A New York woman entered a wig maker's shop on Broadway and asked the hair dresser to cut her hair short and parted on the side. She indicated that her husband had enlisted and she intended to follow him. (Illinois Journal, April 29th, 1861)
Captain Daniel Reed Larned, secretary to General Burnside noted that Ella Reno had short "army fashion" hair. (Blanton and Cook, They Fought Like Demons p. 48)
Annie Wittenmyer noted that Frances Hook had "...black abundant hair...cut very close." (Annie Wittenmyer, Under the Guns, p. 19)
The woman discovered buried at the Crater in 1866 was described as being in an "excellent state of preservation" and that her hair had been cut short. (Washington Evening Star, Sept. 7, 1866)
Fanny Wilson and Nellie Graves had made "A sufficient change...in their personal appearance, their hair having been cut... (Providence Evening Press, Rhode Island, August 15th, 1864)
Jane Short of the 6th Illinois Cavalry and 21st Missouri Infantry had "...short hair of a light color." (New York Times, August 26th, 1864)
These are just a few examples.
There were, however, some women who apparently chose to forgo the shears.
After Jane Perkins of the Danville Artillery was captured at Hanover Junction, Virginia, she was sent to White House Landing on June 2nd, 1864. There, her guard, John Harrod, noted in a letter to his wife that she was wearing her hair braided and tucked up under her hat.[i]
Several soldiers wrote about a female Confederate cavalry trooper who was captured at North Anna. One of them, Jackson Crossley, an engineer, wrote his friend about her: "She was mounted just like a man...wore her hair long and did not like to have our men looking at her." [ii]
Mrs. Watkins and Mrs. Epping enlisted in Co. G, 2nd Maryland Infantry (US) to be with their husbands. They were described as having their hair "...knotted under their caps." Their service lasted for only 6 months with the aid of their loved ones.[iii]
Samuel Elliot of the 7th Pennsylvania Reserves recalled after the war that fellow Andersonville POW, Florena Budwin, had "long unkempt hair." [iv]
Surely, the commanders of these women were aware of their true identity. Yet they chose not to discharge them and apparently paid no mind of their presence. As the war progressed and the Confederate lines began to thin, officers became increasingly less picky as to who was in the ranks.
One has to wonder what exactly was long hair to our Victorian ancestors. Typically, hair that fell to the bottom of the ears for men was considered long. See a picture of George Pickett. Now, for Jane Perkins, Mrs. Watkins, and Mrs. Epping who had their hair tucked under their caps, naturally, their hair would have been longer. But what about Florena Budwin and the woman referred to by Jackson Crossley? How long was long hair for them?
As a caveat, I would like to add that women reenactors considering taking on a soldier impression are strongly encouraged to take all steps necessary in order to disguise themselves as men just as a vast majority of the original women warriors did. This includes losing the locks, despite the historical precedence of some original female soldiers wearing their hair long or tucked up under their hats. With women soldiers numbering in the hundreds to possibly thousands, they nevertheless comprised a very small percentage of the millions of combatants who fought in the Civil War. Women who served openly made up an even smaller subset within an already minuscule percentage. It is advised that women reenactors take on impressions of women soldiers who successfully hid their gender and escaped the notice of history, their names and true identities lost to time.
Hair was one of the defining characteristics of gender during the Victorian era. So by cutting it, women were, in effect, cutting ties with the morals and mores of the era and, therefore, their identities. Such an act must have been very difficult to do in a time when cultural norms provided a strict and well defined separation of spheres of influence. And while we'll never be able to replicate their experiences, emotions, feelings, and struggles, cutting the hair will give a woman reenactor a small sense of what it must have been like for a Victorian woman to part with one's tresses as she assumed the disguise of a male soldier. I haven't found any accounts which allow us a glimpse into their thoughts regarding this part of their disguise. So who knows? Some may have enjoyed getting a haircut just as they reveled in their new-found freedom of exchanging their skirts for trousers. However, I can imagine most, if not all, initially struggled with losing their locks. Clothing defined the genders as well. But it is a lot easier to change one's clothes than it is to reattach shorn tresses! It's still not an easy decision to make even in our modern times when short hair is not only acceptable for women but has become quite fashionable. It doesn't hurt to cut one's hair for the sake of disguise. They did. Besides, the hair does grow back.
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[i] John Harrod to his wife, 3 June 1864, John Harrod Papers, U.S. Army Military
History Institute, as quoted in They Fought Like Demons by Blanton and Cook, p. 127.
[ii] Jackson Crossley to Samuel Bradbury, 29 May 1864, as quoted in Women on the Civil War Battlefront by Richard Hall, p. 271
[iii] Jacob Eugene Duryee, "My Three Regiments," unpublished memoir in a private collection as quoted in They Fought Like Demons by Blanton and Cook, p. 54-55
[iii] Jacob Eugene Duryee, "My Three Regiments," unpublished memoir in a private collection as quoted in They Fought Like Demons by Blanton and Cook, p. 54-55
[iv] Helena Independent, June 24th, 1890.
I'll conclude with the following humorous account. It doesn't involve women soldiers, but it does deal with hair. Enjoy.
There was only one man in the Battery who could cut hair--Sergeant McCreery--and he had the only pair of scissors that could cut hair. So every aspirant to this fashionable cut tried to make interest with Van to fix him up; and Van, who was very good natured, would, as he had time and opportunity, accommodate the applicant, and trim him close.
Several of us had gone under the transforming hands of this tonsorial artist, when Bob McIntosh got his turn. Bob was a handsome boy with a luxuriant growth of hair. He had raven black, kinky hair that stuck up from his head in a bushy mass, and he hadn't had his hair cut for a good while, and it was very long and seemed longer than it was because it stuck out so from his head. Now, it was all to go, and a crowd of the boys gathered round to see the fun. The modus operandi was simple, but sufficient. The candidate sat on a stump with a towel tied 'round his neck, and he held up the corners making a receptacle to catch the hair as it was cut. Why this--I don t know; force of habit I reckon.
Van stood behind Bob and began over his right ear. He took the hair off clean, as he went, working from right to left over his head; the crowd around--jeering the victim and making comments on his ever-changing appearance as the scissors progressed, making a clean sweep at every cut. V/e were thus making much noise with our fun at Bob's expense, until the shears had moved up to the top of his head, leaving the whole right half of the head as clean of hair as the palm of your hand, while the other half was still covered with this long, kinky, jet black hair, which in the absence of the departed locks looked twice as long as before--and Bob did present a spectacle that would make a dog laugh. It was just as funny as it could be.
Just at that moment, in the midst of all this hilarity, suddenly we heard a man yell out something as he came running down the hill from the guns. We could not hear what he said. The next moment, he burst excitedly into our midst, and shouted out, "For God's sake, men, get your guns. The Yankees are across the river and making for the guns. They will capture them before you get there, if you don't hurry up."
This was a bolt out of a clear sky--but we jumped to the call. Everybody instantly forgot everything else and raced for the guns. I saw McCreery running with the scissors in his hand; he forgot that he had them--but it was funny to see a soldier going to war with a pair of scissors! I found myself running beside Bob McIntosh, with his hat off, his head half shaved and that towel, still tied round his neck, streaming out behind him in the wind.
Just before we got to the guns, Bob suddenly halted and said, "Good Heavens, Billy, it has just come to me what a devil of a fix I am in with my head in this condition. I tell you now that if the Yankees get too close to the guns, I am going to run. If they got me, or found me dead, they would say that General Lee was bringing up the convicts from the Penitentiary in Richmond to fight them. I wouldn't be caught dead with my head looking like this. ..
In the meantime, the enemy guns across the river opened on us and the shells were flying about us in lively fashion. It was rather a sudden transition from peace to war, but we had been at this business before; the sound of the shells was not unfamiliar--so we were not unduly disturbed. We quickly got the guns loaded, and opened on that Infantry, advancing up the hill. We worked rapidly, for the case was urgent, and we made it as lively for those fellows as we possibly could. In a few minutes a pretty neat little battle was making the welkin ring....
The battle ceased, the picket line was restored along the river bank, and all was quiet again. Bob McIntosh was more put out by all this business than anybody else--it had interrupted his hair cut. When we first got the guns into action, everybody was too busy to notice Bobs head. After we got settled down to work, I caught sight of that half-shaved head and it was the funniest object you ever saw. Bob was No. 1 at his gun, which was next to mine, and had to swab and ram the gun. This necessitated his constantly turning from side to side, displaying first this, and then the other side of his head. One side was perfectly white and bare; the other side covered by a mop of kinky, jet black hair; but when you caught sight of his front elevation, the effect was indescribable. While Bob was unconsciously making this absurd exhibition, it was too much to stand, even in a fight. I said to the boys around my gun, "Look at Bob." They looked and they could hardly work the gun for laughing.
Of course, when the fight was over McCreery lost that pair of scissors, or said he did. There was not another pair in camp, so Bob had to go about with his head in that condition for about a week--and he wearied of life. One day in his desperation, he said he wanted to get some of that hair off his head so much that he would resort to any means. He had tried to cut some off with his knife. One of the boys, Hunter Dupuy, was standing by chopping on the level top of a stump with a hatchet. Hunter said, "All right, Bob, put your head on this stump and I'll chop off some of your hair." The blade was dull, and it only forced a quantity of the hair down into the wood, where it stuck, and held Bobs hair fast to the stump, besides pulling out a lot by the roots, and hurting Bob very much. He tried to pull loose and couldn't. Then he began to call Hunter all the names he could think of, and threatened what he was going to do to him when he got loose. Hunter, much hurt by such ungracious return for what he had done at Bobs request, said, "Why, Bob, you couldn't expect me to cut your hair with a hatchet without hurting some"--which seined reasonable. We made Bob promise to keep the peace, on pain of leaving him tied to the stump--then we cut him loose with our knives.
After some days, when we had had our fun, Van found the scissors and trimmed off the other side of his head to match--Bob was happy.
("The Blue and The Gray" by Henry Steele Commanger, From William Dame's "From the Rapidan to Richmond.")
There was only one man in the Battery who could cut hair--Sergeant McCreery--and he had the only pair of scissors that could cut hair. So every aspirant to this fashionable cut tried to make interest with Van to fix him up; and Van, who was very good natured, would, as he had time and opportunity, accommodate the applicant, and trim him close.
Several of us had gone under the transforming hands of this tonsorial artist, when Bob McIntosh got his turn. Bob was a handsome boy with a luxuriant growth of hair. He had raven black, kinky hair that stuck up from his head in a bushy mass, and he hadn't had his hair cut for a good while, and it was very long and seemed longer than it was because it stuck out so from his head. Now, it was all to go, and a crowd of the boys gathered round to see the fun. The modus operandi was simple, but sufficient. The candidate sat on a stump with a towel tied 'round his neck, and he held up the corners making a receptacle to catch the hair as it was cut. Why this--I don t know; force of habit I reckon.
Van stood behind Bob and began over his right ear. He took the hair off clean, as he went, working from right to left over his head; the crowd around--jeering the victim and making comments on his ever-changing appearance as the scissors progressed, making a clean sweep at every cut. V/e were thus making much noise with our fun at Bob's expense, until the shears had moved up to the top of his head, leaving the whole right half of the head as clean of hair as the palm of your hand, while the other half was still covered with this long, kinky, jet black hair, which in the absence of the departed locks looked twice as long as before--and Bob did present a spectacle that would make a dog laugh. It was just as funny as it could be.
Just at that moment, in the midst of all this hilarity, suddenly we heard a man yell out something as he came running down the hill from the guns. We could not hear what he said. The next moment, he burst excitedly into our midst, and shouted out, "For God's sake, men, get your guns. The Yankees are across the river and making for the guns. They will capture them before you get there, if you don't hurry up."
This was a bolt out of a clear sky--but we jumped to the call. Everybody instantly forgot everything else and raced for the guns. I saw McCreery running with the scissors in his hand; he forgot that he had them--but it was funny to see a soldier going to war with a pair of scissors! I found myself running beside Bob McIntosh, with his hat off, his head half shaved and that towel, still tied round his neck, streaming out behind him in the wind.
Just before we got to the guns, Bob suddenly halted and said, "Good Heavens, Billy, it has just come to me what a devil of a fix I am in with my head in this condition. I tell you now that if the Yankees get too close to the guns, I am going to run. If they got me, or found me dead, they would say that General Lee was bringing up the convicts from the Penitentiary in Richmond to fight them. I wouldn't be caught dead with my head looking like this. ..
In the meantime, the enemy guns across the river opened on us and the shells were flying about us in lively fashion. It was rather a sudden transition from peace to war, but we had been at this business before; the sound of the shells was not unfamiliar--so we were not unduly disturbed. We quickly got the guns loaded, and opened on that Infantry, advancing up the hill. We worked rapidly, for the case was urgent, and we made it as lively for those fellows as we possibly could. In a few minutes a pretty neat little battle was making the welkin ring....
The battle ceased, the picket line was restored along the river bank, and all was quiet again. Bob McIntosh was more put out by all this business than anybody else--it had interrupted his hair cut. When we first got the guns into action, everybody was too busy to notice Bobs head. After we got settled down to work, I caught sight of that half-shaved head and it was the funniest object you ever saw. Bob was No. 1 at his gun, which was next to mine, and had to swab and ram the gun. This necessitated his constantly turning from side to side, displaying first this, and then the other side of his head. One side was perfectly white and bare; the other side covered by a mop of kinky, jet black hair; but when you caught sight of his front elevation, the effect was indescribable. While Bob was unconsciously making this absurd exhibition, it was too much to stand, even in a fight. I said to the boys around my gun, "Look at Bob." They looked and they could hardly work the gun for laughing.
Of course, when the fight was over McCreery lost that pair of scissors, or said he did. There was not another pair in camp, so Bob had to go about with his head in that condition for about a week--and he wearied of life. One day in his desperation, he said he wanted to get some of that hair off his head so much that he would resort to any means. He had tried to cut some off with his knife. One of the boys, Hunter Dupuy, was standing by chopping on the level top of a stump with a hatchet. Hunter said, "All right, Bob, put your head on this stump and I'll chop off some of your hair." The blade was dull, and it only forced a quantity of the hair down into the wood, where it stuck, and held Bobs hair fast to the stump, besides pulling out a lot by the roots, and hurting Bob very much. He tried to pull loose and couldn't. Then he began to call Hunter all the names he could think of, and threatened what he was going to do to him when he got loose. Hunter, much hurt by such ungracious return for what he had done at Bobs request, said, "Why, Bob, you couldn't expect me to cut your hair with a hatchet without hurting some"--which seined reasonable. We made Bob promise to keep the peace, on pain of leaving him tied to the stump--then we cut him loose with our knives.
After some days, when we had had our fun, Van found the scissors and trimmed off the other side of his head to match--Bob was happy.
("The Blue and The Gray" by Henry Steele Commanger, From William Dame's "From the Rapidan to Richmond.")
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