Sarah Emma Edmonds was born in December 1841 in New Brunswick,(probably in York County) Sarah Edmonson, or Edmondson, received scant education as a child, and sometime in the 1850s she ran away from home.

For a time she was an itinerant seller of Bibles, dressing as a man and using the name Frank Thompson. She gradually made her way west and by 1861 had established residence in Flint, Michigan.

She enlisted as a private in the Second Michigan Infantry in Detroit on May 25, 1861 as Frank Thompson--in a volunteer infantry company in Flint that became Company "F". Her disguise was a complete success for nearly 2 year.

She took part in the Battle of Blackburn's Ford, the First Battle of Bull Run, and the Peninsular campaign of May-July 1862. At Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862, she was an aide to Colonel Orlando M. Poe.

At least twice she undertook intelligence missions behind Confederate lines "disguised" as a woman.

Her duties while in the Union army included regimental nurse and mail and despatch carrier.

She accompanied the 2nd Michigan to Kentucky early in 1863. On April 19th Edmonds deserted because she acquired malaria, and she feared that hospitalization would reveal her gender.

Taking the name Sarah Edmonds, she worked as a nurse for the United States Christian Commission.

In 1865 she published a lurid and very popular fictional account of her experiences as Nurse and Spy in the Union Army.

In 1867 she married L. H. Seelye, a Canadian mechanic. They raised three children. Thereafter she moved often--to Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Louisiana, and Kansas.

In 1882, living then in Fort Scott, Kansas, she began securing affidavits from old army comrades in order to apply for a veteran's pension, and in July 1884 the pension was granted by Congress to "Sarah E.E. Seelye [her married name], alias Frank Thompson." A letter from the secretary of war, dated June 30th of that year, acknowledged her as "a female soldier who . . . served as a private . . . rendering faithful service in the ranks."

She moved to La Porte, Texas where she became the only woman to be mustered into the Grand Army of the Republic as a regular member.

In letters she mentioned making an efforts to get an increased pension due to being injured while delivering mail during the Civil War under the name of Franklin Thompson.

Sarah Edmonds Seelye died September 5, 1898, in La Porte Texas. She is buried in Washington Cemetery, Houston Texas, in lot G-26. This is a GAR lot that belonged to George B. McClellan Post of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Lower Photo of Franklin Thompson in 1886 (Courtesy of the State Archives of Michigan)

In the Bentley Historical Library, Robbins, Jerome John, Collection there is...

Nine journals (May 20, 1861-Feb. 14, 1864; Jan. 1-Aug. 6, 1865) kept while he was a private in Company I, 2nd Michigan Infantry, and in the hospital dispensary. Later he became a steward, then assistant surgeon. The early journals are concerned chiefly with his religious activities and meditations, with frequent references to his friend Frank Thompson (Sarah Emma Edmonds) until her desertion in April 1863.

Also two letters dated Jan. 16th and May 10th 1863 written by Sarah Emma Edmonds to Jerome Robbins after she had resumed her real identity and had become a nurse.

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