Hello readers! I have had a couple of days off from graduate school as I was in-between terms. In my time off, I've been conducting research so I can give you all some new blog posts!
Over the past couple of months, I've been writing a lot about the Civil War, and that's because there's just so much to write about. One of the topics that fascinated me while I was taking a class about the Civil War was how women would disguise themselves as men and fight in the war for both sides--now, this is not unique to the Civil War, but what is unique to the topic of the Civil War is Albert Cashier--a young soldier who was born a woman but lived life as a man, both before the war began and long after the war had ended. I wrote a short historiography about the life of Albert Cashier and other non-binary and/or transgender soldiers titled Non-Binary: A Historiographical Account of the Importance of the Life of Albert Cashier which is posted below.
[27] Hennigan, “Trump bars transgender people from serving ‘in any capacity’ in the U.S. military”, accessed August 6, 2017.
Over the past couple of months, I've been writing a lot about the Civil War, and that's because there's just so much to write about. One of the topics that fascinated me while I was taking a class about the Civil War was how women would disguise themselves as men and fight in the war for both sides--now, this is not unique to the Civil War, but what is unique to the topic of the Civil War is Albert Cashier--a young soldier who was born a woman but lived life as a man, both before the war began and long after the war had ended. I wrote a short historiography about the life of Albert Cashier and other non-binary and/or transgender soldiers titled Non-Binary: A Historiographical Account of the Importance of the Life of Albert Cashier which is posted below.
The LGBTQ+ Movement of the modern era in America has been controversial for many. While many believe in equal rights and representation for everyone, others believe that those equal rights are in reality special rights and show the corruption of a once great Christian nation. Many believe that the emergence of those who identify as LGBTQ+ is a new phenomenon but that is not the case. Throughout history and in numerous parts of the world, a “third gender” has been identified; this “third gender” has been defined as individuals who had been born biologically male but took on feminine roles and as individuals who had been born biologically female but took on masculine roles. For the sake of this historiographic paper, the “third gender” will be referred to as “non-binary” or “gender queer”. “Non-Binary: A Historiographical Account of the Importance of the Life of Albert Cashier” will utilize the gender and sexuality historical lenses to provide an accurate and detailed account on Cashier’s life, using his/her life to fully examine how gender queer individuals have had a lasting impact on American history. “Non-Binary” seeks to use the life of Albert Cashier/Jennie Hodgers to answer a series of questions, including the following: Albert Cashier/Jennie Hodgers lived and fought at the time of the Civil War. How did the Civil War change how Americans thought about gender, sex and sexuality? What were the reasons Jennie Hodgers, if any can be found, spent her life as Albert Cashier? What were the reasons that women would dress and act like men during the time of the Civil War and continue to live their lives as men after the war had ended? What could be the benefits of looking at the Civil War and the life of Jennie Hodgers/Albert Cashier through the gender and sexuality lenses? These questions will allow me to explore the full extent of Cashier’s/Hodgers’s life so that I may understand the intricacies of how this individual was able to be a “passing woman” in the 19th century.
The life of Albert Cashier was a unique one. Born Jennie Hodgers in 1843 in the village of Clogher Head in Ireland, there are numerous stories as to how Jennie transitioned to Albert. In his book Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago before Stonewall, St. Sukie de la Croix notes that stories surrounding Hodgers’s/Cashier’s early days include arriving in New York as a stowaway or a cabin boy, or immigrating with her poverty-stricken parents who dressed her as a boy and sent her to work in a shoe factory[1]. The early days of Hodgers’s/Cashier’s life is lost, but what historians do know is that a nineteen-year-old Albert Cashier signed up for the Union Army in Belvidere, Illinois on August 3, 1862; Cashier belonged in the 95th Illinois Infantry Volunteers and fought in over forty battles and skirmishes, including the Battle of Vicksburg[2]. There were other women who disguised themselves as men and fought for both sides of the Civil War, however, Hodgers kept her identity as Albert Cashier long after the war had ended.
After being discharged with the rest of the regiment at the end of the Civil War, Hodgers/Cashier would move to a small town in Illinois where she/he would live for the next four decades. Hodgers/Cashier would never marry, and would find gainful employment as a jack of all trades around the town, working as a farmhand, handyman, church caretaker, and other odd jobs[3]. In 1911, Hodgers/cashier was accidentally hit by an automobile and suffered a fractured femur; the doctor attending to Albert soon learned of Albert’s true sex but took an oath of confidentiality to preserve the long-held secret while arrangements were made for Albert to be admitted to the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home at Quincy, Illinois[4]. “Two years later, after some erratic behavior, Albert was committed to a public mental hospital and the news was out. National headlines told the secret. Old comrades rallied to her support, testifying to Albert’s bravery in combat and public good work in later life. Albert/Jennie died at Watertown State Hospital in 1915, at age seventy-one. Her headstone reads: “Albert D.J. Cashier, Company G. 95th Illinois Infantry””[5].
The life of Albert Cashier/Jennie Hodgers is one that made waves, even if that individual did not intend to do so. Questions remain about the life of Albert Cashier/Jennie Hodgers. The first question is a question in two parts: why would a woman disguise herself as a man a fight in the Civil War, and why would she choose to remain to live as a man for the rest of her days? There are, of course, multiple answers to these questions.
Once the Civil War broke out, the women would mobilize for the war effort; many would make monetary donations, take over the farms as their male relatives left to fight, or would make homemade goods and uniforms for the army; other women would become battlefield nurses or even disguise themselves as soldiers and fight in the war themselves. According to the Civil War Trust, estimates place female soldiers’ numbers between 400-750 total between both sides of the conflict; as for the reasons why women chose to go to war, some chose to follow their loved ones into battle, other chose to fight because they believed in the cause(s) for which they were fighting and believed that it was their patriotic duty to fight as well, and still other joined because of the promise of adventure and reliable wages[6]. Despite the strides women were trying to make when it came to equal rights prior to the war and once the war had come to an end, women were continuing to fight to be on equal footing with men in the United States when it came to citizenship and the law long after the Civil war had come to an end. For many women, this meant a long, hard-fought battle for suffrage as well as property rights. In the United States in the nineteenth century, it was much more beneficial to be born a male. Women were subjected to the law of coverture, meaning that once a woman was married she was no longer considered an individual; in marriage under coverture the husband “exercised almost exclusive power and responsibility and rarely had to consult his wife to make decisions about property matters…and, unless some prior specific provision separating a woman’s property from her husband’s had been made, stripped a woman of control over real and personal property”[7]. Given these reasons, a woman choosing to live her life as a man would not necessarily seem out of the ordinary given the societal benefits men had over women. However, Hodgers/Cashier lived her/his entire life as a male by some accounts and did not have a choice in doing so (as mentioned in a previous paragraphs, one of the possible reasons Jennie transitioned to Albert was her parents dressing her as a boy in order to get work in a factory). DeAnne Blanton and Lauren Cook Wike, the authors of They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War, simply believe that, despite Hodgers’s/Cashier’s reasons for living as a man not being delineated, her male persona had been so well-established with her family and friends that Jennie felt she had no choice but to continue being Albert[8]. Another possible reason for the Jennie/Albert transition is one allegedly told by Jennie/Albert—that she had begun dressing as man in order to enlist in the army with a lover who was wounded early in the war, and upon his deathbed he made Jennie promise him that she would never wear a dress[9]. There are numerous possible reasons why Jennie would have taken on the role of Albert, but with a lack of evidence from Jennie/Albert, historians will never be able to know for sure; instead, historians are left to speculate on the reasons, mulling over the above given the time of the events as a series of possibilities.
In his book A Queer History of the United States, Michael Bronski spends a very brief time describing the life of Jennie Hodgers/Albert Cashier, and does so while putting the label of “transgender” on Hodgers/Cashier. While Hodgers/Cashier may very well have been transgender, this historiographical account deems it safer to place a different label—that of non-binary. Non-binary is not a new label, but it is one that is just coming into the spotlight due to the modern LGBTQ+ Movement. Non-binary goes by other names, such as “agender” or even “gender queer”, with the most common of its other monikers being “androgynous” or “unisex”. The term non-binary itself has become an umbrella term for the spectrum of human gender identity; non-binary has come to be known as any gender that is not exclusively male or female. Historiography, particularly when it comes to the sexuality and gender lenses, is lacking when it comes to the history of non-binary people. What was especially interesting material to come across was any information about “passing women”. Bronski mentioned passing women very briefly when describing the life of Hodgers/Cashier. In a 2013 article on huffingtonpost.com, Marlo Thomas went more in-depth to describe the reasons why women would want to pass as men. “Outside of fiction, women’s attempts to “pass” as a man have often been a desperate response to professional or societal roadblocks. Some felt they needed to adopt the masquerade in order to break into male-dominated fields. Others simply wanted to get a job — make a living, support themselves — the way men always had”[10]. For Jennie/Albert, there must have been a deeper reason behind dressing as a man and spending her life as a man, but as mentioned, without knowing from her, historians can only speculate.
One of the main questions historians who write about sex and gender during the Civil War era seek to answer is as follows: How did the Civil War change how Americans thought about gender, sex and sexuality? In his book The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell: Sex in the Civil War by Dr. Thomas P. Lowry, as well as in the book, Sex and the Civil War: Soldiers, Pornography, and the Making of American Morality by Judith Giesburg, both authors describe the Victorian era, of which the Civil War fell roughly in the middle and was thus heavily influenced. The Victorian era lasted from 1837 to 1801, and one of the things the period was known for was sexual morality, especially in terms of women, however, the Victorian era was also known for people who disobeyed the rules of society. The case for cross-dressing in the Victorian era was strong; in a 2012 article on timeout.com by Juliet Jacques, she states, “With female working rights limited, the few contemporary reports of women who presented as men suggest a belief that they did so to find work. Seeing no reason why men would dress as women, the Victorian authorities assumed sexual motives - particularly that they did it to trick men into sex with them”[11]. As can be seen, this idea of women looking for employment as men persists. However, Dr. Lowry describes acts of homosexuality and homosexual behavior in the Union army during the Civil War; “If a conservative 1 percent figure is true, then at least 10,000 of the boys in blue were physically attracted to other boys in blue—and might well have been attracted to boys in gray as well, if a wall of bayonets had not separated them”[12]. Historians cannot be sure what Hodgers’s/Cashier’s sexuality was as she/he never married nor was seen with a partner of either sex, but this percentage is worth noting based to attempt to get a number of what the Union army was potentially dealing with when it came to its ranks. Anti-sodomy laws were not as strict in the 1860s as they were one hundred years later; in the 1860s, arrest for same-sex behavior was rare, with only one instance being in the state of Virginia[13], showing that “Both the psychology and true incidence of homosexuality in the 860s appear to be mysteries”[14].
For some, including Jennie/Albert, private lives were meant to be kept private and behind closed doors, but for one man in the Victorian era, what two consenting adults regardless of sex, sexuality, and gender did in the comfort of their own home did not matter. That man was the notorious Anthony Comstock. Judith Giesburg describes Anthony Comstock and his crusade of morality during the Victorian era in great detail. “Anthony Comstock, it is often said, burst onto the scene in 1872, one year after New York passed a strict antiobscenity law, and within months was given virtually unlimited authority under federal law to police the nation’s morals by controlling not only what got into the mails but also what people wrote about sex and what they did”[15]. Comstock Laws, or versions of Comstock Laws, are still on the books in many states, and initially had to do with the spread of information about various forms of contraception as well as pornography through the mail; until 1962, and sometimes even later, Comstock Laws trumped privacy laws in many states.
In the Victorian era, specifically during the Civil War, definitions of “masculinity” and “femininity” where in flux, especially when it comes to those who disguised themselves as men and joined the army. Editors Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber explore definitions of “masculinity” and “femininity” in the context of the 1860s to expand on the understanding of sexuality and politics of the era, and deal with the question of why so many women adopted male identities during the war in their book Battle Scars: Gender and Sexuality During the Civil War. For example, “…Victorian notions of “appropriate” female behavior during the war ultimately have lasting progressive effects for American women. For not only did these women’s stories fill the pages pf both early and subsequent histories of women’s Civil War service but also, more to the point, they ended up altering gender norms in the long term by paving the way for Northern middle-class American women after the war to expand the scope and social impact of the various humanitarian endeavors in which they had already been engaged during the antebellum period”[16].
Ideas about what it meant to be “masculine” and what it meant to be “feminine” where changing during the 1860s in relation to the Civil War and after, but when it came to Jennie/Albert, sex and gender were still seen as one and the same, and as binary, not seen as a spectrum as many see sex and gender today. Some of the historians mentioned throughout this historiography have labeled Jennie/Albert as transgender, but I have chosen to label Jennie/Albert as non-binary, using the definition “not exclusively male or female” that was given earlier in the paper. In the end, Jennie/Albert would die at the Watertown State Hospital for the Insane on October 10, 1915[17]. Jennie/Albert had been forced to wear a dress in her later years, having been discovered to be a biological woman, but the Hospital for the Insane allowed her to fashion pants by using pins[18].
For some, Jennie/Albert remains the first out-and-out transgender individual in American history and thus has had a major impact on the modern-day LGBTQ+ Movement and on the Women’s Rights Movement as well. As far as women’s rights are concerned, women have fought for the right to fight—women have wanted to serve in the military in the same capacity as men, but have been barred from doing so, so they had no choice but to disguise themselves as men and fight. However, women officially began serving in the United States military in the same capacity as men in 1915. Part of the reason for this change, allowing women to fight in the military officially, was because of the women of the Civil War. In Camouflage Isn’t Only for Combat: Gender, Sexuality, and Women in the Military by Melissa S. Herbert, there remained a stigma as to the type of woman who joined the military, who chose to enter the most male of the male domains: “A “real woman” doesn’t want to do “men things”. Sociocultural notions of what constitutes femininity and masculinity are used to ensure that women who push the boundaries of gender are censured for such behaviors. While one mechanism is the threat that they are somehow less than “real women”, another is the threat of labeling them “lesbian”. A “real woman” does not do that most manly of “men things”, sleep with women. Gender and sexuality are intertwined in such a way that notions of appropriateness in one are used to reinforce the other”[19]. In the 1940s, because the use of women in the military and working in support roles for the military (working in the munitions factories for example) was necessary, makeup companies began to promote specific colors over others, promoting them to women as more patriotic and makeup would even become a part of a military woman’s uniform, a way to separate her from one of the guys; thus sexuality and gender became even more ingrained with the work these women were doing in the military. Herbert continues her book by saying that “When a given occupational role is defined as masculine, many automatically challenge women’s ability or suitability to assume that role. In a society where we either fail to acknowledge traits in a woman that seem masculine or censure them [why I chose to label Jennie/Albert as non-binary as opposed to transgender as other historians have chosen to do so], women who seek to enter a work role that is defined as masculine are faced with a number of barriers to their participation. Women may be seen as deviant, and they may find that they have to work at creating an image that allows them to balance their sex-defined role with the gendered occupational role”[20]. The history of women in the United States Armed Forces is a lengthy one, and it is a history that continues to be made today. Women fought in the American Revolution under male aliases just as they had done in the Civil War when Jennie/Albert fought, women served in the Second World War in non-combat roles but their roles in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps were still dangerous, women served in various roles in the Korean War as well as in the Vietnam War, Desert Storm, and in the current conflicts in the Middle East. The subject of women in combat is a controversial one for many; apart from the stereotypes of what it means to be masculine and feminine, opponents of women in the military are often concerned about having women drafted into the military. The United States had not had a draft since 1973 during the Vietnam War, however, in 2016 the U.S. Senate voted in favor to require women to register with the Selective Service, women turning 18 on or after January 1, 2018 would be required to register[21]; as of August 2017 that bill did not pass in the House of Representatives and thus did not become a law[22].
Women have come a long way in the armed forces since Jennie/Albert served, however, members of the LGBTQ+ community have seen rights given to them and taken away. This historiographical account has already briefly mentioned homosexuals in the military, but a deeper examination must be taken, especially when it comes to rights and the potential impact that Jennie/Albert had had on the military.
Members of the LGBTQ+ community have also served in the United States Armed Forces in all aspects, however there remains an open hostility to members of the LGBTQ+ community who choose to make the ultimate sacrifice of entering into the armed forces; if they voluntarily sign their life away for their country, why is there such a hostility towards them? Should not the ranks of the U.S. military be the one great equalizer? If those who are “straight” and those who are not both choose to give their lives to their country, why is there such controversy surrounding the groups that are labeled as “not straight”?
In his book Conduct Unbecoming: Gays & Lesbians in the U.S. Military, Randy Shilts mentions that there seemed to be more actions against lesbians than against gay men in the armed forces, “There are many men who never wanted women in their Army or their Navy in the first place, and the military regulations regarding homosexuality have been the way to keep them out for the past decade. Until proven otherwise, women in the military are often suspected of being lesbian. Why else, the logic goes, would they want to join a man’s world? Many of these women take jobs that have traditionally been held by men. If they are successful, they are suspect for not being womanly enough; if they fail, they are harassed for not being man enough to do the job. The way women can prove themselves to be nonlesbians is to have sex with men. Thus antigay regulations have encouraged sexual harassment of women. Those who will not acquiesce to a colleague’s advances are routinely accused of being a lesbian are subject to discharge. Some women have allowed themselves to be raped by male officers, afraid that the alternative would be a charge of lesbianism”[23]. Gay men, too, faced open hostility at times, but throughout Shilts’s work, we see example upon example of lesbians or assumed lesbians bring discharged from their WAC posts for their sexuality, with the military sometimes going so far as to spy on the women by tapping their phones[24]. The idea of sexuality and military service is a complex one, especially when looking into the modern era. In 1993, President Bill Clinton issued the policy known as “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” or DADT which meant that military applicants should not be asked about their sexual orientation, but it also meant that homosexuals and bisexuals could not serve openly in the military, and those servicemen and women who were discovered to be homosexual or bisexual could be discharged[25]. In 2010, DADT was overturned under the Obama administration, officially taking effect in September 2011.
Where do transgender individuals fit in? For many, the idea of transgender individuals serving in the military is a new concept, and that may well be the case if there were not others like Jennie/Albert throughout history who managed to live their lives as the opposite sex, whether by their own volition or not. Many civilians may see transgender individuals as confused and that the military is no place for these individuals to be, or that these individuals are treating the military as an experiment. In July 2016 “the Pentagon had lifted a long-standing ban against transgender men and women serving openly in the military, removing one of its last discriminatory hurdles and placing protection of gender rights on par with race, religion, color, sex, and sexual orientation”[26]; however, in July 2017 President Donald Trump used the popular social media website Twitter to say he was barring transgender individuals from serving in any capacity from the U.S. military[27]. People around the country are livid, while others rejoice at the action the current President has taken. Transgender members of the military, past and present, have been speaking out about the current administration’s actions.
Despite this, the life of Jennie Hodgers/Albert Cashier remains a part of national news, as the life of Jennie/Albert has been adapted into a musical titled “The CiviliTy of Albert Cashier” written by Jay Paul Deratany. The life of Jennie/Albert continues to have a lasting impact on members of the LGBTQ+ community, and will have a lasting impact on the U.S. armed forces in some way as the nation struggles to figure out which direction it wants move in, on which side of history it wants to be on in regards to LGBTQ+ rights.
When discussing the Civil War, and looking at the lives of specific soldiers who fought in the war, there are numerous benefits of using the gender and sexuality lenses. Gender history explores how the sexes have interacted with one another and sexuality history explores human interaction via sexuality over time. Using these lenses to look at the Civil War and the lives of the soldiers, or a specific soldier, historians can explore how the Victorian era had an impact on the war and on the interaction the soldiers would have had with one another.
Albert Cashier/Jennie Hodgers had a major impact on the LGBTQ+ Movement at various stages, especially when it came to the act of being an LGBTQ+ individual in the military such as Cashier/Hodgers. For a time, the story of Cashier/Hodgers circulated in the newspapers, outing the war vet as “just a woman” when, clearly, that was not how Cashier had been identifying, and hadn’t been for quite some time. Regardless of that, the story of Cashier/Hodgers is one that should be more famous than it is, and one that remains in American discourse because of off-Broadway plays about the life of this individual and because of blurbs about the life of this individual in various historical monographs of various topics relating to the Civil War or queer history, whether about women who disguised themselves as men and fought in the war, or about the overall history of queers and other LGBTQ+ individuals who have made a difference in American history. Cashier/Hodgers was not the first non-binary individual of their time, nor will they be the last, but as LGBTQ+ individuals continue to join the military, and as actions against them entering into the military continue, Cashier/Hodgers will continue to have a place in Civil War historiography as well as gender and sexuality historiography.
[1] St. Sukie de la Croix, Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago before Stonewall (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), 29.
[2] de la Croix, Chicago Whispers, 30.
[3]Thomas P. Lowry, The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell: Sex in the Civil War (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 1994), 121.
[4] Lowry, Sex in the Civil War, 121.
[5] Lowry, Sex in the Civil War, 121.
[6] “Female Soldiers in the Civil War”, https://www.civilwar.org/learn/articles/female-soldiers-civil-war, accessed August 3,2017.
[7] The editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica, “Coverture”, https://www.britannica.com/topic/coverture, accessed August 3, 2017.
[8] DeAnne Blanton and Lauren Cook Wike, They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002), 170.
[9] Blanton, Wike, They Fought Like Demons, 175.
[10] Marlo Thomas, “The Curious Case of Women Who ‘Passed’ As Men In Pursuit of a Dream”, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marlo-thomas/women-who-passed-as-men_b_3203857.html, accessed August 3, 2017.
[11] Juliet Jacques, “Cross-dressing in Victorian London”, https://www.timeout.com/london/lgbt/cross-dressing-in-victorian-london, accessed August 3, 2017.
[12] Thomas P. Lowry, The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell: Sex in the Civil War (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 1994), 110.
[13] Lowry, Sex in the Civil War, 114.
[14] Lowry, Sex in the Civil War, 114.
[15]Judith Giesberg, Sex and the Civil War: Pornography and the Making of American Morality (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 2.
[16]Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber, Battle Scars: Gender and Sexuality During the Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 110.
[17] St. Sukie de la Croix, Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago before Stonewall (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), 31.
[18] de la Croix, Chicago Whispers, 31.
[19] Melissa S. Herbert, Camouflage Isn’t Only For Combat: Gender, Sexuality, and Women in the Military (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 2.
[20] Herbert, Camouflage Isn’t Only for Combat, 31.
[21] Jennifer Steinhauer, “Senate Votes to Require Women to Register for the Draft”, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/us/politics/congress-women-military-draft.html, accessed August 6, 2017.
[22] “Women and the Draft”, https://www.sss.gov/Registration/Women-And-Draft, accessed August 6, 2017.
[23] Randy Shilts, Conduct Unbecoming: Gays & Lesbians in the U.S. Military (New York: Open Road Media, 2014), prologue.
[24] Shilts, Conduct Unbecoming, Book One chapter three “The Rules”.
[25] Ethan Klapper, “On This Day in 1993, Bill Clinton Announced ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’”, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/19/bill-clinton-dont-ask-dont-tell_n_3623245.html, accessed August 6, 2017.
[26] W.J. Hennigan, “Trump bars transgender people from serving ‘in any capacity’ in the U.S. military”, http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-trump-transgender-people-will-not-be-1501074883-htmlstory.html, accessed August 6, 2017.
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