Paying the Price: The Consequences of Discovery

My friend and fellow author, Mark Flotow, periodically sends me accounts relative to my research.  He is the author of In Their Letters, In Their Words:  Illinois Soldiers Write Home.  Visit his website to learn more about him and his research:  http://www.markflotow.net/.  Most of the accounts Mark sends me  have a Springfield, Illinois connection since that is where he is from.  His latest submission involved a civilian named Ellen Nolan who was discovered wearing male attire in the city.  Mark commented, "Note the fine amount versus being drunk on 'bad whisky.'"

 

The $7 discrepancy is a whole different topic, but it gave me the idea to discuss the price women paid - both socially and financially - for daring to overstep the bounds of propriety.

Indeed, the prices women paid for simply wearing men's clothes - whether they were military or civilian - could be quite hefty, especially when it came to facing ostracism from  friends, family, and the community.  Women of the time were well aware of the consequences they would face if their truth was revealed.  Sarah Emma Edmonds, alias "Frank Thompson" of the 2nd Michigan Infantry profoundly illustrated the fear of being discovered when she stated,  

"I would rather have been shot dead, than to have been known to be a woman and sent away from the Army under guard like a criminal." 

And, in some cases, the woman's friends and family faced the same disgrace she herself did.  Woman soldier Marian McKenize  was aware of this threat.  After she was discovered, she initially refused to give her name, informing the reporter,

"This sensation will have publicity enough…and I do not want the innocent to suffer for the guilty.”  

 So she did not want those close to her to have to face the same fate she was about to. 

The fate of those caught varied.  Some, such as Lizzie Hoffman, were given feminine apparel and confined before being sent back home. 

 

There were others who were jailed.  In January 1865, Clara Hobson of Jeffersonville, Indiana was arrested in Wheeling, West Virginia (one account claims it was Louisville) while wearing soldier's clothes.  She was sent to jail for thirty days. Two years prior, an unknown woman was arrested in Lancaster, Pennsylvania for the same offense.  The girl was seeking to follow a man into his regiment where he claimed he would secure a position of a cook for her.  Instead, she was sent to jail for sixty days.  A woman who served as "Frank Hall" was arrested in Louisville multiple times for wearing soldier's clothes.  After her third offense, she was given a much heavier penalty of three months in jail and a whopping fine of $200.  

Keep in mind that a Federal private typically made $13 a month and a Confederate $10, which was the amount Charlotte, alias "Charley Smith," was fined for wearing masculine attire, an offense that violated a city ordinance in New Orleans.  Jenny Clark and Fanny Freeman paid half that amount for being discovered in St. Louis and Springfield, Illinois respectively.  Clark had been serving in the 144th Illinois Infantry while Freeman was merely wearing civilian male attire.  Two young girls, Silbe Smith and Caroline Wilson, were also wearing male civilian attire when they were caught on the way to have their likenesses struck in New Orleans.  They were fined $5 each, but when one of them smarted off to the recorder proclaiming that the amount was light, he promptly added another $5 to her fine.

You can find lots of other similar accounts from across the country.  Apparently, women caught wearing male clothing around town was common enough to warrant a warning from at least one newspaper editor in 1862:

The accounts above include both women who were caught wearing male civilian attire and those who had donned a uniform when discovered.  For the female soldiers, they were not the only ones who could find themselves in trouble for slipping clandestinely into the ranks when societal norms forbade them to do so.  Enlisted men and officers were court martialed whenever women were discovered in their units, whether they were aware they were there or not.  For example, Lieutenant Amandus Schnabel who was found guilty of creating a false muster roll and defrauding the government of an able bodied soldier when Caroline Newcom was discovered in Colonel William Gilpin’s Missouri Infantry volunteers during the Mexican War.  Likewise for Private H.C. Steele of the 3^rd Illinois Cavalry, Private William Scott of the 13^th Indiana Cavalry, Captain Jerome Taft of the 59th New York Infantry, and Captain William Boyd of the 1^st New York Cavalry who all faced charges for conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline when females were discovered in their units.

 Women continued to face consequences for wearing male clothing into the 20th Century.   In 1938, kindergarten teacher, Helen Hulick appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom wearing pants.  She was there to testify against two burglary suspects but ended up in jail herself for donning male attire, which assaulted the dignity of the court, according to the judge.

Statesman Journal, 11-18-1938

For Helen, she was able to walk free by virtue of the efforts of her attorney.  But for some of the women who were jailed and fined for donning male apparel seventy years before her, their only perceived means of escaping the consequences of their decisions was suicide.  To some of these troubled women, they simply could not cope with the shame discovery would bring them, and they paid the ultimate price.  One of those women was the aforementioned Marian McKenzie whose suicide attempt actually failed.  She gave the reason for trying to end her life as a desire to wear pants, which was forbidden.  Click [HERE] to read a previous article I wrote on women soldiers and suicide.

Today, we simply pay no mind of our clothing choices and the evolution of societal norms associated with them.  And I feel we women especially think nothing of it when we don a pair of trousers.  But the next time you do, reflect on those who came before us who served time in jail, paid fines, and even gave up their lives simply for performing an act we do every day: put on a pair of pants.

Until next formation.....rest.