Memoirs of a Soldier, Nurse and Spy

Among the hundreds of women who, in disguise, enlisted to serve as men in the Union army, only Sarah Edmonds is known to have written a memoir recounting her experiences. As "Franklin Thompson" she joined the 2nd Michigan Infantry Regiment in 1861, then fought in and witnessed some of the bloodiest struggles of the Civil War - from Blackburn's Ford and First Bull Run, through the Peninsula campaign with McClellan's Army of the Potomac, the battle of Fredericksburg, and then to the Kentucky campaign in 1863. When need arose, this woman embarked upon dangerous missions into Confederate territory to gather information and to survey enemy positions, sometimes in the guise of an Irish washerwoman or slave. As an infantry soldier and "male nurse", Sarah Edmonds chronicles the horrors of Civil War hospitals and the simple pastimes of camp life. Throughout her memoirs, this storyteller reveals her courage, dedication to the Union, and resourcefulness in sustaining her complicated masquerade.