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I have been having night mares of the battel filed with all the dead body of soldire I know what I was getting into.

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Sarah Emma Edmonds did not have a pleasant childhood in her home country of Canada. As a young woman, her mother helped her to escape to the United States, disguised as a boy. She found work as "Frank Thompson" selling Bibles and books, traveling around the New England states. After being encouraged to do so by her employer, she moved to Flint, Michigan and continued her masquerade as Frank, still selling Bibles and other books.

When the first call for volunteers went out, Emma decided that she had to help to defend her adopted country and enlisted as Private Franklin Thompson.

Based on this picture of Sarah as Private Thompson, one does have to wonder why she was not questioned or soon discovered that she was, in fact, a woman. There are a number of possible explanations for why Sarah, as well as other women who enlisted as men, were not discovered. Given the times and the fact that so many young boys were enlisting, it is plausible that men simply mistook her for a boy whose voice, stature, and facial features had not yet matured. Men of that era were of smaller build and slimmer in the body than men are today, so under a roughly made, ill-fitting uniform Sarah easily hid whatever "curves" she may have had. It was likely not thought odd that she kept to herself when attending to her personal needs, given the "Victorian" mindset of the times. Finally, poor nutrition may have rendered Sarah amenorrheic.

Sarah participated in numerous engagements, including the First Bull Run (1st Manassas). She became a general's orderly and was so fearless at the battle at Fredericksburg that she received a field commendation. Despite this fearlessness, she did not always serve as a soldier. She was a hospital steward and even became a spy. She redisguised herself as a Rebel soldier and also as a Southern peddler, selling goods in Confederate camps, gathering intelligence on the enemy's numbers, strengths, and military strategies.

Her ruse as Frank Thompson might have gone uninterrupted, but she contracted malaria and was so ill that the field doctor wanted to send her to a battlefield hospital. She knew that if she was sent to a regular hospital, then she would be examined by a surgeon and her sex would be discovered. She made the decision to desert. While recovering from the bout of malaria, she took off her soldier's uniform and put on a dress, becoming "Emma." In 1854, she wrote her "memoirs," which became an overnight bestseller: Female Spy of the Union Army. She donated all proceeds from the sale of the book to the Christian Commission and to various organizations that sprang up to provide aid to veterans.

The war continued on in 1864 and 1865, and Emma found work as a nurse in a hospital in Harper's Ferry, in the new state of West Virginia. She married in 1867 and with her Canadian-born husband finally settled in Texas and raised a family.

Her status as a deserter continued to weigh on her conscience. In 1882, she decided that it was time to tell the world that she'd been Frank Thompson, Union soldier. She contacted members of the Michigan Infantry in which she served and asked that they submit affidavits to the government on her behalf. Their support was immediate and they were generous in their praise of her as a soldier who "performed cheerfully and fully and at all times any duty which was assigned" and was a "strong, healthy, and robust soldier, ever willing and ready for duty." In 1884, the U.S. Congress acted on the matter and granted her a regular soldier's pension. In 1897, Sarah Emma Edwards Seelye was mustered into the Grand Army of the Republic (the GAR), the only woman to be accorded the honor. She died in 1898 and, one year later, she was posthumously inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.

Sarah Emma Edmonds, aka Frank Thompson, summed up her reverence for the Union in the last sentence of her book:

"And now I lay aside my pen, hoping that after 'this cruel war is over' and peace shall once more shed her sweet influence over our land, I may be permitted to resume it again to record the annihilation of rebellion, and the final triumph of Truth, Right, and Liberty."

I hope that you've enjoyed this short blog about the Civil War, based on information I learned while researching my first book, The Brothers, and for the upcoming sequel, The McCulloughs. You can buy The Brothers in epub format on my website, The McCullough Saga, http://mcculloughsaga.com/. You can also purchase The Brothers in softcover or Kindle format at Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/The-Brothers-McCullough-Saga-Volume/dp/0578136627.

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Sarah Emma Edmonds an Unlikely Union Soldier

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Sarah Emma Edmonds did not have a pleasant childhood in her home country of Canada. As a young woman, her mother helped her to escape to the United States, disguised as a boy. She found work as "Frank Thompson" selling Bibles and books, traveling around the New England states.

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After the Civil War I returned to Canada, met Linus Seeyle, a mechanic, and  got married in 1867. Returning to the United States, we settled down and raised a family with three kids.

Even though I was happy in my family life, it always bothers me that I, as Frank Thompson, was charged with desertion. In 1882, I applied for a veteran's pension and started the process of clearing my record of desertion on the grounds that I was unable to reveal my identity.

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two events occurred that drastically changed Edmonds' life. The Confederates killed 

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one of McClellan's spies and a close friend was killed in battle. Wanting to avenge her friend's death, she decided to volunteer to be a Union spy and was accepted for the position. Her job was to infiltrate the Confederate army and bring back vital information. 

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since I was not  allowed to be in the army for being a female, I joined as a male using the name of Frank Thompson. it was easy for me to pass as a man and I was able to serve for 2 years without being detected. there where also other women that joined, but most of them were caught and were either sent home or imprisoned.

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Sarah Edmonds was one of the most unusual, interesting and brave women in the American Civil War era. She not only served as a nurse but also as a Union soldier and spy.

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Prior to my first mission, Private I had to devise a disguise that would not alert the Confederates to my real mission and I  decided to enter the Confederacy as a black man. Assisted by the wife of the local chaplain, the only person knowing my  true identity, I used silver nitrate to darken my  skin to the point that the doctor I worked for in the hospital did not recognize my identidy.

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I lived and worked in the town of Moncton for about a year,but always in fear that I would be discovered by my father,I decided to immigrate to the United States.In order to travel undetected and to secure a job,i decided to disguise myself as a man and called my self Franklin Thompson.I soon found work in Hartford connecticut as a traveling Bible salesman

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I was an abused child by my father for not being a male. When I was 16 years old I decided to leave home, because my father was also trying to force me to married someone i dont love

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In the spring of 1863, I and the 2nd Michigan were assigned to the Army of the Cumberland and sent to Kentucky. I contracted malaria and requested a furlough, which was denied. Not wanting to seek medical attention from the army for fear of discovery, I left my comrades in mid-April, never to return. I was subsequently charged with desertion.

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In March of 1862, I was assigned the duties of mail carrier for the regiment.

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I was born in New Brunswick Canada in December of 1841.My father was a farmer who had been hoping for son to help with the crops.

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Quirk Books : Publishers & Seekers of All Things Awesome

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As the lone Canadian in Wonder Women, Sarah Emma Edmonds has a special place in my heart - and hopefully in yours, once you hear about her amazing exploits. You can read her story in full in my book Wonder Women, but I thought I would share with you my quick Coles Notes* on one of the most bad-ass nerdy babes in history, supplemented by original ephemera from Michigan in Letters, Collections Canada, and her own book.

*That's Cliffs Notes, but for Canadians. We also call colored pencils "pencil crayons." We're wacky!

Emma was born in 1841 in Eastern Canada, and was basically expected to marry her much older farmer neighbor at seventeen, and be chill with that being pretty much her entire life situation. But, like many of us, Emma had grown up reading stories of girls who cut off their hair and pretended to be boys to escape the expectations of their lives. For me, that book was Alanna: The First Adventure; for Emma, it was Fanny Campbell, the Female Pirate Captain: A Tale of the Revolution.

And so Emma did just that, running away from home, chopping off her hair, and removing a telltale mole to assume the disguise of one "Franklin Thompson."

Crossing the border into Michigan, Emma found herself caught up in the midst of the Civil War, and on May 25, 1861, she joined up with the Union Army. Using skills she had developed back on her homestead, Emma made for an exceptionally competent battlefield nurse - and no one ever guessed that the "Franklin" persona was nothing more than a ruse.

We know all this because, after the war ended, Emma wrote and published her exploits in a book called Unsexed; or, the Female Soldier, later retitled Nurse and Spy in the Union Army, which sold nearly 200,000 copies, the profits from which she mostly donated to war aid efforts.

Wait, nurse and spy?

Oh, you read that right. Among Emma's many other accomplishments in the field, her fellow soldiers also noticed that "Franklin" was exceptionally good at disguise (the irony!). Emma infiltrated the Confederate ranks undercover on countless occasions. Today, we would call these assumed identities... problematic, at best; but her efforts provided the North with crucial information throughout the war.

Unfortunately, Emma eventually required medical care for PTSD (after a shell exploded in front of her tent) and malaria, and had to leave the army to receive it, lest her Mulan-esque secret be discovered. Being labeled a deserter and, you know, not being a real person, meant that Franklin Thompson could never get his veteran's pension - something that never sat well with Emma.

So she did probably the most kick-ass thing possible, and, years later, marched - full skirts - into a reunion of her former regiment. They were shocked but surprisingly chill about the whole thing, and with their help, Emma successfully petitioned Congress. In 1884, the House passed a bill allowing Emma to receive a $12 monthly pension, $100 in back pay, and an honorable discharge. To this day, she is the only woman buried in a cemetery plot reserved for veterans of the Civil War - which would make even Fanny Campbell proud.

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Wonder Women Profile: Sarah Emma Edmonds

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As the lone Canadian in Wonder Women, Sarah Emma Edmonds has a special place in my heart - and hopefully in yours, once you hear about her amazing exploits.