During the war between France and Mexico, several women and girls were discovered fighting in the ranks of Juarez. One of them, a young Indian, aged twenty-two, enlisted with her husband, in the regiment of Zacatécas. She fought so bravely as to speedily gain her epaulettes. Her husband was slain; but the widow remained in the regiment, where her daring courage soon not only procured the esteem of her superior officers, but caused the Mexican generals to promote her to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, May 5th, 1862. When the French captured Puebla, in the summer of 1863, she was made prisoner, and sent to Vera Cruz; whence she embarked in the "Rhône" steam transport for France. During the voyage, though a prisoner, she was treated with all the respect due to a superior officer. She arrived in France in August, 1863, and was seen by many persons, who described the female colonel as rather good-looking, but somewhat unfeminine in outward carriage and bearing.
If we may believe Transatlantic newspapers, the Civil War in America was more productive of female warriors than almost any conflict since the days of the Amazons. The ranks of both Federals and Confederates, from the very commencement of the great struggle, were swelled by numbers of women, who, for various reasons, chose to risk their lives under the Stars and Stripes, or the Stars and Bars. In the summer of 1864, it was said that upwards of one hundred and fifty women were known to be serving in the Army of the Potomac. It was generally supposed that these women had been in collusion with an equal number of men who had been examined by the surgeons; after which the fair ones substituted themselves, and went to the seat of war. More than seventy of the valiant demoiselles were, when their sex became known, acting as officers' servants.
Early in May, 1863, a Pennsylvania girl was discovered serving in one of the regiments in the Federal Army of the West, to which she had belonged for ten months. She said that there were many females in the ranks of this army, and one female lieutenant. She had herself, she declared, assisted in burying three female soldiers whose sex was unknown to any but her.
Mrs. Francis L. Clayton, another female Federal, enlisted in 1861, in company with her husband at St. Paul, Minnesota. The husband and wife fought together, side by side, in eighteen battles, till the former was slain in the engagement of Stone River. After his death, the wife did not care to remain any longer in the service, so she went to the general, and told him she was a woman, and was at once discharged. She then returned to Maine. During her military career, Mrs. Clayton was wounded three times, and once was made prisoner.
The following story, "strange if true," appeared in the Brooklyn (New York) Times, in October, 1863, just after the battle of Chattanooga:—
"About a twelvemonth since, when disaster everywhere overtook the Union arms, and our gallant sons were falling fast under the marvellous sword of rebellion, a young lady, scarce nineteen, from an academy in a sister State, conceived the idea that she was destined by Providence to lead our armies to victory, and our nation through successful war. It was at first thought by her parents—a highly respectable family in Willoughby-street—that her mind was weakened simply by reading continual accounts of reverses to our arms, and they treated her as a sick child. This only had the effect of making her more demonstrative, and her enthusiastic declaration and apparent sincerity gave the family great anxiety. Dr. B. was consulted, the minister was spoken to, friends advised, family meetings held, interviews with the young lady and her former companions in the academy were frequent, but nothing could shake the feeling which possessed her. It was finally resolved to take her to Michigan. An old maiden aunt accompanied the fair enthusiast, and for weeks Anne Arbour became their home. But travel had no effect upon the girl. The stern command of her aunt alone prevented her from making her way to Washington to solicit an interview with the President for the purpose of getting command of the United States Army. Finally it was found necessary to restrain her from seeing any one but her own family, and her private parlour became her prison. To a high-spirited girl that would be unendurable at any time, but to a young lady filled with such an hallucination it was worse than death. She resolved to elude her friends, and succeeded,—leaving them clandestinely,—and, although the most distinguished detectives of the east and west were employed to find her whereabouts, it was unavailing. None could conjecture her hiding-place. This was last April. She was mourned as lost, the habiliments of mourning were assumed by her grief-stricken parents, and a suicide's grave was assumed to be hers. But it was not so. The infatuated girl, finding no sympathy among her friends, resolved to enter the army, disguised as a drummer boy, dreaming, poor girl, that her destiny would be worked out by such a mode. She joined the drum-corps of a Michigan regiment at Detroit, her sex known only to herself, and succeeded in getting with her regiment to the Army of the Cumberland. How the poor girl survived the hardships of the Kentucky campaign, when strong men fell in numbers, must for ever remain a mystery. The regiment to which she was attached had a place in the division of the gallant Van Cleve, and, during the bloody battle of last Sunday, the fair girl fell, pierced in the left side with a Minié ball, and, when borne to the surgeon's tent, her sex was discovered. She was told by the surgeon that her wound was mortal, and advised to give her name, that her family might be informed of her fate. This she finally, though reluctantly, consented to do, and the colonel of the regiment, suffering himself from a painful wound, became interested in her behalf, and prevailed upon her to let him send a despatch to her father. Here, then, is a short incident of the war, which might read like romance, but to the unhappy family which are now bowed down by grief, romance loses its attraction, and the actual sad, eventful history of poor Emily —— will be a family record for generations to come."
In December, 1863, the correspondent of the Cincinnati Times, describing a skirmish between the Federals and a detachment of General Bragg's army at Ringgold, near Chattanooga, says "Several of the fair sex were in the Confederate ranks, and certainly conducted themselves with a great deal of courage. We make no reflection on their taste in entering the ranks with negroes and greasy grey-backs. Rebellion now needs every aid on the earth above or in the caverns under it."
At Timonsville, S.C., is the grave of Mrs. Florence Bodwin, of Philadelphia, Pa. She was a member of a Federal regiment, and as such, being dressed as a soldier, her sex was not discovered until after her death.