The Female Warrior Bold
Two Civil War-era novels, The Lady Lieutenant and Castine, were classic examples of the Female Warrior genre of fiction. By the beginning of the Civil War, this genre had celebrated the model of the martial heroine for two hundred years. The characters of Madeline Moore and Castine were developed for an audience in the throes of an actual war, but the style of the novels and the spirit of their adventures, not to mention their patriotic and emotional motivations, echoed the hundreds of Female Warrior novels that had preceded them well before the Civil War. Thus an examination of these works not only illustrates the tastes of Victorian audiences but also illuminates the style and typical substance of the broader Female Warrior motif.
In The Lady Lieutenant, Miss Madeline Moore is an orphaned but nevertheless wealthy young woman when the war breaks out, who lives with a despised spinster aunt in Kentucky. When President Lincoln calls for recruits, the heroine’s beau, Frank Ashton, announces his intention to enlist with a local company that is forming despite their border-state governor’s refusal to raise troops for either side. Not wishing to be left behind, Moore outfits herself as a man, using a false mustache and whiskers to better disguise herself, and joins her beloved’s company as it leaves Kentucky via river boat, bound for western Virginia to join General McClellan’s 1861 campaign against the Confederates. In true Female Warrior style, the protagonist introduces herself as Albert Harville to her sweetheart, who fails to recognize her. She, on the other hand, relates that “It was only by a great effort at self-control that I was prevented from throwing myself into his arms and avowing my deception.” Claiming to be related to Miss Moore, “Albert Harville” becomes Frank Ashton’s closest confident and a lieutenant in Captain Ashton’s company.
Disembarking at Wheeling, the Kentucky regiment soon merges with McClellan’s command and sets off to join battle with the rebel army at the town of St. George. Although “Albert” expresses nothing but apprehension while waiting for the orders to advance, she explains that “somehow, the moment the action began,” her fear disappeared. The lady lieutenant immediately suffers a superficial head wound in her first battle and is separated from her company and Captain Ashton. Attempting to flee from bands of rebels roaming through the town, she is captured by a resident and dragged into his home as his contribution to the southern war effort. The secessionist’s wife takes pity on Albert, who is “apparently a mere youth” (her “whiskers and moustache had fallen off during the fight”), and treats the lieutenant’s wound. The two repair to the roof of the house to watch the remainder of the battle as the Union forces claim victory in the town square. Here the secessionist’s wife is killed by a Confederate sniper who was aiming for the Union officer, Albert Harville, standing at her side. Her husband faults Lieutenant Harville for his wife’s death, and in the ensuring scuffle, our heroine kills her captor and escapes. Thus passes the lady lieutenant’s first experience of battle.
Soon after, Captain Frank Ashton obtains orders to take dispatches to Washington, D.C., and asks Lieutenant Harville to accompany him. While there the two learn that the “Grand Army” is to make a move toward Richmond, and “No sooner did Frank learn the truth of this report than he determined to volunteer in this expedition.” They manage to join a New York regiment as first and second lieutenants and soon set off with the Union army for its first fateful clash with southern troops at Bull Run.
Here, the author gives a creditable description of what the battle might have looked like from an officer’s viewpoint. The lady lieutenant also describes unhorsing and dispatching a rebel trooper with her revolver during a terrifying cavalry charge on her regiment. Mounting her foe’s horse, she begins to take flight from the battlefield (“Just at that time I thought of little else than self preservation,” she relates) and is attacked and wounded in the neck by two dragoons, who also kill her horse. Despite all of the foregoing action, in which the heroine functions quite well in battle and bests two men in close physical confrontations, in this situation the lady lieutenant decides to remain out of the rest of the fight, not because she is wounded, but because she “dared not venture again into the heat of the conflict,” considering herself “too weak to cope successfully with the stern warriors of the opposite sex,” and feeling certain that to do so would cost her life.
As the battle wanes, with considerable ingenuity Madeline Moore secures another mount and follows the army on its retreat to Centreville. There she finds Frank Ashton severely wounded. His “is a case requiring great care and careful nursing; and the latter alone can save you,” the doctor tells him. “Then he shall be saved,” cries the lady lieutenant, and she makes arrangements to take apartments and nurse her sweetheart back to full health, still in disguise as Albert Harville. Ultimately, Frank Ashton admits to his friend Albert that he wishes only two things: “rewarding you for the untiring watchfulness and care you have bestowed upon me, and [to] marry Madeline Moore,” whereupon Miss Moore reveals her true identity, and the lovers are reunited.
Castine opens on the field of Manassas in July 1862. There Sergeant Walter Larksly, “a youth of about nineteen summers, delicate in frame and effeminate in features,” reveals to Captain Waterfield that he is bent on avenging the death of his sister Jennie at the hands of a rejected suitor, “a lord of wealth and fashion, with black glossy hair and sparkling black eyes.” Jennie had preferred another man, “with light hair and blue eyes.” The two part and prepare to give battle at Second Manassas.
During the battle Sergeant Larksly performs with valor and rallies his command to take an artillery position. Here the Sergeant finds his man in the form of Yankee Captain Richard Lester, who is in command. Swearing revenge for Jennie’s death, the young Larksly demands the truth from Lester and reveals, “‘I am Jennie’s sister—I am a woman in soldier’s attire…. Yes, I am Castine.’” Captain Lester maintains that he has not killed Jennie but rather has married her and that she resides in New York. Captain Waterfield, who has overheard this conversation, intervenes to save the life of Richard Lester and declares himself to be the suitor that Jennie favored over Lester. No sooner have the sergeant and Captain Waterfield turned Lester over to be shipped off to Libby Prison than they are both captured and sent to a POW camp in Washington, D.C.
There they escape by asking a fellow POW, an Irishman, to bribe his way out on a pass to purchase clothing for two gentlemen and a lady. Sergeant Larksly reassumes the identity of Castine, the Irishman and Captain Waterfield become gentlemen about town, and the three of them are allowed to pass out of the prison, for they look “like anything else than… ‘rebel prisoner[s].’” The narrator notes that “It was well for [them] that men are so easily deceived by the external appearance of their fellow men.”
The trio—Captain Waterfield, Castine, and Patrick the Irishman—make their way to New York to find Jennie at the address that Lester has given them. During the night of their arrival, a fire breaks out in the city, and the three set off from their hotel to observe. When they reach the street, they learn that not only is it the same street mentioned by Captain Lester, but the house that is burning is his and no one has yet made their escape. Captain Waterfield boldly rescues Jennie, and all being reunited, they return to the hotel. All four travel to Richmond to allow Jennie to see her husband, Captain Lester, who is imprisoned at Libby. Although Jennie and Captain Waterfield briefly acknowledge their feelings for one another, Jennie chastely reminds the officer that she is now married to another. But when Jennie visits Lester in Libby Prison, his jealous nature overwhelms him and he attempts to kill her, striking her with a sword. Castine intervenes, grabs the sword, “and with a well aimed blow… she dipped its point in the mean, hot blood of Capt. Lester’s heart, saying: ‘And that is kinder still—I bless the world with one villain less.’” The novelette closes on a scene a year later, with Jennie recovered from her wound and married to Captain Waterfield, Patrick back with his command, and Castine in residence with the Waterfields.