Women soldiers suffered the same fate as their male counterparts, which included succumbing to disease as is the case of an unknown woman from Missouri serving in a Federal unit.
In 1863, the Memphis Argus carried the following article:
"DEATH OF A CAVALRY SOLDIER WHO PROVES TO BE A WOMAN. "A short time since a soldier, belonging to a Missouri cavalry regiment, was entered at the Overton Hospital for treatment for fever contracted in camp. Two or three days ago the soldier died, but not before it had been revealed that the supposed young man was a woman. It seems that she entered the army early in the war, and served her time faithfully as a soldier, until mustered out. During all this time she was enabled to retain the secret of her sex. A short time after leaving the service she re-entered it again as a veteran, and had been with the regiment to which she was attached a month or two when sent to the hospital in this city. Her real name, we learn, could not be ascertained, but her experience, as related by herself, was the old story over again. She had followed her lover into the army, and to be near him had willingly braved the dangers of the battle-fleld and borne the hardships and exposures of campaign life. Her years could not have been more than twenty ; though who can estimate those in bitter experience which had been her lot? Poor girl !"(The United States Service Magazine, vol. III, 1865, p. 271)
