On August 3rd, 1862, a nineteen-year-old Irish immigrant named Jennie Hodgers joined the ranks of the 95th Illinois Infantry, successfully passing for a man during a physical examination in which she only had to show her hands and feet. For the next three years, she served as Pvt. Albert D. J. Cashier, engaging in as many as forty battles and skirmishes, where she fought bravely and memorably.
“The real war will never get in the books.” - Walt Whitman, Specimen Days On the fifth of July, I got up early to lace my mom’s corset. She was 64 years old, and in a couple of hours, she would be standing in a field, washing laundry over a fire pit in a copper tub at the 150th anniversary reenactment of the battle of Gettysburg. The corset would serve as her back brace. Like…
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is a haunted town. It makes sense: The town has 350 years of triumphs and tragedies in its past. Besides the infamous battle that ravaged the town and surrounding farmland and included one civilian death, Gettysburg was home to a stop on the Underground Railroad and an orphanage run by a woman with a penchant for torturing her charges. Northwest of the town center is my alma mater, Gettysburg College,…
