Soldier Profile
Sarah Emma Edmonds American, Civil War Veteran
Latitude: 45.745106
Longitude: -67.164465
A plaque in the community of Magaguadavic commemorates Sarah Emma Edmonds, whose childhood home stood nearby. It is believed that she ran away from home to avoid a marriage arranged by her abusive father and took on the persona of a man named Frank Thompson, a book salesman. Enjoying the independence of being a “male,” she headed into the United States and settled in Flint, Michigan. During the turmoil leading up to the outbreak of the American Civil War, “Frank Thompson” voluntarily enlisted in the 2nd Michigan Infantry, assiduously avoiding medical examinations. As a member of Company F, Private Thompson saw action in several important engagements, including Bull Run, Fair Oaks, Malvern Hill, and Fredericksburg. In addition to being an infantry soldier, she was also employed as a “male” nurse, postmaster, and dispatch rider. When her regiment was posted to Kentucky in 1863 for some unexplained reason Thompson deserted. Edmonds then reappeared as a female nurse tending the sick and wounded. At this point, it becomes difficult to sort fact from fiction in her bestselling memoirs written in 1865 entitled Nurse and Spy in the Union Army. Later she married Linus Seelye and continued to lead an eventful life. In 1882, Frank Thompson revealed her true identity to the utter amazement of the veterans of her regiment. Edmonds is the only known women to receive a regular army pension from the Civil War and the first women to be inducted into the Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans’ organization. In 1898, Edmonds died in Texas at the age of fifty-seven. The Magaguadavic plaque was unveiled on 19 June 2005, with members of the 20th Maine re-enactors in attendance.
Sarah Edmonds as Frank Thompson
