Sarah Emma Edmonds

      Born into a home with an abusive father who resented her for not being born a boy, sixteen year old Sarah Emma Edmonds left her Canadian home and moved to the United States, disguising herself as a man under the name of Franklin Thompson. (http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/biographies/sarah-emma-edmonds.html) When the Civil War started, Thompson/Edmonds enlisted into the Union army, and became a part of the Second Volunteers of United States Army. A few months later, she was assigned as a nurse to the hospital unit of the 2nd Michigan Volunteers. (http://www.civilwarhome.com/edmondsbio.htm)

     This may or may not be true, but it is believed that Sarah Edmonds (still in the disguise of Franklin Thompson) heard that McClellan's staff was looking for a spy, and she wanted the job. (http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/biographies/sarah-emma-edmonds.html) Private Thompson/Edmonds studied all she could, and after being interviewed, immediately got the position. Two of her disguises she used during her eleven spy missions, was a male slave called "Cuff", and a female Irish peddler. (http://www.civilwarhome.com/edmondsbio.htm) Private Thompson/Edmonds was very successful in her spy missions, and gathered much information for the Union Army. When she was working again as a nurse, she came across a dilemma. Private Thompson/Edmonds came down with Malaria. To avoid the discovery of her true identity, she left the army camp for a short time to go to Illinois for treatment. After she recovered, she planned to go back to the army, but, she soon discovered that she had been accused of deserting the Union Army. (http://www.civilwarhome.com/edmondsbio.htm) And so ended Private Thompson's adventure as a spy for the Union Army. Thompson/Edmonds did the only other thing she could to be involved in the army: going to Washington to be a nurse until the end of the war. After the war, she wrote a book about her adventures in the Civil War called  Nurse and Spy in the Union Army. Sarah Emma Edmonds was one of four hundred women who was in the Civil War, and she sure left a mark. Edmonds disguised herself as a man, joined the army, helped hundreds of wounded soldiers, dressed up as many people for spy missions, and gave the Union Army information about the Confederates. Come on, how cool was she?