After learning of her pending marriage, Emma runs away from home and finds untold opportunities dressing and acting like a boy. When the Civil War breaks out, Emma enlists. She serves in many positions, first as a male nurse and then as a mail carrier. The book briefly discusses claims that she had worked as a spy, recounting several dangerous experience. After falling ill, Emma runs away, worried that her true sex will be discovered. Returning to the life of a woman, she marries. Encouraged by those around her, she fights for a Civil War pension and reunites with her former comrades.

This book as written in a very matter of fact way. I would have liked more of a story-telling element, rather than a recitation of facts. At times the book does deliver this, but at others is a bit dry. Overall, the book was well written, well documented and an interesting read. ( )

This is a non-fiction book about a woman who fought in the Civil War dressed as a man and was the only woman to receive a veteran pension for serving in this war. The author reconstructed her story from her journals and journals and letters of men who served with her. Thompson first assumed a male attire before the war in order to escape her home and worked as a traveling bookseller, making a quick success of it. When the war started, she enlisted partly because she was a convinced abolitionist and partly because she was lonely, as her lifestyle made it difficult to form friendships. Interestingly, the author observes that there were a number of women who joined the army at that time, usually in order not to be parted from their husbands, or to escape their husbands, or to get better wages. She points out that most men who enlisted also did it for “adventure and glory” rather than for any political reasons. Since in the beginning, everybody thought it would end quickly (as did the Southerners), men rushed to join, afraid that if they didn’t do so immediately, they’d miss “all the fun.” The author describes how lots of civilians accompanied the soldiers in carriages, with picnic baskets on their laps, to what most people assumed would be the first and only battle of the civil war. As poignantly, we read how Davis and Lincoln “danced” around each other, each trying to save face and let the other take the responsibility for starting the war.

This book also provides an interesting perspective on General McClelan. The author shows that he was a good strategist, but as the war started, he found out that he couldn’t send people into danger, and so he was looking for ways to capture the confederate capital by shelling it or some other relatively bloodless means, which took time. The soldiers very much appreciated his conscientiousness; he was so popular with the army, that when another commander was appointed in his place, the troops clamored for him not to give in and promised to support him in a military coup! He asked them to support his successor as they had supported him, but this obviously gave him an idea to try to run for president against Lincoln. In an interesting parallel, Emma Thompson found that she couldn’t fire at the enemy, and so she specialized in getting wounded men out of the field and to where they could be treated. She did risk her life a great deal, but never fired a shot. She discovered a talent for nursing, and two years into the war, when female nurses became acceptable, she changed back to female attire and worked in one of the military hospitals. She also wrote a book based largely on her war experiences to raise money for military hospitals. Sometime after the war, Thompson got married, raised two adopted sons (all their own children died very young) and was very respected in the community. The author says that she liked to wear breeches, especially when working in the garden, and neither her husband nor the neighbors objected! So you get a life story of an interesting woman, but also a bigger picture of life at this time. ( )