by Karen Holt, www.examiner.com
An ancient Chinese legend tells the story of a young woman, Hua Mulan, who lived during the Wei dynasty. It is said that when Mulan turned 18, she enlisted in the all-male army to fight against the nomadic Mongolian tribes who threatened China. She went in place of her father, who was too old and her younger brother, who at the time was too young, to serve. She was offered a title in honor of her service, but turned it down, returned home and lived out the rest of her life, dying of old age, not war service.
In years to come, the legend of Mulan would become a reality as women began to go to war disguised as men to fight for a cause they believed in. By doing so, they too bore arms, lived in germ-ridden camps, experienced capture and prison camp incarceration, and many times died for their cause. The Civil War is ripe with stories of women who did just this – on both sides of the conflict.
Though both the Confederate and Union armies had a standing rule against women enlisting, it did little to deter the intense desire of many patriotic women who were unwavering in their desire to serve. In an effort to circumvent the rules, women were forced to disguise the fact they were female and assume masculine names. Due to this fact, it is virtually impossible to calculate exactly how many women truly did serve in the military.
In some instances, the woman’s gender was revealed due to casualty or accident. Mary Owens, for example, was discovered to be a woman when she suffered a wound to her arm and was sent back to her home in Pennsylvania where she received a warm welcome. Prior to the discovery, she had served in the Union Army for 18 months wearing the name John Evans.
Sarah Rosetta Wakeman was another of the many women who served undercover. Born into a large family and raised in the dairy country of New York, she left home at the age of 19 to seek work. Given the fact women of her time had few career choices, none of which offered a suitable wage, she changed her name to Lyons and assumed a male appearance. By doing so, ‘he’ was able to obtain work on a barge and earned a large enough income to allow him to send a portion of his wages home to his family.
So convincing was Lyons’ deception, ‘he’ was approached by recruiters to join the Union Army. The $152 sign-on bonus was too good to pass up, so Lyons agreed and served in the 153rd NY State Volunteers. Lyons served for two years and participated in a great deal of combat. Eventually, the stress of war proved too much for Lyons, who reported to the regiment’s hospital with a chronic case of diarrhea on May 3, 1864. On May 22nd, Lyons was transferred to New Orleans and died on June 19th. ‘He’ was later buried in the Chalmette National Cemetery under the name of Private Lyons Wakeman.
Due to the fact both the Union and Confederate Armies denied women the right to enlist, neither held any regard for those who did. On October 21, 1909, Ida Tarbell, a writer for The American Magazine, sent a letter to General F. C. Ainsworth, who was at that time the adjutant general. In her letter, she sought an answer to the question of whether or not he was aware of how many women had actually enlisted and served in the Civil War. A short time later Ms. Tarbell received a reply from the Records & Pension Office (a division of the Adjutant General’s Office), signed by Ainsworth. In his response, he stated no official records were available to indicate any women had served, either in the Regular or Volunteer Army, during any period of the Civil War. He did accept the possibility some may have slipped in unknown for a brief period without it being known they were women; however, no record of such occurrences were listed in the official files.
General Ainsworth’s statement was later proven to be totally false. One of the major duties of the Adjutant General’s Office (AGO) was to maintain the archives of the U.S. Army. Great care was taken by the AGO to do just that. When the compiled military services records (CMSR) of 1909 were referenced, documentation regarding the service of women soldiers during the Civil War was indeed available.
When history studies the efforts of the women soldiers who served during the Civil War, the title ‘trailblazer’ is definitely appropriate. Their determination to serve the cause they believed in set a high standard for today’s service women to uphold and carry on in their respective military branches.
