WOMEN IN HISTORY - SARAH EMMA EDMONDS    

Sarah Emma Edmonds was a Canadian-born woman who disguised herself as a man in order to serve as a Union soldier in the United States Civil War

DATE OF BIRTH

December 1841

PLACE OF BIRTH

Nova Scotia, Canada

DATE OF DEATH

​September 5, 1898

PLACE OF DEATH

La Porte, Texas

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Edmonds was born in New Brunswick, Canada, and lived on a farm near the coast of Maine. She fled at the age of 15 to the United States to escape an abusive father and an arranged marriage. She dressed as a man to avoid being found, and to travel and work independently. She was a very successful Bible salesman in Connecticut.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Edmonds wanted to serve her country, so she enlisted as a man in Company F of the 2nd Michigan Infantry. She served as both a nurse and a mail carrier, but when her close friend was killed, she volunteered to take his place as a Union spy. She travelled into enemy territory to gather information using various disguises:  a black man, and Irish peddler woman, a black laundress, and a Confederate captain.
After being injured by a horse and contracting malaria, she fled the army to avoid being discovered a woman.
Even after the war, when her identity was revealed, Sarah Emma Edmonds was remembered as a fearless soldier by her fellow soldiers. She sued the government for a pension and she won. Later she wrote her own autobiography and was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Edmonds, Sara Emma. Memoirs of a Soldier, Nurse and Spy. Northern llinois University Press, 1999.

WEBSITES

QUOTE

"I am naturally fond of adventure and a little ambitious, and a good deal romantic-but patriotism was the true secret of my success.” ~ Sarah Emma Edmonds