Sarah Emma Edmonds (born Sarah Emma Evelyn Edmondson, married name Seelye, alias Franklin Flint Thompson; December 1841 – September 5, 1898) was a British North America-born woman who claimed to have served as a man with the Union Army as a nurse and spy during the American Civil War. Although recognized for her service by the United States government, some historians dispute the validity of her claims as some of the details are demonstrably false, contradictory, or uncorroborated.

Early life

Edmonds was born in December 1841 in New Brunswick, Canada, then a British colony. The youngest child, she grew up with her sisters and brother, Thomas, on their family's farm near Magaguadavic Lake, not far from the border with the U.S. state of Maine. She was abused by her father, who had wanted a boy to help with the crops on the farm. Thomas had "fits," which was most likely to have been epilepsy. She changed her last name to Edmonds in order to hide from her father, and started a millinery shop with a friend in Moncton, New Brunswick. Her father eventually found her, either by himself or through acquaintances, and Edmonds fled again to escape him. Campbell continued dressing as a man after the war in order to pursue other adventures. Edmonds used Campbell as an inspiration to "escape the limitations of her sex." She at first served as a field nurse, participating in several campaigns under General McClellan, including the First and Second Battle of Bull Run, Antietam, the Peninsula Campaign, Vicksburg, Fredericksburg, and others.

According to her memoir, Thompson's career took a turn when an American spy in Richmond, Virginia, was discovered and put before a firing squad, and her friend James Vesey was killed in an ambush. Thompson took advantage of the open position, as well as the opportunity to avenge Vesey's death, and became a spy. There is no proof in her military records that she actually served as a spy, but she wrote extensively about her experiences in her memoir.

Thompson suffered an injury before the Second Battle of Bull Run in 1862, when she took a trip to Berry's Brigade in order to deliver mail. In an attempt to take a shortcut, she was thrown into a ditch by her mule before reaching the brigade; she sustained severe injuries. Edmonds donated the profits from her memoir to "various soldiers' aid organizations." Edmonds' biographer, Sylvia Dannett, acknowledges lies told by Edmonds in her book She Rode with the Generals.

Dannett was also one of the few historians of the 20th century to accurately portray a woman that went into service with her biography on Edmonds. DeAnne Blanton argues that "only since the early 1990s has the subject of women soldiers received renewed and serious scholarly attention." She argues that "disenfranchised nineteenth-century women used sensational rhetoric to circumvent obstacles that prevented them from publicly discussing issues related to the American Civil War."

Edmonds is listed on the Canadian ACW Memorial at the Lost Villages Museum, Long Sault, Ontario.

Inscription: Sarah Emma Edmonds, – 2nd Michigan Infantry – Soldier, Nurse, & Spy

Disguised herself as a man (Franklin Thompson)

Awarded a US Army Pension. Born: Moncton, New Brunswick

See also

  • American Civil War spies
  • Loreta Janeta Velázquez
  • Mary Brown (nurse)
  • List of wartime cross-dressers
  • List of female American Civil War soldiers
  • Timeline of women in war in the United States, pre-1945

References

Further reading

  • Gansler, Laura Leedy (2007). The Mysterious Private Thompson: The Double Life of Sarah Emma Edmonds, Civil War Soldier. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. .
  • <!--Edmonds is covered extensively in this source.-->
  • Biography from Spartacus Educational which has primary sources
  • University of Texas at Austin
  • DeAnne Blanton – Women soldiers of the Civil War (Part 3)
  • Online version of "Nurse and Spy in the Union Army"
  • Online version of "Unsexed; or, The Female Soldier"
  • Online version of "The female spy of the Union Army"
  • Comprehensive biography
  • Interview with Sarah in Ft. Scott Weekly Monitor, January 17, 1884
  • Sarah in brief, current life, NY Times. March 10, 1884
  • Sarah before military, Memorial Day, NY Times. May 30, 1886
  • Soldier Details: Thompson, Franklin at Soldiers and Sailors Database