by Seymour Reit
The young man’s heart was racing; for the rest of the day, he had trouble concentrating on the books and ledgers of Aylesworth & Company. But quitting time came at last. Making sure he wasn’t being followed, he hurried to meet his contact. When Mayberry explained what he’d done, the contact grinned with approval and told him to follow through carefully on the arrangements.
“Leave with Hall, just as planned,” he said. “Somewhere on the Garnettsville road, you’ll walk right into a Union ambush. Of course we’ll have to arrest you both, to make it look good. But have no fear, Thompson. You’ve done splendidly—I believe we’ve got our man at last.”
The following evening was moonless and overcast. Just before nine, Mayberry slipped into the yard behind the shop. Hall and Aylesworth were already there with the horses. Even in the darkness, Charles could sense the tall man eyeing him with suspicion.
“I don’t like this, P. N.,” he muttered angrily. “Who is this fellow, anyway?”
“No need to worry, Hall,” the merchant said. “It’s very safe; I’ll vouch for the boy.”
Finally the agent shrugged and swung up in the saddle. As he did, Mayberry noticed the butt of a heavy Colt .44 pistol poking from Hall’s belt. He mounted his own horse, praying that nothing would go wrong and that the planned ambush would work.
Together the riders turned south out of town and trotted along at a steady pace. Hall remained grim and silent; now and then he cast an evil sidelong glance at his young companion. Mayberry tried to make small talk, but finally gave up, and they rode for over an hour without speaking a word. The night was still, and Charles was beginning to get worried. Where were the Union troopers? Had something gone wrong with their timing? What would he do if the scheme failed?
Soon he could hear Hall muttering anxiously to himself. At any moment the man could pull his gun, shoot him, and dump his body in the river—and no one would be any the wiser. Mayberry’s tension kept slowly building. Sweat trickled down his back. In the darkness Hall seemed to grow bigger and more menacing—a grim image foretelling doom. Charles fought to stay cool and composed. Under his breath he began to recite a beloved psalm to calm himself:
Yea, though I walk
through the Valley
of the Shadow of Death . . .
A loud command tore through the silence. “Raise your hands, both of you!”
The spy almost whooped with relief as a squad of Union cavalrymen burst through the trees and surrounded them. Both travelers raised their hands as the captain in charge rode up and yanked the gun from Hall’s belt.
“Tie ’em with their hands behind their backs,” he barked.
Mayberry and Hall were quickly trussed, and in this ungainly manner, they turned off the road and headed toward a nearby Union encampment. They were now circled by the troopers and Hall made no attempt to escape. But Charles could still hear him muttering, cursing the Union, the entire government in Washington, and mostly his own bad luck.
Safe in camp, Hall was locked up and Mayberry was released with the thanks of the captain. Worn out, he found a quiet place to sleep.
The next day, he reported to Hooker’s aide at headquarters. The officer beamed at him. “We caught him with the goods, Thompson. Those documents he had were secret Union plans he was taking to the rebels. In his papers we also found the names of two other agents in Louisville—a sutler and a traveling photographer. They’ve been nabbed, along with Aylesworth. A clean sweep. You couldn’t have done better!”
Back at his own regiment, Private Thompson was praised and congratulated. And on General Hooker’s orders, he was presented with yet another trophy: a handsome engraved sword taken from a Confederate major during the Battle of Fair Oaks, near Richmond.
Later, at the chaplain’s quarters, Emma described the whole adventure to Mrs. Butler. She gave her the engraved sword for safekeeping, to be left with the rifle she’d brought back from Yorktown.
“Land sakes, all these trophies!” Mrs. Butler exclaimed. “I’m beginning to run out of room.”
The two women laughed. Neither of them knew it, but this would be the last of Emma’s hard-won souvenirs. More trouble was lying ahead for her, but it was of a different kind.
15
May 6, 1863
A few weeks after the Louisville episode, the regiment was transferred again, this time to Vicksburg and the army of General Grant.
Vicksburg, on the east bank of the Mississippi River, was a Confederate rail center. If the Union could capture it, the Southern forces would be almost cut in two. But the city was well defended, guarded by river and swamplands on one side and steep craggy bluffs on the other.
The rebels’ main defense was a system of trenches stretching for miles, from Haynes’s Bluff to the Warrenton road. Since Grant’s men far outnumbered the defenders, he tried to storm these trenches directly. But the rebels under General John Pemberton, fighting skillfully, beat off every attack and left the Union with thousands of casualties. Finally Grant was forced to dig in, and a long siege began. Vicksburg was sealed off on the river side by Union warships; on the land side, Union artillery bombarded it with endless shells. Little by little, a noose of steel tightened around the besieged city. Later a Confederate soldier wrote home that “even a cat couldn’t have crept out of Vicksburg without being discovered.”
All this caused great suffering on both sides. The cannonading killed hundreds of soldiers and civilians inside the wrecked and starving city. Meanwhile rebel sharpshooters, hidden on the bluffs, picked off great numbers of Union men. At times the Federal troops had to crouch in trenches up to their knees in water, unable to raise their heads because of the hail of sniper bullets.
During these nightmarish weeks, Private Thompson and the nurses worked without rest. The surgeons were completely exhausted. And Mrs. Butler, along with other officers’ wives, came to the hospital daily to help tend the wounded.
Then Emma’s luck—which up till then had been so good—suddenly ran out. For some time she had been feeling sick, but had been too busy to do anything about it. Her symptoms became worse, and at last she had to face the truth: She was suffering from malaria, or “swamp fever,” as the soldiers called it.
Dr. Hodes and his assistants dosed Private Thompson with quinine, but it did no good. The malaria was severe. One minute he burned with fever, the next he shook with a terrible chill. He could hardly sleep or eat, and found himself getting weaker by the day. Finally Thompson applied for leave, but gave no details, and his request was turned down. In this crisis, headquarters needed every single skilled nurse, and that was that.
Desperate, Emma turned to her trusted friend. “What should I do?” she wailed, sitting in Mrs. Butler’s tent, shivering in an army blanket. “I can’t just climb into a bed in the hospital. If I take my clothes off they’ll know my secret—I’ll be finished!”
Mrs. Butler paced the little tent unhappily. “I don’t know what to say, my dear. You’re very sick. You have to be hospitalized. Sakes, I’d nurse you here if I could, but there’s no room. Besides, the major would learn the truth; he’d feel it his duty to report you to headquarters.”
In tears, the women embraced each other. Then Emma trudged back to the hospital, feeling hopeless. She was ill and confused. Her world was splintering. Her imp voice was silent. For two years she’d posed as a man and had played the part well. To give it all up now, to be glaringly exposed, was a painful humiliation. Somehow, to Emma’s fevered mind, it would shame her and make a joke of everything she’d tried to do.
She remembered feeling this same kind of deep hopelessness when she was sixteen. Then, she’d solved the problem by running away. Now again, flight seemed the best way out—the only way out. Yes—she would leave quietly, get the help she needed, and come back to Vicksburg when she was stronger.
For Emma, to decide on something was to act on it. She left a brief note for Mrs. Butler explaining her plans and asking her to please look after Rebel. Then she packed her kit, t
ook the money she’d saved, and slipped out of the nurses’ quarters. Before dawn she hitched a ride out of camp on a drover’s cart. Later, near Steele’s Bayou, she took passage on a Mississippi riverboat and headed north to Cairo, Illinois.
Cairo was a bustling town, big enough to boast a hospital. Emma, weak and shaky, managed to buy a skirt, blouse, and bonnet. In a rented room, she changed from a Union soldier back to plain Miss Edmonds. Then she went to the hospital and signed herself in for treatment.
Emma remained in bed for several weeks, and with the proper food, rest, and medical care, gradually recovered. She followed the war news eagerly and learned that Vicksburg had surrendered. At the same time, an army under General George Meade defeated Lee’s forces in the Battle of Gettysburg. These two events helped the Union turn a corner; victory was still a distant dream, but was beginning to come closer.
Emma sensed the turn of the tide and, with her malaria under control, planned to rejoin her old outfit. Instead, she received another blow. Scanning the army bulletins in the window of the Cairo newspaper office, she saw that Private Franklin Thompson of the Second Michigan was listed as AWOL—absent without leave! In the army’s books, she had been branded a deserter!
For Emma Edmonds, a door suddenly slammed shut. Now there was no way she could take up her old work as a field nurse, courier, and Union spy. Private Thompson was considered a deserter. He couldn’t protest without an investigation in which the secret would surely come out.
For a time, Emma was heartsick. Then she reacted to this setback the way she always did: with action. Frank Thompson might be finished, but the war was still on, and there were many ways she could be useful. She sent word to Mrs. Butler telling her what had happened; then, with the last of her funds, bought a train ticket to Washington.
After her two years away, she found the capital more hectic and chaotic than ever. Wounded men were pouring in, and here, far from the fighting fronts, good nurses were badly needed. She found a place to live and went quickly to work in one of the base hospitals.
For the remainder of the war, Emma served as a nurse under her rightful name, tending and comforting the wounded. Now and then she would run into a trooper from Vicksburg or Yorktown and would ply him with questions about friends and acquaintances. She also followed in detail the battles of those final years. Chickamauga . . . Missionary Ridge . . . Spottsylvania . . . the Wilderness . . . Atlanta . . . Petersburg. Emma exulted in each Union victory and wept for the dead and dying of both sides.
Early in April of 1865, government troops finally occupied the battered rebel capital of Richmond. On the ninth of that same month, General Lee surrendered the Confederate armies to Ulysses Grant—and at last the long ordeal was over.
Two days later, Abraham Lincoln made a speech from a window of the White House. The president, gaunt and weary, spoke of peace and honor, of charity and the healing of wounds. Among those in the huge crowd who cheered themselves hoarse was Emma Edmonds.
The Sunday after the South surrendered happened to be Easter, and Emma went to church. One of the songs that morning was an Easter hymn she’d always loved. As she sang with the others, she realized it could have been written for that very time in history:
The strife is o’er, the battle done,
The victory of life is won,
Our song of triumph has begun,
. . . Alleluia!
Looking back at the years of war, she thought of all the people she’d known and the roles she’d played. When she first enlisted in Michigan, it was a kind of lark. She’d had little idea what lay ahead. But she’d met all the challenges and done her best.
Emma’s heart was foil. Her beloved land was finally at peace. Now it was time for the healing.
16
What Happened After
What became of Emma Edmonds after the great Civil War ended? Government records and pension files offer some answers.
For a time, she kept on with her nursing work. She also sat down and wrote her memoirs, describing some of her adventures as Private Thompson. In all, Emma spent two years as a man in the Union army and made eleven different trips behind rebel lines. On those spy missions she used various disguises, but her favorite was always the spunky little black slave named Cuff.
Her story came out soon after the end of hostilities. Titled Nurse and Spy in the Union Army, her book proved a big success and sold thousands of copies; Emma donated her share of the profits to U.S. war relief. The tale is hard to read because it is written in the fancy, flowery style popular in those days, but the reasons for what Emma Edmonds did are simple and clear. On the first page she says:
It was not my intention, or desire, to seek my own personal ease and comfort while so much sorrow and distress filled the land. But the great question to be decided was, what can I do? What part can I myself play in this great drama?
Morals in nineteenth-century America were prim and proper, and some people thought Emma’s actions very shocking. But the publisher, W. S. Williams of Hartford, Connecticut, added a gallant note of defense:
Should any of her readers object to some of her disguises, it may be sufficient to remind them it was from the purest motives and most praiseworthy patriotism that she laid aside for a time her own costume and assumed that of the opposite sex, enduring hardships, suffering untold privations, and hazarding her life for her adopted country in its trying hour of need.
The little volume came out over 120 years ago. It has long since disappeared from our bookshelves and libraries, but surprisingly, a few ancient copies still exist. Their bindings are falling apart; the pages are torn and brown with age—yet Emma’s adventures are as fresh and exciting as any tale of modern courage.
After finishing her writing, Emma grew homesick and went back to visit Saint John, Canada. There she met Linus Seelye, an old friend from her childhood days. A romance soon began, and in 1867, Emma and Linus returned to the United States to be married in Cleveland, Ohio.
Linus was a mechanic and the Seelyes traveled a lot in connection with his work. They went from Ohio to Michigan to Illinois, finally settling in Fort Scott, Kansas. The couple had three sons, one of whom later joined the U.S. Army, “just like Mama did.”
But Emma never fully recovered from her malaria, which she apparently first caught in the Chickahominy swamps. Her health slowly grew worse. She also began to brood about the shame of being branded as a deserter. Considering all she’d been through, she felt it a cruel, unfair label. She got in touch with officers from her old regiment and asked for their help. Encouraged by them, Emma petitioned the War Department for a full review of her case. She asked to have her military rights restored, including any back pay, plus an honorable discharge.
The matter was debated in Washington, D.C., and on July 5, 1884, a special act of Congress granted everything she asked for. Emma was awarded an honorable discharge, plus a bonus and a veteran’s pension of twelve dollars per month.
By now Mrs. Seelye had made contact with a number of old army friends, including the Butlers. She kept in touch with them all and attended some of the regimental reunions. Most of her fellow troopers were, of course, amazed to learn that this plump, matronly lady in her fancy bonnet and long skirts was none other than their slim, cool-eyed war buddy, Frank Thompson!
In 1891, Emma’s son Frederick was married and moved to the town of La Porte, Texas. Emma and Linus soon joined the young couple there. They liked the southern climate, and stayed in La Porte until Emma’s death on September 5, 1898. Today her simple grave is in the military section of Washington Cemetery in Houston, Texas.
After the war, a group of Civil War veterans who had seen action in the Union forces formed a society called the Grand Army of the Republic. The GAR became powerful and important in American life, and had a huge enrollment of over four hundred thousand ex-soldiers. The only female member of this honored group was Emma Edmonds.
Other Reading
Would you like to read more about the Civil Wa
r and about the part brave women played in it? If so, here are other books that may be of special interest
Barton, George. World’s Greatest Military Spies and Secret Service Agents. Boston: Page Company, 1917.
Catton, Bruce. The Civil War. New York: American Heritage, 1985.
Dannett, Sylvia G. Noble Women of the North. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959.
Dawson, Sarah M. A Confederate Girl’s Diary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1960.
Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
Fredericks, Pierce, ed. The Civil War As They Knew It. New York: Bantam Books, 1961.
Hoehling, Adolph A. Women Who Spied. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1967.
Kane, Harnett T. Spies for the Blue and Gray. Garden City, N.Y.: Hanover House, 1954.
Massey, Mary E. Bonnet Brigades. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966.
Pratt, Fletcher, ed. The Civil War in Pictures. New York: Holt, 1955.
Pratt, Fletcher. Ordeal by Fire. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
Ropes, Hannah Anderson. Civil War Nurse. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1980.
Shavin, Norman. Illustrated Tales of the Civil War. Atlanta: Capricorn Corp., 1983.
