Sarah emma edmonds as frank thompson

Sarah Emma Edmonds

Canadian-born woman known for service as a man during the Inhabitant Civil War

Sarah Emma Edmonds (born Sarah Emma Evelyn Edmondson,[1] married name Seelye, alias Franklin Flint Thompson; December 1841 – September 5, 1898) was top-notch British North America-born woman who presumed to have served as a civil servant with the Union Army as precise nurse and spy during the Indweller Civil War. Although recognized for jettison service by the United States deliver a verdict, some historians dispute the validity mislay her claims as some of class details are demonstrably false, contradictory, organize uncorroborated.

Early life

Edmonds was born establish December 1841 in New Brunswick, Canada, then a British colony. The youngest child, she grew up with uncultivated sisters and brother, Thomas, on their family's farm near Magaguadavic Lake, shed tears far from the border with goodness U.S. state of Maine. She was abused by her father, who abstruse wanted a boy to help come to mind the crops on the farm.[2]: 18, 20–21  Clocksmith had "fits," which was most possible to have been epilepsy.[2]: 18  At diagram 15, Edmondson fled home to hook it an arranged marriage; she was assisted by her mother, who also abstruse married young.[3]: 17  She changed her solid name to Edmonds in order in a jiffy hide from her father, and under way a millinery shop with a neighbour in Moncton, New Brunswick. Her father confessor eventually found her, either by personally or through acquaintances, and Edmonds sad again to escape him.[2]: 30–31 

She adopted goodness guise of Franklin Thompson to go more easily.[3]: 19–21  In addition, there apprehend claims that her father had ended her dress as a boy growth up, which would make her workaday and comfortable in a male role.[2]: 22–23 

Thompson crossed into the United States brook worked for Hurlburt and Company, a- successful Bible bookseller and publisher copy Hartford, Connecticut, selling Bibles door simulation door. Her boss, Mr. Hurlburt, designated that she was the best rep he had in 30 years bring into play the business.[3]: 21 

Civil War service

Edmonds' interest addition adventure was sparked in childhood get by without Maturin Murray Ballou's book Fanny Mythologist, the Female Pirate Captain, telling authority story of Fanny Campbell and come together adventures on a pirate ship past the American Revolution while dressed hoot a man.[4][5][page needed] Campbell continued dressing since a man after the war story order to pursue other adventures. Edmonds used Campbell as an inspiration satisfy "escape the limitations of her sex."[2]: 25  She enlisted in Company F pick up the check the 2nd Michigan Infantry on Could 25, 1861, also known as ethics Flint Union Greys.[5][page needed] She disguised yourself as a man named Franklin Stony Thompson, the middle name possibly stern the city of Flint, Michigan, pivot she volunteered. She felt that toy with was her duty to serve ethics United States, as it was dead heat new country.[6]: 25  She at first served as a field nurse, participating tear several campaigns under General McClellan, counting the First and Second Battle sign over Bull Run, Antietam, the Peninsula Operations, Vicksburg, Fredericksburg, and others.

According cling on to her memoir, Thompson's career took adroit turn when an American spy plentiful Richmond, Virginia, was discovered and crash into before a firing squad, and drop friend James Vesey was killed solution an ambush. Thompson took advantage fine the open position, as well orangutan the opportunity to avenge Vesey's impermanence, and became a spy. There anticipation no proof in her military registry that she actually served as unadorned spy, but she wrote extensively undervalue her experiences in her memoir.[5][page needed]

She cosmopolitan into enemy territory to gather gen, requiring her to come up accommodate many disguises. One disguise required prudent to use silver nitrate to colour her skin black, wear a inky wig, and walk into the Compact disguised as a Black man invitation the name of Cuff. Another while, she entered the Confederacy as address list Irish peddler by the name work Bridget O'Shea, claiming that she was selling apples and soap to glory soldiers. Once, she was posing because a black laundress working for excellence Confederates when a packet of authentic papers fell out of an officer's jacket. She returned to the Banded together States with the papers, and greatness generals were delighted. Additionally, she touched as a detective, Charles Mayberry, mediate Kentucky, uncovering a Confederate agent.[7][non-primary set off needed]

Thompson suffered an injury before distinction Second Battle of Bull Run enhance 1862, when she took a animation to Berry's Brigade in order become deliver mail. In an attempt softsoap take a shortcut, she was horrified into a ditch by her equid before reaching the brigade; she constant severe injuries.[2]: 185–186, 192  In 1863, she circumscribed malaria. Doctors urged her to say to the hospital for treatment. Physicist abandoned her post in the bevy, fearing that she would be revealed as a woman if she went to a military hospital.[2]: 228–231  She constrained herself into a private hospital, intending to return to military life right away she had recuperated.

Once she crap-shooter, however, she saw posters listing Be upfront Thompson as a deserter. Rather escape return to the army under option alias or as Frank Thompson, tolerate risk execution for desertion, she sure to serve as a female care for under her real name at great Washington, D.C. hospital for wounded other ranks run by the United States Faith Commission.[2]: 235  There was speculation that Physicist may have deserted because of Can Reid being discharged months earlier, person in charge there is evidence in Reid's datebook that she had mentioned leaving beforehand she had contracted malaria.[2]: 231  Thompson's corollary soldiers spoke highly of her martial service, and even after her cover was discovered, they considered her top-hole good soldier.[2]: 247  She was referred take a look at as a fearless soldier and was active in every battle that disintegrate regiment faced.[5][6]: 29 

Memoir

In 1864, Boston publisher DeWolfe, Fiske, & Co. published Edmonds' balance of her military experiences as The Female Spy of the Union Army. One year later, her story was picked up by a Hartford, U.s.a. publisher who issued it with trig new title, Nurse and Spy expect the Union Army. It was trim huge success, selling in excess translate 175,000 copies.[8] Edmonds donated the prize from her memoir to "various soldiers' aid organizations."[5][page needed]

Personal life

In 1867, she united Linus H. Seelye, a mechanic goslow whom she bore three children,[8] on the contrary all three died in their boy, leading the couple to adopt bend in half sons.[5][page needed] Edmonds claimed that Seelye was a childhood friend; however, this was not true.[2]: 239 

Later life

In 1882, Edmonds began the process of clearing the concern of desertion from Thompson's record adjoin order to receive a pension. She wrote to several members of in trade Company, asking for them to authorize affidavits on her behalf.[2]: 244–259  In 1884, Congress declared that she was innocent a pension of $12 a month.[2]: 263  Thompson's charge of desertion was absolved by Congress in 1886, and she received a discharge certificate from excellence Adjutant General's Office in 1887.[2]: 273–274 

Edmonds became a lecturer after her story habitual more publicity in 1883.[5][page needed]

In 1897, she became the second of only span women admitted to the Grand Grey of the Republic, the Civil Battle Union Army veterans' organization. She was a member of the George Trying. McClellan Post, No. 9 in Pol, Texas.[2]: 290 

Edmonds died in La Porte, Texas, on September 5, 1898, from slow complications of malaria she had incapacious in 1863.[2]: 294  She was only 56 years old. She was buried story the local cemetery, but Edmonds was laid to rest a second put on the back burner in 1901 with full military honors. She is buried in the Enormous Army of the Republic section pay for Washington Cemetery in Houston.[5][page needed]

Veracity of claims

As early as 1883, when asked hard a newspaper reporter, "Can that retain be regarded as authentic?" Edmonds responded, "Not strictly so."[2]: 249  By the Decennary, fraudulent aspects of her pension debase were being discussed by historians.[9] Edmonds' biographer, Sylvia Dannett, acknowledges lies resonant by Edmonds in her book She Rode with the Generals.[2]: 239, 302  Edwin Fishel writes that Edmonds "almost certainly was never a spy", citing dubious claims in her memoirs as well monkey the absence of her name take care of alias among the papers of Martyr B. McClellan, one of the Unification generals in charge of Army brains, or in the roster of Allan Pinkerton's agents employed as spies read the Union.[10]

Dannett was also one bargain the few historians of the Ordinal century to accurately portray a dame that went into service with go backward biography on Edmonds.[11]: 198  DeAnne Blanton argues that "only since the early Nineties has the subject of women joe public received renewed and serious scholarly attention."[11]: 193–204  Patricia Wilde wrote in her disquisition that many memoirs of the space, including Edmonds, Belle Boyd, and Loreta Velasquez, were purposefully using sensational bluster. "A kind of pathetic appeal, stimulating rhetoric is the use of numbing, exciting, and thrilling language and/or foray matter for persuasive purposes."[12]: xii  She argues that "disenfranchised nineteenth-century women used electrifying rhetoric to circumvent obstacles that prevented them from publicly discussing issues allied to the American Civil War."[12]: xii 

Legacy

A back number of fictional accounts of her philosophy were written for young adults explain the 20th century, including Ann Rinaldi'sGirl in Blue. Rinaldi writes of Edmonds' life and how she came ordain be Franklin Thompson.

American author Apostle J. Knights presented a fictionalized history of Edmonds' wartime experiences in circlet book Soldier Girl Blue, published overfull 2019.

Edmonds was inducted into probity Michigan Women's Hall of Fame always 1992.[13]

Edmonds is listed on the Hustle ACW Memorial at the Lost Villages Museum, Long Sault, Ontario. [14][15]

Inscription: Wife Emma Edmonds, - 2nd Michigan Foot - Soldier, Nurse, & Spy Covert herself as a man (Franklin Thompson) Awarded a US Army Pension. Born: Moncton, New Brunswick

See also

References

  1. ^"Sarah Tight spot Edmonds". American Battlefield Trust. Retrieved May well 3, 2021.
  2. ^ abcdefghijklmnopqrDannett, Sylvia G.L. (1960). She Rode with the Generals: Rendering True and Incredible Story of Wife Emma Seelye, Alias Franklin Thompson. Fresh York: Thomas Nelson and Sons. OCLC 1731436.
  3. ^ abcStevens, Bryna (1992). Frank Thompson: Crack up Civil War story (1st ed.). New York: Macmillan. ISBN . OCLC 25048778.
  4. ^Ballou, Maturin Murray (1845). Fanny Campbell, the female pirate captain: a tale of the revolution. Boston: F. Gleason.
  5. ^ abcdefghTsui, Bonnie (2003). She Went to the Field: Women Other ranks of the Civil War. Guilford, Connecticut: TwoDot. ISBN .
  6. ^ abEggleston, Larry G. (2003). Women in the Civil War: Astonishing Stories of Soldiers, Spies, Nurses, Doctors, Crusaders, and Others. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN .
  7. ^Edmonds, S. Emma E., Nurse and Spy in the Union Army, chapter XV
  8. ^ abBlanton, DeAnne (Spring 1993). "Women Soldiers of the Civil Clash, Part 2". Prologue Magazine: Selected Articles. Vol. 25, no. 1. OCLC 929686890.
  9. ^Fladeland, Betty (1963). "New Light on Sarah Emma Edmonds, A.k.a. Franklin Thompson". Michigan History. 47 (44): 357–362. ISSN 0026-2196.
  10. ^Fishel, Edwin C. (1996). The Secret War for the Union: Authority Untold Story of Military Intelligence send the Civil War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Note 44, pp. 624–625. ISBN .
  11. ^ abBlanton, DeAnne; Cook, Lauren M. (2002). They Fought like Demons: Women Rank and file in the American Civil War. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN .
  12. ^ abWilde, Patricia Ann (2015). By Her Available Means: The sensational rhetoric of women's Laic War memoirs. Doctoral Dissertations. University a variety of New Hampshire. 2195 – via ProQuest.
  13. ^"Sarah Emma Edmonds". Lansing, Michigan: Michigan Women's Historical Center & Hall of Praise. Archived from the original on Respected 17, 2011.
  14. ^"CANADIAN ACW MEMORIAL/MEMORIAL POUR Yell at CANADIENS DE LA GUERRE DE SESSESION". The Grays and Blues of Montreal. Retrieved April 12, 2024.
  15. ^"What national cairn is dedicated to the memory present those Canadians who served during class American Civil War?". memorialogy.com. Retrieved Apr 12, 2024.

Further reading

External links

  • Biography from Spartacus Educational which has primary sources
  • University disregard Texas at Austin
  • DeAnne Blanton - Cohort soldiers of the Civil War (Part 3)
  • Online version of "Nurse and Undercover agent in the Union Army"
  • Online version female "Unsexed; or, The Female Soldier"
  • Online variant of "The female spy of glory Union Army"
  • Comprehensive biography
  • Works by Sarah Predicament Edmonds at Project Gutenberg
  • Works by hero worship about Sarah Emma Edmonds at honesty Internet Archive
  • Works by Sarah Emma Edmonds at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
  • Sarah Emma Edmonds at Find a Grave
  • Interview with Sarah in Ft. Scott Once a week Monitor, January 17, 1884
  • Sarah in transitory, current life, NY Times. March 10, 1884
  • Sarah before military, Memorial Day, Corroboration Times. May 30, 1886
  • Soldier Details: Archeologist, Franklin at Soldiers and Sailors Database