Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

[Steve Acker]

From the Richmond Dispatch, 10/25/1861, p. 2, c. 3
Extraordinary Freak. – Considerable excitement was occasioned on 12th street, below Main, yesterday afternoon, by the appearance of a man dressed in woman’s clothing. He soon made himself scarce, and the police did not succeed in tracing him to his hiding place.

http://www.mdgorman.com/

How's that for a 1st person impression?

Steve Acker

Learning everyday how those folks back then were no different than us, minus cars and crack

[redleggeddevil]

Re: Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

I have long maintained that, for every non-documentable female reenactor in ranks, we should have a corresponding male in skirts. We know it was done at least once(see "Son of the Morning Star" for an anecdote of a crossdressing laundress in Custer's command), so why not make it ridiculously commonplace to mislead the public?

Hey, its all one hobby!

[Gary of CA]

Re: Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

I remember reading about union soldiers running around in dresses at the first battle of Fredericksburg. This was on that first wild day when they captured and looted the town. I don't think they wore those dresses when they tried to attack Marye's Heights or elsewhere. There was also a Maria Underwood who tried to be a paid substitute for a soldier in the 1st South Carolina Battalion Sharp Shooters. Something about her reluctance to undergo a physical examination by the surgeon and admission that she was a she got her booted out.

[bAcK88]

Re: Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

Gary,

There's also accounts of Confederate soldiers putting on women's clothing and going between the lines to give water and aid to wounded Yankees after Fredericksburg. One account mentions that it was only one guy, but another says that it was more than one.

BB

[Dusty Merritt]

Re: Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

It wasn't nearly as unheard of for men to dress up like women as vice versa. I've read several accounts of encamped Union troops holding dances in which, given the lack of women, the most boyish soldiers wore women's clothing and danced the women's parts.

In Thomas Lowry's Sexual Misbehavior in the Civil War, he documents a few humorous accounts of soldiers dressing in drag as part of (ultimately unsuccessful) efforts to desert.

I've also read (though this was years ago and I can't remember the source) an account of Quantrill's guerrillas' attacks on a crew of Missouri militiamen, in which Jesse James (then a teenager) disguised himself as a female prostitute as part of an ambush scheme.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

Hallo!

History is filled with "cross-dressing" examples.

The harder part is separating fetish or sexual-based cross-dressing, from say
disguise and deception (such as in escape, spying, or "galtroops") or performance art such as Elizabethan England requiring Shakespeare to use males in the roles of females.

And as a modern aside... we still have gender issues. A man dressing with items of "female" dress is still a larger issue than a woman wearing men's clothes such as neck ties, zipper front trousers, suits, or boxer shorts, etc. ;) :)

At any rate, the context of the "Extraordinary Freak" is not known. It could have been fetish, it could have been espionage. :)

Curt

[Cyclesmith]

Re: Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

Yeah... Jefferson Davis!!!





LOL... sorry I couldn't resist, the first thing that came to mind....

[Fritz]

Re: Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

Considering the thinking of the times, would the male cross-dresser really admit to it? From what I've heard (not actual experience) they can catch enough crap in today's society, thinl what would have happened then. Today it's OK for women (I didn't say ladies) to dress in men's clothes but it's not OK for men to wear women's clothes. They are label as gay at the get go.

[FortyRounder]

Re: Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

I've also read (though this was years ago and I can't remember the source) an account of Quantrill's guerrillas' attacks on a crew of Missouri militiamen, in which Jesse James (then a teenager) disguised himself as a female prostitute as part of an ambush scheme.

I remember it being Cole Younger, but perhaps that's a different story. Wish I could find that great little woodcut of the guerilla in skirt and bonnet, blasting the yanks with two pistols as he rides with the reins in his teeth!

[madasabagofcats]

Re: Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

Well, I guess you've all seen 'Gangs of New York'....:wink_smil

A snippet from 'The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell' by Thomas P. Lowry;

'In the spring of 1864, Massachusetts soldiers stationed at Brandy Station, Virginia, put on a ball. The local women, secession-minded and few in number, would hardly fill the need for companions. Younger soldiers, in particular the drummer boys, dressed as ladies for the evening.

A letter home a few days later noted that "some of the real women went, but the boy girls were so much better looking they left.....no one could have told wich of the party had fell on a hatchet."

A comrade agreed: "We had some little drummer boys dressed up and I bet you could not tell them from girls if you did not know them...some of them looked almost good enough to lay with and I guess some of them did get laid with." The letter writer adds to his wife, "I know I slept with mine."

The original reference from Reid Mitchell's 'The Vacant Chair' is put down to a situation 'less burlesque and more nostalgic'. Otherwise that soldier and his Mrs must have had a very 'honest' relationship!

[Shockoe Hill Cats]

Re: Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

From the Richmond Dispatch.. on 12th street, below Main...

Mr. Acker,

Somehow this doesn't surprise me, I think I've seen some of the weirdest things Downtown before!

Yeah... Jefferson Davis!!!

LOL... sorry I couldn't resist, the first thing that came to mind....

Mr. Reynolds,

I was of the opinion that this incident was stuff of myths and urban legend. Supposedly (and this is what the Museum of the Confederacy states), upon being discovered and subsequently captured, Davis reached to retrieved his coat from his horse and accidentally pulled out Mrs. Davis' petticoat. Thus, it came to be embellished that Jefferson Davis was "dressed" like a woman. Then again, I grew up in the South, so everyone knows that this is the only "right" explanation for his excellency's mishaps.

Well, I can't think of any real cross-dresser, but I can recall the madness that is Booth-shooter, Boston Corbett. He wore his hair long so he could be closer to God (in the style of Jesus).

[madasabagofcats]

Re: Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

Well, I can't think of any real cross-dresser, but I can recall the madness that is Booth-shooter, Boston Corbett. He wore his hair long so he could be closer to God (in the style of Jesus).

Off topic but yep I agree that old Boston was quite the strangest character of the Civil War...

Boston Corbett - Mad as a Hatter

[tenfed1861]

Re: Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

In Thomas Lowry's Sexual Misbehavior in the Civil War, he documents a few humorous accounts of soldiers dressing in drag as part of (ultimately unsuccessful) efforts to desert.

Alright.I can now do my Cpl. Klinger impression.

[cod1tn]

Re: Did they have crossdressers in the 1860's?

Lol, I didn't know there was this much info on cross dressing in the Civil War. I guess I know what Sex in the Civil War Part 3 will be about.