The Woman Soldier and the Golden Circle

If you watched the last two episodes of Mercy Street, you saw the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) make an appearance.  This secret organization was formed before the war and sought to extend a slave-based empire to territories that stretched around the Gulf of Mexico, down past Mexico and Central America to parts of South America, hence the circle.  Its membership reached to every state in the Union and purportedly included the likes of Sam Houston, John Wilkes Booth, Jesse James, and William Quantrill.

From Fold3

John Thompson was also among them.  Or so she claimed.  Yes, "John Thompson" was a woman.  Specifically, she was a soldier woman who enlisted in company D of the 1st Kentucky Infantry (US) at Hamilton, Ohio on May 28th, 1861.  Her service records say she was 18 years old, but, according to the Ripley Bee of August 8th, 1861, she was supposed to be 22 but looked like a "...sprightly boy of 17..." in her uniform.  She was apparently an accomplished soldier because she was "...distinguished for her rapid progress in the manual of arms and her decided military bearing."  

In July, 1861, she accompanied the regiment to the Kanawha Valley during which time she carried all of her gear and performed all of the soldierly duties without lagging behind or complaining.  One newspaper was specific when referring to her physical prowess by proclaiming that "...she carried forty-six pounds on her back, besides her gun &c."  Not forty-five pounds or even forty-seven.  Forty-six pounds.  I find the preciseness amusing, as if they weighed her knapsack/blanket roll.  Regardless, their point was that she was heavily burdened.  Poor girl.  Sounds as if she needed to get rid of some stuff.....like maybe documents and letters detailing troop movements and positions.  More on that later.

She became a favorite among her messmates despite the fact that they could never persuade her to drink or go bathing with them.  The latter she blamed on her inability to swim.  Not only did she avoid the water, but she also kept her coat buttoned up to her chin in order to hide her gender.  Her mistake, though, came when someone noticed the "...feminine method of putting on her stockings."

(Okay.......yeah.  I had no idea there was a masculine and feminine way of putting on socks.  But apparently so.  The only thing I can figure is that she rolled them up.  And she wasn't even the only woman soldier discovered in this manner.)

Obviously, she was discharged (while owing the sutler $1).  Her male comrades were shocked at the news  that their constant companion for the last two months had different body parts than they did.  As a matter of fact, nobody seemed to believe it, and she was sent to the surgeon for examination who confirmed that she was indeed a woman.

Her dainty stocking-donning was one reason given for her discovery.  Other newspapers reported that she was detected from her written information on troop movements.  Upon being questioned, she admitted to being a spy and a member of the KGC (Not to be confused with KFC or KCF.  KCF?  You know...."Keep it, Change it, Flip it?  It's what you do when you divide fractions:  keep the first fraction the same, change division to multiplication, and flip the second fraction.  When's Spring Break?)

She said that through that order (KGC not KFC or KCF), she was able to forward her letters to the Confederates.  After all, their members were everywhere.  She admitted that she knew that a spy's fate was death and that she was "...ready whenever they wish to shoot her."

Federal officials didn't shoot her.  Rather, she was sent from Ravenswood, Virginia, which was where she was discovered, to Gallipolis, Ohio where newspapers picked up her story.   There, she refused to give any information about herself and when officials asked why she enlisted, she replied that, "...it was for them to find out."  And when confronted with the accusation of her being a spy, she merely laughed and declared that she would only reenlist in another unit if she were discharged from the 1st Kentucky.   She even refused to exchange her uniform for a dress.   This anonymous woman wasn't alone.  The Gallipolis Journal on August 1st, 1861, reported that  "She is not the only woman in this community that wears britches."  The reporter even supported her decision to serve as a soldier.  "We say turn her loose."

Southern newspapers picked up her story and echoed the sentiments of the Gallipolis Journal.  On August 7th, 1861, both the Daily Chronicle & Sentinel (Augusta, Georgia) and the Southern Confederacy (Atlanta, Georgia) claimed that she was from Georgia.  The following day, the Savannah Republican ran a story entitled "Don't Hurt That Woman," where the editor stated, "We hope our Government will see to it that this patriotic woman does not suffer the penalty of death, whatever may be the ransom.  Spare two spies on our side, or exchange five hundred prisoners of war, before a hair of her head shall be touched."

Her identity and ultimate fate are unknown.   She obviously escaped execution and may very well have continued to work for the KGC using a different, but very similar, alias.  On June 16th, 1864, the Hornellsville Weekly Tribune carried an article from the Albany Knickerbocker reporting the capture of a young woman in Utica, New York named Jennie Thompson dressed in men's clothes and going by the alias, "James Thompson."   The results of a search of her person yielded a manuscript of the constitution and by-laws of the KGC, part of which detailed a plan to kidnap young and virtuous girls and sell them to houses of ill repute in New York.

No further information is known at this time.

Other sources:
Richardson, Albert D., The Secret Service, 1865, p. 175.
Jeffersonian Democrat, August 16th, 1861

Until next formation.....rest......especially if you've been carrying forty-six pounds.