A woman’s valor crosses national (and gender) lines.
FIGHTING FOR THE UNION, JACK!
Although she was Canadian, Sarah Emma Edmonds enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War. She joined the Michigan Volunteer Infantry Company. It may have seemed odd for a woman to be accepted into the ranks of the Union Army, but her fellow soldiers has no clue she was a woman. She signed up while disguised as a man and maintained secret identities throughout her service in the military. She sneaked behind enemy lines while pretending to be a black man or an Irish peddler woman.
IT’S A GIRL!
Sarah Emma Edmondson was born in 1841 in Magaguadavic, New Brunswick, to a hot-tempered father, a farmer who had always wanted a boy who would help him with the crops. The father was so overcome with disappointment that he treated Sarah horribly. To win the approval of her father Sarah did all she could to prove that she was as worthy as a boy. Some accounts say that she hid all traces of femininity and dressed as a boy. Despite her efforts, her father continued to abuse her. So at age 16, Sarah left home and changed her name to Edmonds. Although she worked a short time in Moncton, New Brunswick, she feared that her father would find her, so she took off for the United States.
To protect herself from being discovered, Edmonds cropped her hair, bought a man’s suit, and traveled disguised as a man under the name Franklin Thompson. Dressed as Franklin, she landed a job as a traveling Bible salesman with a firm in Hartford, Connecticut.
NOT EXACTLY AN OPEN BOOK
Edmonds proved herself to be a successful salesman. Leading up to the Civil War, she passionately defended Union beliefs and objectives. When the war broke out in 1861, Edmonds—who was then living in Flint, Michigan—wanted to help the Union cause. She thought she could contribute most by enlisting as a male soldier under her assumed identity of Franklin Thompson. Fortunately, at the time, the physical required only that the enlistee answer questions, and not have a full medical examination.
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As Thompson, Edmonds served as a hospital attendant, helping wounded soldiers. In March 1862, she accepted a post as a mail carrier and later was transferred to Virginia to fight as part of General McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign. Her regiment played a vital role in the siege of Yorktown in the spring of 1862.
During this time, Edmonds decided to become a spy. A Union agent working under McClellan had been captured and reportedly faced a firing squad. McClellan was now in need of a new spy. Edmonds heard of the position and decided to apply. Her preparation—intensely studying all she could about military tactics, local geography, and weaponry—paid off, and she officially became an agent for the Union forces.
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HER FRIEND
Historians say that there is no official record of Edmond’s activities as a spy, which makes sense, but her memoirs give detailed accounts. For her first mission, she decided to disguise herself as a black man. She had become close to a local chaplain’s wife and revealed her true identity to this friend. Edmonds gained her confidence, and the woman helped her with her first disguise. She used silver nitrate to blacken her skin, donned a black minstrel wig, and assumed the name Cuff. Behind enemy lines, she worked with local slaves to build defensive barricades. Not accustomed to the rigors of manual labor, Edmonds’s hands became severely blistered. Exhausted from this hard work, Edmonds convinced a fellow slave to swap positions with her so she could work in a kitchen instead. Keeping her eyes and ears open about all military matters, she learned about troop morale, troop size, and weapons. She discovered that the Confederates were going to use “Quaker guns”—logs painted black—at the battle at Yorktown.
After two days, she was able to escape back into Union territory with the information. Two months later, she was sent back into Confederate territory. This time, she assumed the identity of a heavy female Irish peddler with the name of Bridget O’Shea. She sold some of her wares to Confederate soldiers, again keeping her ears open to all military matters that she might hear being discussed. She returned to the Union camp with details on military plans as well as a beautiful horse that she rode to escape from Confederate soldiers who pursued her.
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Apparently, she crossed back over enemy lines a few more times as Cuff. At one point she served as an African-American laundress for Confederate officers. During this spying expedition, she found important papers in an officer’s coat. She also posed as a young male Confederate sympathizer in Louisville, where she assisted in setting up a spy network there.
Eventually, she became ill with malaria and knew she would require hospital care. Because she didn’t want her true identity exposed to the military, she went to a private hospital and checked herself in as a woman. When she was well, she prepared to return to the Union forces as Franklin Thompson. But she happened to see a list posted in the window of a newspaper office near the private hospital in Illinois. The list gave all the names of soldiers who were sought for deserting the Union Army—including Franklin Thompson.
A TRULY REVEALING MEMOIR
At this point, Edmonds gave up her male identity and signed up to help the Union as a female nurse, a job she carried out until the war ended.
After the war, she wrote a booked titled Nurse and Spy in the Union Army, which became a top seller. She gave all her profits to the war relief fund. In 1864, after completing the book, she decided to return to her beloved Canada. Three years later she married Linus Seelye, and together they had three children.
With her book published and true identity revealed to the world, Edmonds returned to Michigan in 1876 for a reunion of her infantry unit. Her Civil War comrades helped remove her dishonorable discharge and aided her quest to get a military pension, which Congress granted her in 1884. One soldier, Summer Howard, wrote: “More than one member of the company can attest to the care, kindness and self-sacrificing devotion of ‘Frank’ to the sick soldiers of the regiment.” Edmonds was so moved by the help of her fellow soldiers, she said, “My dear comrades, my heart is so full I cannot say what I would to you. Tears are in my eyes, but I shall never, never forget your love and kindness to Frank Thompson. All that I can say is that I am deeply grateful, and may God bless you.”
Near the end of her life, Edmonds moved to Texas. She died at her home in La Porte on September 5, 1898—an inspiration and heroine ahead of her time. “I am naturally fond of adventure, a little ambitious, and a good deal romantic—but patriotism was the true secret of my success,” she said
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