Woman masquerades as civil war soldier

Recruiters did not suspect a thing, when a 19 year old male impersonator from Canada enlisted in the Union Army on May 3, 1861.

Sarah Emma Evelyn Edmundson was born in New Brunswick just across the border from Maine.  She grew up with the bitter understanding that her father had wanted a son.  This knowledge and his constant abuse instilled in the girl “a hatred of male tyranny.”

Getting wind of her father’s plan to marry her off to a lecherous old man, 17 year old Emma ran away from home in 1858.  She cut her curly hair short, put on male clothing and started a new life as “Frank Thompson.”