Weaponry, tactics, southern U.S. geography, military personalities: Emma studied everything that she could obtain. When interviewed for a promotion, she immediately amazed her officers and soon replaced the Union spy who had recently been executed. Before she could begin her first mission, she had to devise a clever disguise which would not be compared to another value or easily noticed. Emma chose to cross Confederate lines as a black man, to which she attributed the name “Cuff.” Abetted by the local chaplain’s wife, who was also the only person who knew of her true feminine identity, she darkened her skin with silver nitrate (a chemical which turns the skin a dark brown). Her skin was so dark, indeed, that her hospital supervisor, whom she had worked with for several weeks did not recognize her.
Next, Edmonds was assigned to work in a camp in which ramparts were being built by blacks for the Peninsula Campaign, an attempt to counter McClellan’s efforts. Life was harsh here. In fact, Emma’s hands were so extremely blistered after one day of work, she convinced another worker to exchange jobs with her; and the next day she labored in the kitchen. Even while working, she always had one ear open. As she cooked and cleaned, she learned of southern morale, troop numbers, and weaponry. She even unburied the south’s secret of “Quaker guns,” (cleverly painted logs which would appear as cannons from a distance). She also learned of the Confederacy’s plans to be use them at Yorktown.
Emma’s third day at the camp brought her to the Confederate picket to deliver supper, where she was nonplussed to find that some picketers were actually black. While making conversation with a one such individual, an officer approached her. He handed her a firearm ordered her to take the place of a picketer who had just been shot. This provided her with an opportunity to escape cross back over Confederate lines. When she returned, she was warmly welcomed and immediately granted a meeting with General McClellan himself, in which she revealed all the information she had acquired about Confederate fortifications. She then returned to her duties as a “male” nurse in her preceding volunteer unit.
Approximately two months later, she was asked to, again, infiltrate Confederate limits. Fearing being recognized, she did not feel at ease returning as “Cuff;” so she chose the disguise of a large Irish peddler woman she deemed “Bridgett O’Shea.” She was, once more, easily admitted into the same Confederate labor camp. As she sold various small items, she made conversation with her customers, a valuable information vehicle. After some time, she decided she had learned an adequate amount of data, and headed north. This time she returned with a horse named Rebel, named for its of their sense of individuality. On her journey northward, she obtained an arm wound, and yet still managed to carry on and elude Southern forces.
Emma’s volunteer unit was, shortly after, transferred to Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, in order to aid General Sheridan’s efforts there. In another mission, she returned to the south as “Cuff,” her fictitious freed black slave personality. In her own words, Edmonds stated (as quoted by Markle), “ ‘I truly admire the little fellow, he’s a plucky one; got his share of grit.’ ” Then, in late August of 1852, Edmonds returned to the south as a “mammy.” She took the title laundress in the same camp she had been to three times preceding the occasion. While cleaning a Confederate officer’s coat, a packet of “official” papers fell from the inner pocket. Taking the papers, she immediately snuck out of the camp and returned to McClellan with more information than ever before. All of her superiors were impressed and delighted with the information she had acquired.
In December of 1862, her unit was transferred and dispatched to the Ninth Corps, located very near to Louisville, Kentucky, and headed by General Ambrose Burnside. For her next assignment, McClellan’s team requested that she acquire the identity of a young man with Southern sympathies, known as “Charles Mayberry.” She was asked to go to Louisville and attempt to identify the Southern spy network in the city. Once again, Emma came through. She succeeded just days before her Unit’s third transfer. This time, it would be to General Grant himself, in preparation for the planned taking of Vicksburg.
Under the commandment of Grant, Edmonds worked exceptionally long hours in a poorly sanctioned hospital. Consequently, a quandary quickly arose. She was taken ill with Malaria and was unable to admit herself the hospital, where her true identity ran the risk of being discovered. After some hours of thinking, Emma decided that she had to leave the camp and take some time to recover privately in a secluded hospital. She admitted herself to a facility in Cairo, Illinois, where she reclaimed her identity as a woman and received treatment for her illness. Luckily, she quickly recovered, and decided to return to her position as a “male” nurse.
Edmonds’s plans rested on returning to the army, until she read a bulletin posted in the window of a local newspaper office. It was a list of deserters of the Union army, and on it, she found the name Private Frank Thompson. Discouraged, she took what little money she had, and bought a one-way train ticket to Washington. There, she found work as a nurse for the United States Christian Commission until the end of the war.
Altogether, “Private Frank Thompson” had successfully completed eleven strenuous missions to her favor. After the end of the war, Emma gathered her most lurid memoirs to fill the pages of her book Nurse and Spy in the Union Army, which became unexpectedly popular and sold thousands of copies. Emma gave all the profits she earned from the book to the reconstruction effort. She quickly became homesick, and returned to her hometown in Canada.
Sarah Emma Edmonds’s effect on the American Civil War spans wider than her simple act of spying for the Union. Not only did her story go on to be read by thousands, but even disguised as a man, Emma managed to blaze a trail for women in the military. She made a statement about women’s rights. She told the world that women can be in the army, they can become military officers, and they can hold a traditionally male-dominated position. Her “crusades” helped to change the generally mechanistic view of women from subservient lesser to valuable equal. Soon Before she died, Emma said (as quoted by Markle), “ ‘I am naturally fond of adventure, a little ambitious, and a good deal romantic-but patriotism was the true secret of my success.’ ”
