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."


She performed the same duties, marched, and fought just like her male counterparts.  The woman soldier also suffered alongside the men.  According to Wittenmyer, it was during a charge at Chickamauga when she fell wounded deeply in the thigh.  And when her regiment immediately fell back, she was left upon the field to become a prisoner of war.  The Confederates took her to a surgeon for treatment, resulting in the discovery of her true identity.  After a few days, she was sent back to the Federal lines under a flag of truce with a message, which is part of a display at the Civil War Museum in Kenosha, Wisconsin:

Photo by Mark Hidlebaugh

This is amusing to me because it's kind of like knowing a joke is about to be played on an unsuspecting soul or being privy to humorous information about someone without their knowledge of it.  And indeed, the author of this note obviously had no clue that there were women soldiers in the Confederate army.  As a matter of fact, he may have even served with one or more in his own unit and was never even aware of it!

The woman's return to her regiment with her identity revealed caused "...great indignation....and officers and men hastened to protest, that, although she had been with them for more than a year, not one in the regiment suspicioned that she was a woman."  This, however, is not true.  At least some of the men of her unit knew her identity.  However, there is some evidence that she switched regiments before she was wounded and captured, which would mean that it would be possible that she remained anonymous.  But she wouldn't have been with this unit for approximately six months, not more than a year.

Hospital records do not indicate that she switched units.  Regardless, she was originally sent to a hospital in Chattanooga (General Hospital No. 2) where Wittenmyer first met her.  She was later moved to Nashville (General Hospitals No. 17 and 1) where the soldier and nurse crossed paths again.  They resumed their discussions, and, with the help of other women, purchased the soldier a dress at the insistence of the surgeon.

When it came time for the woman's discharge from the hospital, Wittenmyer was sent to find out as much information about her as she could in order to figure out what to do with her.  The soldier expressed a desire to remain in the army.  But Annie quickly let her know that that was not an option due to the publicity involved with her case and that the recruiting officers had been warned about her.  She then expressed a desire to remain in Nashville.  But that was not an option either.  The best thing to do was to just go home, a trip that the government would pay for.  But they had to know where she wanted to go.  Initially refusing to divulge her identity, the soldier girl relented after Wittenmyer swore secrecy on behalf of herself and the officers she was going to have to tell in order to make arrangements for travel to the Northwest (current Midwest). 

Part of the story I find especially interesting was that the nurses helped raise funds for her by having photographs taken of her in uniform and in a dress.  She then sold them for 25 cents each to soldiers and visitors, raising "considerable money" in the end.  Annie, herself, purchased two photos which she said she kept in her "war album."

(Under the Guns:  A Woman's Reminiscences of the Civil War, 1895, by Annie Wittenmyer, p. 17-20)

So where are all of these photos that were sold?  Since the woman soldier made "considerable money" from the sale of them, I am assuming there would be quite a few of them out there somewhere.  Where is Wittenmyer's "war album" with her two photos?

Sergeant J. Riordan of Company K of the 90th Illinois Infantry purchased a picture and sent it to his mother explaining that the soldier girl was the "heroine of the Irish Legion" (90th Illinois Infantry) was in the hospital in Nashville and that she was selling images of herself in uniform and in a dress for her benefit. 

Who was this woman?  There are very few images of women soldiers.  I know of only two who had pictures taken in a uniform and a dress.  And both of them have extremely garbled stories.

Frances Clayton:

Library of Congress

But she's not the one. 

Frances Hook (whose name wasn't even Frances Hook, but that's another story) (click on this link for pictures):

Reports claim that she was captured near Florence, Alabama in December (some reports say October) 1863 while foraging.  She was shot in the thigh during an escape attempt and left behind with the other wounded who fell into the hands of the Confederates, one of their surgeons discovering her identity.  She was imprisoned in Atlanta and exchanged at Graysville, Georgia on February 17th, 1864.  She was  then hospitalized in Tennessee and discharged in June.  Another account says she was captured in a battle near Chattanooga and shot in the calf while trying to escape.   In his letter to his mother, Riordan echoes the claims that she was wounded at Chattanooga. However, some newspapers reported she was captured at Chickamauga as mentioned in the display at the Civil War museum in Kenosha.  All of these various locations are incorrect and the result of garbled information.  Specifically, the Chickamauga reference stems from the fact that she was brought to prison in Atlanta with wounded prisoners taken during that battle.  So it was assumed she, too, was wounded and taken prisoner there.  Chattanooga occurred around the same time and was in the same general proximity as Chickamauga.  So it's easy to see how that information was spread.  All of the solid documentation, including military records, points towards the Florence scenario. See my book, Behind the Rifle, for more regarding this discussion.

Another area of confusion is her age.  Frances would have been around nineteen or twenty when she encountered Wittenmyer.  Annie said she was twenty-four or twenty-six.  I chalk this up to faulty memory as Wittenmyeer wrote her account years after the war.  This is why it's never proper to assume a lady's age.  Another reason for the discrepancy could be a case of mistaken identity.  According to nurse Martha Baker, there was another woman soldier treated in the hospital at Nashville named Anna.  Perhaps she was the one who was twenty-four or twenty-six, and Wittenmyer confused the two.  It certainly could have been the case considering how much time had elapsed since Wittenmyer composed her memoirs.

We know that Hook convalesced at Nashville and had a picture taken there (click this link for more information).  Could this photo sold at auction in 2006 have belonged to Wittenmyer herself?



Other source:  email correspondence with Pat and Jim Swan, author of Chicago's Irish Legion.