Jennie Hodgers, a native of Ireland, took the name of Albert Cashier, and not only served through the entire war—she posed as a man her entire life, and was only discovered near the end of her life.

All of these women took masculine names. They cut their hair short, wore pants, bound their breasts, and learned to swear and walk like men. Their gender was often not discovered unless they were severely wounded. Some were killed in battle, and only then was their sex revealed.

Female Soldiers of the Civil War

On the occasion of this Memorial Day, Linda Paul reports on “Jennie’s Secret” …

I don’t remember how I first encountered the story of Civil War veteran Jennie Hodgers (aka Albert Cashier), but I was smitten from the start. I was amazed that hundreds of women had posed as men during the Civil War. I couldn’t imagine how she (or they) pulled it off. And I was positively gob-smacked when I found out that Hodgers went on to spend most of her adult life - as a man - in the tiny town of Saunemin, Illinois. That’s just 12 miles down the road from Pontiac in Livingston County. And Pontiac is where my family comes from.

…

Look at the picture of Cashier in 1913 (on the right) and you can see that late in life her sartorial tastes still ran to high collars around the neck. Maybe because she didn’t want people to notice that she didn’t have much of an Adam’s apple.

Cashier/Hodgers would have been 69 in that picture. She looks so calm and unassuming. Who could imagine that she led the life she did?

Today in 2009, I have the feeling everybody wants a little piece of Jennie Hodgers. Civil war buffs, the Irish, the transgender community.. each wants to claim her.. and now, after many years – for the most part, even the town of Saunemin wants to claim her too.

You can listen to Paul’s report at Transom, WBEZ or NPR …

Albert D.J. Cashier was the shortest soldier in the 95th Illinois Infantry. In one of the few existing photographs of Cashier during the war, you can faintly detect the outline of breasts under her uniform. But that’s if you’re looking for it. And the military apparently was not:

DAVIS: Uh, they didn’t conduct physical exams in those days the way the military does now.. What they were looking for was warm bodies.. people who could stand up straight.. who obviously could see.. and could hear.. and hopefully could speak English so they could follow orders.

Rodney Davis is a retired professor of history at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. He taught American history, including the Civil War, and knows all about the exceptional story of Albert Cashier. And in one of those real life twists, that seems too lucky to be true, years ago Davis found some papers in an old family trunk that belonged to his great grandfather, CW Ives. To his astonishment he discovered that his own great grandfather was the commanding officer to Albert DJ Cashier.

DAVIS: CW Ives was her first sergeant.. HIS first sergeant… however you wanna do it… His/her first sergeant… And they were together for at least two years.. So, uh, they got to know each other rather well.

Jennie Hodgers, masquerading as Albert Cashier, marched thousands of miles. She was at the Siege of Vicksburg and surrender of Mobile. Her regiment took part in more than 40 skirmishes and battles. Hundreds of her fellow soldiers died from wounds and disease but …

DAVIS: Albert Cashier seems to have been in from the beginning to the end.. She uh, she stuck it out … Commander CW Ives once described Albert Cashier as quote a fearless boy.

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Related links …

* Jennie Hodgers [Civil War Women]

* Transman Civil War Hero? [Trans Group Blog]

* My Last Skirt: The Story of Jennie Hodgers, Union Soldier [Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]

* Also Known As Albert D.J. Cashier: The Jennie Hodgers Story [Compass Rose]

* Civil War house going home [Pantagraph]

* Restoration planned for home of female Civil War soldier [Transgender News]

Vita brevis, ars longa …

A retired history teacher is donating his tattooed body to an art gallery.

Geoff Ostling, 65, is virtally covered in colourful depictions of exotic flowers after a 15 year collaboration with acclaimed cult tattooist, eX de Merci.

Covering every part of his body, save for his face, neck and parts of his forearms, Mr Ostling’s tattoos are on the theme of “all the flowers of a Sydney garden”.

He said: “I wanted something unique so I thought about a garden of plants, of natives and imported flowers, what you would find in a Sydney garden with a distant view of the city from Heartbreak Hill.”

Mr Ostling has pledged to donate his skin to Canberra’s National Gallery after his death.

“To donate skin is not the most amazing thing in the world but the tattoos are revolutionary,” he said.

Tattooed man donates skin to art

Well, since this Australia-related, it of course brought to mind this old song.

~~~

By the way, Autumn shared some of her tattoo experience on these pages here, here, here and here.

And, no, this is not the Bilerico Project.  But, this (New Riders Of The Purple Sage) is dedicated to Facebook, which sent me (Stephanie Stevens) that queer e-mail today which suggested I “might know Stephanie Stevens” … ’cause, frankly, no, I really don’t …

Actually, this has more to do with the comics than the funnies and with irony than funny.  The career of the comic book artist and co-creator of the Superman character, Joe Shuster, took a turn back in the ’50s, as described by Carolyn Kellogg in the Los Angeles Times recently …

Joe Shuster drew Superman in the 1930s, which should have made him invincible. But after he and writer Jerry Siegel got into a legal tie-up with DC Comics over rights to the character in the 1940s (DC won), he moved on to other things.

One of those things, which he kept quiet, was a magazine called Nights of Horror. The salacious fictional crime booklet launched in 1954 and ran for 16 issues — with illustrations by Joe Shuster. These are now collected in the book “Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster” by Craig Yoe.

[...] Shuster drew beautiful women who were impossibly stacked and handsome men with impossibly broad shoulders. Once he drew them as heroes; later, he drew them stripped, vulnerable and twisted off into another world.

Apropos “secret identities,” my comic book “heroes” when I was growing up in the ’50s were usually not the men of steel but rather those impossibly stacked, beautiful women. I didn’t know anything about terms like GID or transgender, I just knew what I had.

More …

My Brand Spanking New Book

The Sexy ‘Secret Identity’ Of Superman’s Creator

Fetish Art Of Superman’s Co-Creator

It’s been a bit of a while since we heard any news on Jan Hamilton.  Hamilton, whose doings frequently appeared on this blog when I was posting on a regular basis, is famous for being tagged Britain’s “sex-swap paratrooper” and for her lawsuit against the Ministry of Defence.  Today, the Daily Mail is reporting that Hamilton, who is now calling herself Abigail Austin, will become Scotland’s first trans police officer …

A paratrooper who underwent a sex-change operation has been accepted by the police as a trainee woman constable.

Jan Hamilton, formerly Captain Ian Hamilton, quit the Army in 2007 after 20 years’ decorated service and embarked on a full gender reassignment programme.

Now living in Glasgow, she has been accepted by Strathclyde Police to begin two years’ probationary training, making her Scotland’s first transgender police officer.

A source said that Miss Hamilton, 44, had ‘sailed through’ the initial six-month selection process: ‘Jan Hamilton scored highly in the written tests and had no problem with the fitness tests.

‘She completed the mile-and-a-half run in about 11 minutes, even though women are allowed to take up to 16.’

The source added that senior officers had given their full backing to her application.

The fact that Miss Hamilton was born a man will have no bearing on the way that she is expected to operate because she is legally recognised as a woman.

For example, she will only be able to search other women, in line with police guidelines.

She will also wear the uniform of a Strathclyde Police woman constable, including the reinforced bowler hat.

It is understood that Miss Hamilton will be working in Maryhill, one of Glasgow’s most dangerous areas and the setting for gritty television detective programme Taggart.

Over the next two years Miss Hamilton, who will earn the standard starting salary of £21,000, will study and train at Strathclyde Police’s Training and Recruitment Centre at Jackton, East Kilbride, and at the Scottish Police College at Tulliallan, Fife, as well as working as a beat officer in Glasgow.

In 2007 Miss Hamilton, as Britain’s first transsexual paratrooper, took the Army to an industrial tribunal on grounds of sex discrimination for its refusal to acknowledge her legally enforced female status.

She won her case and later received a written apology. Since then she has undergone a remarkable physical transformation.

As Captain Ian Hamilton she weighed 16 stone, boasted of having 14in biceps and was deployed on long-term engagements with the elite Parachute Regiment in Kenya, Oman, Kuwait, Cyprus, Germany and Bosnia.

As Jan Hamilton she still stands at a manly 6ft but says she is five stone lighter, has a feminine figure thanks to hormone therapy, and says she is a size 12.

Miss Hamilton is not the first transgender police officer in the UK. In 2001 North Yorkshire Police said that, after 26 years in the force, Sergeant Chris Lamb had decided to live as a woman and would henceforth be known as Sergeant Nicola Lamb.

A spokesman for Strathclyde Police said: ‘We cannot confirm or deny any information that constitutes personal information. The Force actively promotes itself as an employer to all sections of the public.’

Sex change Army hero Jan to become Scotland’s first ‘transgender’ police officer