did not leave the doorway they would kill her. “The first one who takes a step toward this door dies,” was the girl’s response, and the marauders left. —New York Times; —