Females on the Line

[Jen McGarrahan]

Re: Females on the Line

http://www.hallrichard.com/civilwomen.htm

Not really sure how to add a link, so I guess you could copy and paste. This is an interesting article.

[Jen McGarrahan]

Re: Females on the Line

Oh it worked. Ok good

[boreguard]

Re: Females on the Line

"We know much about her ordeal through the words of her own diary. She was found out during a routine medical inspection held at the camp in December of '64. She died the next month at the tender age of 20. "

I can't help but ask, "How routine is routine, if it was late '64 before she was discovered ?"

[Jen McGarrahan]

Re: Females on the Line

I can't help but ask, "How routine is routine, if it was late '64 before she was discovered ?"

This is my thought, from what I have been able to find, it seems most were discovered after having been wounded or fell sick, and found themselves under the care of a doctor or nurse. Did routine mean anytime there happened to be a lull in the fighting or maybe whenever they felt like giving a medical inspection. Or would it be when there were a large number of soldiers with any one particular sickness, and everyone needed to be checked lest the whole group get sick. I am very curious about the actuallty of it all.

[Bob 125th NYSVI]

Re: Females on the Line

Medical 'inspections' of then were not extensive enough to determine gender. We have a regiment surgeon who does a morning sick call/medical inspection when we do living histories based on what the actual surgeons did.

There is no way (no grab and cough for those of you who know what I mean) for a medical person to disquailify a soldier on gender unless the soldier was seen naked. And that didn't happen unless a soldier was wounded or sick.

That's how women got away with it. Basically if you had two hands, two feet and could see you passed the exam (when there was one).

[Michael Shea]

Re: Females on the Line

Mr. Sandusky is right to say "...if you had two hands, two feet and could see you passed the exam " - nothing like exams today!

I read a bit about "Albert Cashier "a year or so ago and found her history quite interesting. She was never bothered or "found out" by her pards. They pretty much treated her as an equal but noticed that she did not shave very often. After the war her neighbors figured out her true sex but never made an issue of it. When she needed a doctor her neighbors got her one . When he discovered her sex they told him there was no need to make an issue out of it. This is quite different from what I expected - but it did make clear that 1860 notions of privacy and "live and let live" were quite strong. Even people who knew Albert was really Jennie just reckoned that she was a bit off kilter (she was off kilter in a number of ways) - but it was no big deal - no witch burnings or hysteria - just neighbors helping neighbors. This is a big part of presenting an accurate 19th century persona - personal "boundaries" were quite different and today's issues were of course unheard of.
I also recall from someone's memoirs (Sherman's?) that when a pair of female military teamsters were captured they asked for clemency due to their sex. The writer told them that that since they were content to pretend to be men before he saw no reason to treat them as women now that they were captured. Not the shocked "victorian" attitude we hear so much about.

Michael Shea

[Sewing Vixen]

Re: Females on the Line

Even people who knew Albert was really Jennie just reckoned that she was a bit off kilter (she was off kilter in a number of ways)

In what ways was she off kilter?

[Duff]

Re: Females on the Line

Perhaps many of the original female soldiers' pards did in fact know that they were female, but decided not to tell anybody because they liked them, or more likely, they did things for them that only a woman can do.

Could this possibly be related to female military living historians? Frankly I have never seen a woman reenactor who could pass off as a man from less than 50 yards away. But than again, I'm not supposed to notice them...


I personally would like to see a woman join an organization as a man, register for events as a man, and truly fool everyone in their own unit, and everyone at any given event. Do you know anyone who could do that? That would truly give an idea of how hard it would be to pass off as a man. Plus, it would be even harder for original woman because they would have to do it all the time and pass the medical inspections.

As for the medical inspections, I think they would be much more difficult than the general consensus on this thread. Men and woman have different body shapes, along with other smaller differences that can be seen when the woman has clothing on. Plus, it still is a medical inspection. They will be looking at you individually and if the woman slips up just a little, they will be caught. Not every woman can physically pass off as a man. Only a woman with a very masculine body type could even consider it. Plus, on top of that, she would have to be a world class improv actress to act like a man in every possible situation.

I honestly can't see this happening very often.

[Michael Shea]

Re: Females on the Line

Mrs. Jayle,

As I recall Albert/Jennie would swing from being amiable to being very hostile toward her neighbors for no apparent reason and had some trouble dealing with the local children - but I better go find the source for this. Some other peculiarities:

"she was eccentric and sometimes would offer her guests food, telling them it was poisoned "to fool the rats." ... When there was a storm, she would come over to the Morehart home to protect the children, but Morehart believes that Hodgers was the one who was really afraid. According to Cathy Lannon's master's thesis on Hodgers, some children would tease her by calling her "drummer boy," which made her very angry."

source: http://www.lib.niu.edu/1994/ihy940230.html

Really she was a very interesting person - she escaped from prison and fought well and yet might seems to have been frightened of thunder as a 40 year old. A real character - someone I would love to meet (assuming her food was not really poisoned).

Michael Shea

[Hank Trent]

Re: Females on the Line

As for the medical inspections, I think they would be much more difficult than the general consensus on this thread.

Here's something I posted a few months ago when a similar discussion came up. The original post is at:http://www.cwreenactors.com/forum/sh...8&postcount=33

Originally Posted by federal musician
When the medical examinations were happening, the most that would happen is to have the recruits strip down to their underwear, which covered them completely from neck to ankle, look in their mouths to see if they had enough teeth to tear off the end of a cartridge, see if they had two eyes, and thump them on the chest to see if they had consumption!

Well, yes and no. There were wide complaints that medical examinations were even worse than that, but it's not "the most" that happened. Officially, a surgeon was supposed to watch recruits strip naked and examine them for hernias and missing testicles, among other things. So for a woman to get through would require either pure luck at getting a very poor examination, bribery, or trickery (sending a man to stand in for her at the examination, for example).

Surgeon S. B. Hunt reported in Contributions Relating to the Causation and Prevention of Disease, published by the USSC in 1867:

I have seen tears shed by young men rejected on account of varicocele and slight hernia, and have been offered bribes as an inducement to accept them. All arguments were offered, and a too-ready yielding to them on the part of examiners [in 1862] very much embarrassed the service for a year succeeding.

He reports on a "partial reexamination" which he did of the 109th New York Volunteers, which was already partially organized. It shows what even a quick examination, taking about a minute per man, could cover.

As only a few days were occupied in this work, it was done hurriedly, in this wise: The men reported by companies and often had 120 men to the company. They were marched into a large hall, and sometimes a part, sometimes the whole of the company directed to strip to nudity at once. Commencing at the head of the line, each man was rapidly examined. First, his head was felt for scalp-wounds, and the countenance scanned for any epileptic look. Hearing was tested by questions asked in a low voice; sight by visual examination and by questions as to objects at a distance. The mouth and teeth were then inspected, a general look given to the physique, front and rear, the genital organs examined for hernia or varicocele, the fundament for hemorrhoids, and the candidate was then tested gymnastically... Respiration and circulation were then examined, and a more careful look given to fingers and toes. Such an examination occupied hardly more than one minute per man... only 74 per cent were found fit for enlistment.

Michael Shea wrote:

Really she was a very interesting person - she escaped from prison and fought well and yet might seems to have been frightened of thunder as a 40 year old.

The thunder, imitating the sounds of battle, seems a classic example of post-traumatic stress that might occur for decades later any soldier.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Hagooder02]

Re: Females on the Line

"We know much about her ordeal through the words of her own diary. She was found out during a routine medical inspection held at the camp in December of '64. She died the next month at the tender age of 20. "

I can't help but ask, "How routine is routine, if it was late '64 before she was discovered ?"

Ms Budwin described it as routine...which perhaps we can assume to mean a general check-up. She arrived in September and wasn't 'inspected' until December...so as you say, it wasn't all that routine. These were local town doctors called in to assess the general health of the prisoners.

[flattop32355]

Re: Females on the Line

That's how women got away with it. Basically if you had two hands, two feet and could see you passed the exam (when there was one).

Don't forget the requirement to have opposing teeth to tear cartridges....

It also helped to not have weeping, festering sores in visible locations.

[Mudslinger]

Re: Females on the Line

Dale, here's some info I read about awhile back:



Margaret Hamilton, a Catholic sister from New York State, reported that while serving at the U.S. Military Hospital in Philadelphia--

"We received a large number of wounded after the battle of the Wilderness [May 5-7, 1864], and among them was a young woman not more than twenty years of age. She ranked as lieutenant. She was wounded in the shoulder, and her sex was not discovered until she came to our hospital. It appeared that she had followed her lover to the battle; and the boys who were brought in with her said that no one in the company showed more bravery than she. She was discharged very soon after entering the ward."

Mary A. Gardner Holland, Our Army Nurses (Boston: Lounsbery, Nichols & Worth, 1895), p. 341.


A female 1st Sgt. in the 74th Ohio Infantry gave birth after 20 months in service, Gen. Rosecrans (Apr. 17, 1863) termed it "a flagrant outrage...in violation of all military law and of the army regulations."

L.P. Brockett, Battle-Field and Hospital: Or, Lights and Shadows of the Great Rebellion (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, 1888), p. 303; Frazar Kirkland, Pictorial Book of Anecdotes and Incidents of the War of the Rebellion (1867), pp. 554-55; Michigan History 44 (June 1960), p. 205; Massey, Bonnet Brigades (1966), p. 84.



Maj. Nicholas E. Miller
Ohio Valley Battalion

"An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry."

Thomas Jefferson

[BCIDick]

Re: Females on the Line

Methinks the other troops might think it a bit odd if one of their pards squatted to pee during the march.:wink_smil

[DougCooper]

Re: Females on the Line

A female 1st Sgt. in the 74th Ohio Infantry gave birth after 20 months in service, Gen. Rosecrans (Apr. 17, 1863) termed it "a flagrant outrage...in violation of all military law and of the army regulations."

L.P. Brockett, Battle-Field and Hospital: Or, Lights and Shadows of the Great Rebellion (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, 1888), p. 303; Frazar Kirkland, Pictorial Book of Anecdotes and Incidents of the War of the Rebellion (1867), pp. 554-55; Michigan History 44 (June 1960), p. 205; Massey, Bonnet Brigades (1966), p. 84.



Maj. Nicholas E. Miller
Ohio Valley Battalion

]

A sailor in my squadron became pregnant just before a deployment and when the call came from sickbay that she was in labor...and nobody knew (or said they did not know) it was worth it just to see the look on the Skipper's face. She had somehow kept the baby high up on her abdomen (she was tall and athletic). Everyone assumed she was just putting on a little weight.