Sarah Emma Edmonds
Sarah Emma Emmonds
Sarah Emma Edmonds was born in New Brunswick, Canada in 1841. She lived on a farm, and she and her sisters performed the same chores and tasks as their brother. This was not uncommon for 19th century farm girls. Gender roles and biases were not as clearly defined on farms, especially not when a farm family needed as much help as possible from all its children, regardless of sex.
When she was 19 she assumed the identity of a man ("Franklin Thomas") and crossed the border into the United States. When the Civil War broke out in 1861 she was living in Flint, Michigan and working as a traveling Bible salesman. She enlisted in the Union army on May 17, 1861. She was in Company F of the 2nd Michigan Infantry Volunteers.
Records show that Edmonds served as a "male" nurse for the first months of the war. She was then assigned to be the regiment's postmaster and then it's mail carrier. She participated in battles at Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Fredericksburg, and in the Seven Days' battle. It seems that she also participated in some sort of espionage during her time in the army.
Developing a close relationship with a medical steward and assistant surgeon named Jerome John Robbins, Edmonds finally revealed her secret to him after a long correspondence and friendship. It seems that she may have been in love with him, and when he revealed that he was engaged to another woman back home, their relationship turned strained, although it improved again later.
In 1863 Edmonds came down with an illness and was afraid that she would be confined to a hospital and her identity discovered. After being denied a leave of absence, she did what she felt she had to to avoid detection: she deserted. She did however, continue her service to the Union in the form of a female nurse.
She wrote a memoir she called Unsexed; or, The Female Soldier. It was reissued the next year in 1865 under the tamer title Nurse and Spy in the Union Army. She married Linus H. Seelye and had three children who all died in childhood. They adopted two sons to make up for this loss. Needing a veteran's pension, she applied in 1882, but had to remove the stigma of being a deserter. Her former regiment testified on her behalf and she won a pension of $12 a month and the charge of desertion was deleted from her record. She died on September 5, 1898 in La Porte, Texas.
When she was 19 she assumed the identity of a man ("Franklin Thomas") and crossed the border into the United States. When the Civil War broke out in 1861 she was living in Flint, Michigan and working as a traveling Bible salesman. She enlisted in the Union army on May 17, 1861. She was in Company F of the 2nd Michigan Infantry Volunteers.
Records show that Edmonds served as a "male" nurse for the first months of the war. She was then assigned to be the regiment's postmaster and then it's mail carrier. She participated in battles at Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Fredericksburg, and in the Seven Days' battle. It seems that she also participated in some sort of espionage during her time in the army.
Developing a close relationship with a medical steward and assistant surgeon named Jerome John Robbins, Edmonds finally revealed her secret to him after a long correspondence and friendship. It seems that she may have been in love with him, and when he revealed that he was engaged to another woman back home, their relationship turned strained, although it improved again later.
In 1863 Edmonds came down with an illness and was afraid that she would be confined to a hospital and her identity discovered. After being denied a leave of absence, she did what she felt she had to to avoid detection: she deserted. She did however, continue her service to the Union in the form of a female nurse.
She wrote a memoir she called Unsexed; or, The Female Soldier. It was reissued the next year in 1865 under the tamer title Nurse and Spy in the Union Army. She married Linus H. Seelye and had three children who all died in childhood. They adopted two sons to make up for this loss. Needing a veteran's pension, she applied in 1882, but had to remove the stigma of being a deserter. Her former regiment testified on her behalf and she won a pension of $12 a month and the charge of desertion was deleted from her record. She died on September 5, 1898 in La Porte, Texas.