Tweet
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104452266
Excerpt:
"They didn't conduct physical exams in those days, the way the military does now," says Rodney Davis, a retired professor of history at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. "What they were looking for was warm bodies."
Jennie Hodgers, masquerading as Cashier, marched thousands of miles during the war. She was at the Siege of Vicksburg and the surrender of Mobile. Her regiment took part in more than 40 skirmishes and battles.
"Albert Cashier seems to have been in [the war] from the beginning to the end," Davis says. "She stuck it out."
Davis' own great-grandfather was Cashier's commanding officer and one of several former comrades who rallied to Hodgers' defense when officials considered taking away her veteran's pension for identity fraud. To her fellow soldiers, Davis says, her status as a Union Army veteran trumped her identity as a woman.
"She demonstrated that she was as good as they were," Davis says. "She was as brave as they were, as effective a soldier. For her to be a woman was obviously worthy of remark, but it's not anything that seems to have made them turn away from her."
...
The house was saved thanks to Betty Estes, the tourism director of a town just down the road. She began bringing busloads of people over to Saunemin to view Cashier's grave. The city board of Saunemin seemed to take notice, and now there are big plans to finally reconstruct the old house and put it close to the spot where Cashier used to live.
If things go according to plan, Hodgers' secret will soon be exposed to a larger audience. Visitors will be able to come to her grave site — and to her old house — to hear all about her remarkable and complicated life.
Excerpt:
"They didn't conduct physical exams in those days, the way the military does now," says Rodney Davis, a retired professor of history at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. "What they were looking for was warm bodies."
Jennie Hodgers, masquerading as Cashier, marched thousands of miles during the war. She was at the Siege of Vicksburg and the surrender of Mobile. Her regiment took part in more than 40 skirmishes and battles.
"Albert Cashier seems to have been in [the war] from the beginning to the end," Davis says. "She stuck it out."
Davis' own great-grandfather was Cashier's commanding officer and one of several former comrades who rallied to Hodgers' defense when officials considered taking away her veteran's pension for identity fraud. To her fellow soldiers, Davis says, her status as a Union Army veteran trumped her identity as a woman.
"She demonstrated that she was as good as they were," Davis says. "She was as brave as they were, as effective a soldier. For her to be a woman was obviously worthy of remark, but it's not anything that seems to have made them turn away from her."
...
The house was saved thanks to Betty Estes, the tourism director of a town just down the road. She began bringing busloads of people over to Saunemin to view Cashier's grave. The city board of Saunemin seemed to take notice, and now there are big plans to finally reconstruct the old house and put it close to the spot where Cashier used to live.
If things go according to plan, Hodgers' secret will soon be exposed to a larger audience. Visitors will be able to come to her grave site — and to her old house — to hear all about her remarkable and complicated life.