"Legends and Lies in Female Soldier Portraits" Article in Military Images Magazine

 I recently came across this article by Kurt Luther, founder of Civil War Photo Sleuth, an online tool for users to help identify individuals in images.  In his piece in "Military Image"s magazine, he deals with misidentified photos of women soldiers.  Among those he addresses is allegedly one of Jennie Hodgers in the collection of the Gilder Lehrman Institute.  I was actually going to use it in my book.  Sent the $165 check  and everything.  As you can see, the image is not viewable on their website.  I assumed based on the description that it was the photo below. But when I received the image via Dropbox, it was not what I thought.  And I had serious reservations about whether the soldier depicted was indeed Hodgers.  It didn't look like her to me.  And when I asked them to provide the provenance, they sent me a page from an auction house catalog they bought it from merely claiming the image to be Hodgers based on a resemblance to this photo:

Video: Women Soldiers Brought to Life

 I've been working on this project for a while now and finally got to a point where I could wrap it up and share it.  I took some images of women soldiers, colorized and animated them using AI.  If you have worked with AI, you know it can be fickle.  I can't tell you how many times I had to redo something because it just didn't turn out the way I wanted despite composing very specific prompts.  And I will say that there are some details that still aren't what I wanted.  I'm sure down the road I will still tweak this video, or make a complete new one.  But, until then, here it is:  

 

 

Animated Rosetta Wakeman, "Pvt. Lyons Wakeman," 153rd New York Infantry

 It has been an honor to give women soldiers of the Civil War a voice through my research. And now, I am excited to be able to give them life through AI. This short video highlights the story of Rosetta Wakeman. I wrote the script myself and included some of her own words from her letters. I made the video with Deep Story by My Heritage using the actual photo of her. I didn't like the voice generated from the website, so I extracted it and used another AI voice found on Narakeet. Consequently, the sound and animation are not perfectly synched. But I tried my best. This voice isn't perfect either, and if I find one I like better, I'll redo the video. This will suffice for now.   If you search my blog, you will find multiple posts I have written about her.

Meet Private Lyons Wakeman

Review of "Guts for Glory: The Story of Civil War Soldier Rosetta Wakeman"

 There are a few books about women soldiers geared towards young readers.  Courageous Women of the Civil War by Melinda Cordell comes to mind, as does  I'll Pass for Your Comrade by Anita Silvey.   Both books are suitable for youngsters around ten to twelve years old, and I thought both were well done and include information that adults would find interesting and useful.

Soldiers Rest in Alexandria, Virginia

 In a previous post [click here], I shared a part of a letter written by Sgt. William Henry Austin of the 109th New York Infantry.  He knew Rosetta Wakeman from back home and mentioned that he encountered her at Soldiers Rest in Alexandria, Virginia.  What is interesting is that at the time, she was serving as Pvt. Lyons Wakeman in the 153rd New York Infantry and sported an "insipid moustache."  Despite the disguise, Austin nevertheless recognized her.  In this post, I wanted to share images and information of Soldiers Rest where he encountered her prior to the 153rd New York's assignment to the western theater where Wakeman and her regiment participated in the ill-fated Red River Campaign.  Rosetta ultimately would not live to see the end of the war as she succumbed to dysentery in June 1864.

Rosetta Wakeman sans "insipid moustache"

Sarah Rosetta Wakeman Wore a Fake Mustache?

 A reader sent me a link to an auction house that sold a letter written by Sgt. William Henry Austin of the 109th New York Infantry.  He was a childhood friend of Rosetta Wakeman and was a bit surprised to see her in the uniform of a soldier when her regiment, the 153rd New York Infantry, was passing through Alexandria, Virginia.  Austin says her unit was bound for Texas, but they ended up in Louisiana and participated in the ill-fated Red River Campaign.  What I found especially intriguing about Austin's letter is the fact that he observed that she sported "an insipid moustache, highly colored." 

Women Soldiers at Old Capitol Prison

My friend, Aaron, recently pointed me to a website which includes a virtual recreation of the Old Capitol Prison.  He recalled me mentioning that women soldiers were held there and thought I would be interested in seeing these images.   Indeed I would.  And you probably would, too.  First, let's start with a period photograph.

Old Capitol Prison, Library of Congress

Old Capitol Prison, virtually recreated

My Video at Chalmette National Cemetery

So I'm branching out - after forcing myself in front of the camera.  First up is a video Mark shot of me last year at Chalmette National Cemetery talking about Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, alias "Lyons Wakeman," of the 153rd New York Infantry, who is buried there.

To learn more about Wakeman, click [HERE].

To find out where other women soldiers of the Civil War are buried, click [HERE].

I will periodically share more of these in the future.  You can view my YouTube Channel and subscribe by clicking [HERE].

Until next formation....rest.

What's in a Name?

The very first thing we often learn about a person is his or her name. Our name is an intimate part of who we are.   It comprises our identity, and we make connections between our name and identity every day.   As for people long gone who we are researching, it will all we will ever be able to learn about them.  In some cases, we uncover enough information to develop some sort of perception of their personality.  But it's not the same as actually getting to know them.  So we have to rely on names.  I've been researching women soldiers for over ten years now and have encountered lots of names.   

Aiming to Do Her Part-Mercy Street's Woman Soldier

A new character made an appearance on the latest episode of Mercy Street, a soldier named Private Ames who came in with a sick comrade.  The youngster seemed extra protective and concerned.  As events began to unfold, we learned that Private Ames was a woman soldier disguised as a male.  What gave her away?  The French illustrator said she knew because, as she put it, her adeptness at anatomical drawings allowed her to pick up on the woman soldier's bodily nuances.  As for everybody else.....well, she kind of betrayed herself  with the extreme hand holding and the kissing, which would have NEVER happened in public!!  The real women soldiers were discovered after becoming a casualty, or falling ill, or putting their stockings on in a feminine way, wringing out a dishrag in a feminine manner, sneezing like a girl, wearing clothes that were too big, instinctively trying to catch apples with nonexistent aprons, "giving a woman's squeal," trying to don trousers over the head.  But they were never detected while smooching on a man.  While many women soldiers enlisted to be with a husband or sweetheart, they kept their emotions in check because they were terrified of being discovered, and that was one sure fire way of being outed. Sarah Emma Edmonds, alias "Franklin Thompson" of the 2nd Michigan Infantry, offered perhaps the best illustration of this fear when she wrote that she would rather have been shot dead than to have been discovered and sent away from her regiment like a criminal (Edmondson file, RG 15, National Archives).

My Central Louisiana Talks, 3/4 and 3/5

About five years ago, I posed a question on a message board regarding a flag. Richard Holloway responded. And we went from talking about flags to women soldiers. Of course. Unbeknownst to me, he was (and is) the president of the Civil War Round Table of Central Louisiana based in the Alexandria/Pineville area. The next thing I knew, he invited me to speak at a meeting. The last time I taught anything history related was in the spring of 1997 when I did my student teaching. Since then, it's been all math. So yeah, I was hesitant. But then I began to welcome the challenge of putting together a power point presentation on women soldiers. It was exciting. But boy was I nervous when I spoke for the first time at that meeting in March, 2010. I enjoyed the experience and gradually started giving more presentations on women soldiers.

Rosetta's Real Life "Mercy Street" in New Orleans

http://thecivilwarparlor.tumblr.com/

Continuing with the theme of women soldiers and their hospital experiences, this blog post details that of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, whose story has been highly publicized in books, articles, and blogs since Lauren Cook introduced us to the woman warrior in 1994 through her wartime letters in An Uncommon Soldier.

The 5'0" tall, blue-eyed farm girl was financially driven to enlist in the 153rd New York Infantry on August 30th, 1862.  As a "man," she would make more money than she ever would as a woman.  Rosetta sent a portion of her soldier's pay home to Afton, New York in order to help alleviate the debt her family had accrued.  (Uncommon Soldier, p. 9)

In February, 1864, the 153rd was transferred from Washington D.C to Louisiana where they would participate in Major General Nathanial Banks' Red River Campaign.   During the ill-fated venture, Federal troops experienced bad water, bad food and fatigue from hundreds of miles of hard marching in the burning heat and suffocating humidity of Louisiana's subtropical climate.  The stress of dealing with all of these hardships took its toll as soldiers began to succumb to a variety of diseases.  Private Wakeman was one of them.

AAR From the Gardendale and Jasper, Alabama Talks

Back in March, I gave two talks in Alabama (click HERE for a recap) where I met a couple of nice folks who invited me to speak for their respective organizations, which I did so this past weekend.