Florena Budwin

 Today, marks the 150th anniversary of the death of Florena Budwin. Residents of Philadelphia, she and her husband, John, enlisted in an unknown unit. One account says he was killed in an engagement in South Carolina. Another says that they were both captured in South Carolina and sent to Andersonville where her alleged husband, a captain, was said to have been killed by a guard. She remained at Andersonville until September 1864, when she was sent with a group of other prisoners to Florence, South Carolina, in the wake of Sherman's operations in close proximity to Andersonville. While at Florence, she contracted pneumonia and died January 25th, 1865, at the age of 21. She lies in a mass grave in section D and is believed to be the first woman buried in a national cemetery.  However, this not entirely correct. She is the first woman to be buried under her entire feminine name in a national cemetery, and it is more than likely an alias. See below. However, Chalmette National Cemetery was established a year before Florence and serves as the resting place of Rosetta Wakeman who was buried over six months before Budwin. But Wakeman is buried under her male alias, “Lyons Wakeman,” whereas Budwin’s feminine name appears on her headstone. Other female soldiers died before Budwin and removed to national cemeteries established after Florence.

Florena is the only one in section D with a marked grave. 
There are over 2000 unknown soldiers buried around her.
Someone had placed artificial flowers at her grave.
Photo by Mark Hidlebaugh

Click [HERE] to view an album from my visit to Florence National Cemetery.

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Ancestry.com

"Hair" Today, Gone Tomorrow-Women Soldiers and Their Locks

Because women weren't allowed to fight during the Civil War, those who felt compelled to serve their country in a military capacity had to disguise themselves as men in order to do so.  This included cutting their hair short.  Women of the time had long hair which they parted in the middle and pinned back.  Men had short hair parted on the side.  So in order to look like a man, these women warriors cut their hair like one as evidenced by these accounts of women discovered in the ranks:

Are These Women Soldiers?

I was browsing the Library of Congress website and came across these photos of unknown soldiers, which gave me pause.  One of the questions about women soldiers is how many served without ever being discovered.  Are these photos of some of those women?  What do you think?

Annie Wittenmyer's Encounter With a Woman Soldier

From Wikipedia

Born in Sandy Springs, Ohio in 1827,  Annie Wittenmyer became active in social reform and relief work after marrying and moving to Keokuk, Iowa in 1850.  During the Civil War, she traveled to hospitals to provide aid and improve the horrible conditions she found there.  It was during her journeys when she encountered the same woman soldier on two occasions, events she recorded in her memoirs.

The woman, a Union soldier, initially refused to tell Wittenmyer her name or where she was from for fear of the newspapers learning her identity and publishing the information.  But she did share her story with Annie.

Unlike many women soldiers, she did not follow a loved one off to war.  As a matter of fact, she claimed that she didn't know anybody in her regiment.  Her reason for enlisting: "I thought I'd like camp-life, and I did."  Wittenmyer described her as ".....stout and muscular, with heavy features, high cheek bones, and her black abundant hair ....cut very close.  She was perhaps twenty-six or twenty-eight years old, but when in her military rig looked like a beardless boy."