Sarah Emma Edmonds
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Female Union soldier.
1841-1898
Sarah Emma Evelyn Edmundson was a Canadian-born woman who served with
the Union Army in the American Civil War.
Edmundson was born in Magaguadavic Settlement, New Brunswick, Canada,
but left home after her abusive father attempted to force her to
marry a man she did not want. She worked for a time in New Brunswick
selling Bibles but still afraid of being found by her father, she
fled to the United States in 1856 where she settled in Flint,
Michigan. During the Civil War, she enlisted in the Army, disguised
as a man named Frank Thompson. She at first served as a male nurse,
participating in several campaigns, including the First Battle of
Bull Run. As Frank Thompson, she also served as a spy, occasionally
disguising herself as an African American or a woman, or sometimes
both. At one point, she disguised herself as an Irish peddler with
the name of Bridget O'Shea.
Edmonds' career as Frank Thompson came to an end when she contracted
malaria. Unable to go to the military hospital, because she would be
revealed as a woman, she left the army and checked herself in to a
private hospital, intending to return to military life once she had
recuperated. Once she was better, however, she saw posters looking
for Frank Thompson as a deserter. Rather than return to the army as a
woman, she decided to serve as a female nurse at a Washington, D.C.
hospital for wounded soldiers run by the United States Christian
Commission.
After the war she used the pen name Sarah Edmonds to publish Nurse
and Spy in the Union Army. It was a huge success, selling in excess
of 150,000 copies. In 1867, she married L. H. Seelye, a Canadian
carpenter with whom she had three children. In 1886 she received a
government pension rewarding her military service. Edmonds died in La
Porte, Texas, and is buried in Washington Cemetery, in Houston,
Texas. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in
1992.
The PBS television network ran a program called "Canadians in the
Civil war" that told Edmundson's story. In Canada, a documentary of
Edmonds' life was produced in 2004 entitled The Unsexing of Emma
Edmonds, and a monument to her is being planned in 2005.
