Sarah Emma Edmonds

Civil War soldier and nurse

• Born: December 1, 1841
• Place of Birth: New Brunswick, Canada
• Died: September 5, 1898
• Place of Death: La Porte, Texas

• Significance: Sarah Emma Edmonds disguised herself as a man so she could serve in the Union Army as a soldier and a nurse during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Some accounts claim that Edmonds was a spy for the Union as well, but the information about her undercover work varies according to different sources.

Background

Sarah Emma Edmonds was born Sarah Emma Evelyn Edmondson in December of 1841 in New Brunswick, Canada. Her father was a poor farmer with one son and five daughters. Edmonds's brother had epilepsy, so he could not help on the farm. Therefore, the daughters would spend their days working in the fields and their nights working around the house. Edmonds received little education but learned some basic skills. While working on the farm, she learned how to ride a horse and handle a rifle.

Some accounts claim that Edmonds's father was deep in debt. He arranged a marriage for Edmonds to a much older man. Not wanting to marry this man, Edmonds ran away from home. She spent some time in Canada, posing as Emma Edmonds and working as a dressmaker. However, she worried that her father would soon find her. Edmonds cut off her hair and crossed the border into the United States. She started disguising herself as a young man named Franklin Thompson. While living as Thompson, she found work as a traveling salesman, selling Bibles door to door.

Edmonds's work eventually took her to Flint, Michigan. Around this time, the American Civil War had broken out. Although she was not an American, Edmonds felt that she should help in the fight. Under the alias of Franklin Thompson, Edmonds enlisted with the 2nd Michigan Infantry in the spring of 1861. She was not alone in disguising herself as a male soldier. Experts believe that a few hundred women posed as men and fought in the Civil War. In her recollections after the war, Edmonds even claimed to have buried one such soldier who made a deathbed confession to being a woman at the Battle of Antietam in 1862.

Military Career

Edmonds volunteered for the Union Army as a male nurse. She treated wounded soldiers at the First Battle of Bull Run outside Washington, DC, in July of 1861. That winter, she worked at the Mansion House Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. At the time, only one person knew Edmonds's secret. She revealed the truth to a fellow soldier named Jerome Robbins, who wrote about his knowledge of Edmonds's identity in his journal.

In the spring of 1862, Edmonds became a mail carrier under Colonel Orlando Poe. During this time, she became familiar with the different camps and the local landscape. This is where experts find some controversy with the story of Edmonds's service. In her memoir, Edmonds claims that she became a spy for the Union Army. Some accounts assert that detective Allan Pinkerton recruited her. Others say that General George McClellan hired her as a spy. It is unclear if the people she worked for knew she was really a woman. There is also little evidence to support Edmonds's claims that she was a spy, but some of the dates that she was missing from service match dates of espionage missions discussed in her book.

In her autobiography, Edmonds describes several personas she adopted while trying to gather information on the Confederates. One of these identities was that of an African American slave. Supposedly, she used the compound silver nitrate to dye her skin and wore a wig to pretend she was a slave. The disguise allowed her to access a Confederate camp in Yorktown, Virginia, where the soldiers put her to work building up fortifications. When she started delivering water to the soldiers, the silver nitrate began to wear off. Fearing the enemy would realize she was not a slave, Edmonds snuck back to the Union side and told her superiors what she had learned about the Confederates' plans. Edmonds also posed as an Irish woman and a Confederate soldier at some point during her intelligence gathering.

After the War

Edmonds contracted malaria in April of 1863. She knew if she saw an army doctor to treat her illness, he would learn her secret. Instead, Edmonds went to a private hospital to seek treatment as a woman. However, the time she spent in the hospital recovering led her superiors to believe that Franklin Thompson had deserted the army. At the time, the penalty for desertion was death. Knowing she could not return to her post, Edmonds worked as a nurse at a DC military hospital until the war was over.

After the war, Edmonds returned to New Brunswick. She later attempted to apply for military benefits as a veteran. Because the army considered Franklin Thompson a deserter, Edmonds was not considered eligible to receive a pension. Edmonds then attended a reunion of her regiment. She convinced her fellow soldiers that she had been Franklin Thompson during the war. The soldiers wrote letters to corroborate Edmonds's story and asked that her desertion charge be removed so she could receive a pension. Eventually, Congress awarded Edmonds the standard army pension of $12 per month in 1884.

In 1865, Edmonds published her autobiography. The book—Nurse and Spy in the Union Army, Comprising the Adventures and Experiences of a Woman in Hospitals, Camps, and Battle-Fields, Illustrated—was released under the name S. Emma E. Edmonds. It sold nearly 200,000 copies, and Edmonds gave the proceeds to charity.

Impact

Edmonds and many other women ignored traditional ideas about what women should and should not do to stand up for what they believed in. Rather than leave the fighting to men, many women risked their lives and their reputations to serve in the army during the Civil War. Like the men they fought alongside, their actions are a testament to the bravery of all those who volunteer in times of war.

Personal Life

Edmonds married Linus H. Seelye in 1867. Together, they had three children. Some sources claim they adopted two children as well. The family later moved to Texas, where Edmonds spent the remainder of her life. She died at her home in Texas on September 5, 1898.

Bibliography

"Biography: Sarah Emma Edmonds." Civil War Trust, 2024, www.civilwar.org/learn/biographies/sarah-emma-edmonds. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Butts, Edward. "Sarah Edmonds (Frank Thompson)." Canadian Encyclopedia, 26 May 2016, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sarah-edmonds-frank-thompson/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Cordell, M. R. "Sarah Emma Edmonds: Soldier, Nurse, Spy." Courageous Women of the Civil War: Soldiers, Spies, Medics, and More. Chicago Review Press, 2016.

Coster, Sarah. "Nurses, Spies and Soldiers: The Civil War at Carlyle House." Carlyle House Docent Dispatch, Mar. 2011, www.novaparks.com/sites/default/files/pdf/3-March%202011-%20Nurses,%20Spies%20and%20Soldiers%20-%20The%20Civil%20War%20at%20Carlyle%20House.pdf. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Gormley, Kellie B. "This Female Civil War Soldier Participated in the Bloodiest Battle in American History and Spied on the South—or Did She?" Smithsonian Magazine, 17 Sept. 2024, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/this-female-civil-war-soldier-participated-in-the-bloodiest-battle-in-american-history-and-spied-on-the-southor-did-she-180985076/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Peake, Hayden. "Edmonds (Seelye), Sarah Emma [Franklin Thompson] (1841–1898)." An Encyclopedia of American Women at War: From the Home Front to the Battlefields, edited by Lisa Tendrich Frank, vol. 1, ABC-CLIO, 2013, pp. 203–05.

"Sarah Emma Edmonds." National Park Service, www.nps.gov/people/sarah-emma-edmonds.htm. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Senna, Carl. "The Lives of Emma Edmonds." New York Times, 21 Apr. 2014, opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/the-lives-of-emma-edmonds/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

Wells, Cheryl A. "Edmonds, Sarah Emma." American Civil War: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection, edited by Spencer C. Tucker, vol. 2, ABC-CLIO, 2013, pp. 569–70.