Albert D. J. Cashier
(November, 1864)[1]
Birth nameJennie Irene Hodgers
Born(1843-12-25)December 25, 1843[2]
Clogherhead, County Louth, Ireland
DiedOctober 10, 1915(1915-10-10) (aged 71)
Saunemin, Illinois, U.S.
Buried
Saunemin, Illinois, U.S.
Allegiance United States of America
Service/branch United States Army
Years of service1862–1865
RankPrivate
Unit95th Illinois Infantry, Company G
Battles/warsVicksburg, Red River, Guntown
Other workCemetery worker, janitor, lamplighter

Albert D. J. Cashier (December 25, 1843 – October 10, 1915), birth name Jennie Irene Hodgers, was an Irish-born immigrant who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Cashier adopted the identity of a man before enlisting, and maintained it for the remainder of her life. Albert became famous as one of a number of women soldiers who served as men during the Civil War, although the consistent and long-term (at least 53 years) commitment to the male identity has prompted some contemporary scholars to suggest that Cashier was a trans man.[3][4][5][6]

Early life

Hodgers was born in Clogherhead, County Louth, Ireland on December 25, around the year 1843.[7]: 52 [2] According to later investigation by the administrator of the estate, Cashier's parents were Sallie and Patrick Hodgers. Cashier's later accounts of moving to the United States and enlisting in the army were taken at an advanced age; Cashier was disoriented and evasive about earlier life, and these narratives are contradictory.[2] Cashier as a child was said to have been dressed in boy's clothing by Patrick Hodgers in order to find work at a shoe factory in Illinois. Even before the advent of the war, Jenny adopted the identity of Albert Cashier in order to find work.[7]: 52  Sallie Hodgers died while Cashier was still a youth, and by 1862, Cashier had traveled as a stowaway to Illinois and was living in Belvidere, working as a farmhand for a man named Avery.[8][9]

Enlistment

Hodgers first enlisted in July 1862 after President Lincoln's call for soldiers.[7]: 52  As time passed, the need for soldiers only increased. On August 6, 1862, she enlisted in the 95th Illinois Infantry for a three-year term using the name "Albert D.J. Cashier" and was assigned to Company G.[10][11][7]: 52  Cashier was nineteen years old upon enlistment, and small in stature.[note 1]

Many Belvidere boys had been at the Battle of Shiloh as members of the Fifteenth Illinois Volunteers, where the Union had suffered heavy losses. Cashier took the train along with other boys from Belvidere to Rockford in order to enlist, in answer to the call for more soldiers.[12]: 380  Along with others from Boone and McHenry counties, Cashier learned how to be a volunteer infantryman of the 95th Regiment at Camp Fuller. After being shipped out by steamer and rail to Confederate strongholds in Columbus, Kentucky and Jackson, Tennessee, the 95th was ordered to Grand Junction where it became part of the Army of the Tennessee under General Ulysses S. Grant.[12]: 380–381 

During the war

The 95th was a combat regiment. Under General Grant, the regiment fought in approximately forty battles[11] in the western field of operations, including the siege at Vicksburg, where the 95th was one of the first regiments to enter.[12]: 381  This campaign proved to be a challenge for Cashier, as she was captured while performing reconnaissance.[7]: 55  Cashier managed to escape, however, and make her way back to the regiment. After the Battle of Vicksburg, in June 1863, Cashier contracted chronic diarrhea and entered a military hospital. Somehow, she evaded detection of her sex.[7]: 55–56  In the spring of 1864, the regiment was also present at the Red River Campaign under General Nathaniel Banks, and in June 1864 at the Battle of Brice's Crossroads in Guntown, Mississippi, where they suffered heavy casualties.[7]: 56–57 [12]: 382–383 

Following a period to recuperate and regroup following the debacle at Brice, the 95th, now a seasoned and battle-hardened regiment, saw additional action in the Winter of 1864 in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign, at the battles of Spring Hill and Franklin, the defense of Nashville, and the pursuit of General Hood.[12]: 383 

During the war, the regiment traveled a total of about 9,000 miles.[7]: 52 [note 2] Other soldiers thought that Cashier was small and preferred to be alone, which were not uncommon characteristics for soldiers. She fought with the regiment through the war until August 17, 1865, when all the soldiers were mustered out. She was honorably discharged on August 17, 1865.[7]: 57 

Cashier was only one of at least 250 women who wore disguises and enlisted as men to fight in the Civil War.[13][14]

Postwar

Cashier's postwar residence, since moved to Saunemin

After the war, Cashier returned to Belvidere, Illinois for a time, where she worked for Samuel Pepper and maintained her wartime identity.[7]: 57 [15] She settled in Saunemin, Illinois, in 1869, where she worked as a farmhand as well as performing odd jobs around the town.[7]: 57  Albert Cashier can be found on records of the town payroll.[7]: 57  Albert lived with her employer, Joshua Chesbro, and his family, in exchange for work, and also had slept in the Cording Hardware store in exchange for labor. In 1885, the Chesbro family had a small house built for her. [16] For over forty years, she lived in Saunemin and was a church janitor, cemetery worker, and street lamplighter. Because she lived as a man, she was able to vote in elections and later claimed a veteran's pension under the name Albert Cashier.[7]: 58  Pension payments started in 1907.[17]

In later years, she ate with the neighboring Lannon family. Later on, when Hodgers fell ill, the Lannons discovered that she was female when they asked a nurse to examine her, but they did not make their discovery public.[7]: 59 

In 1911, Cashier was hit by a car that broke her leg.[7]: 59  A physician discovered her secret in the hospital, but did not disclose the information. On May 5, 1911, because she was no longer able to work, Cashier was moved to the Soldiers and Sailors home in Quincy, Illinois. During this stay, Hodgers was visited by many of her fellow soldiers from Ninety-fifth Regiment.[7]: 59  She lived there until her mental state deteriorated and she was moved to the Watertown State Hospital for the Insane in March 1914.[7]: 60  Attendants at the Watertown State Hospital discovered that she was female when giving her a bath, at which point she was made to wear women's clothes again after fifty years.[7]: 60  Within six months she was dead.[18] In 1914, Cashier was investigated for fraud by the veterans' pension board; former comrades confirmed that Cashier was in fact the person who had fought in the Civil War and the board decided in February 1915 that payments should continue for life.[19][20][21]

Death and legacy

Albert Cashier died on October 10, 1915. She was buried in the uniform she had kept intact all those years and her tombstone was inscribed "Albert D. J. Cashier, Co. G, 95 Ill. Inf."[10] Cashier was given an official Grand Army of the Republic funerary service, and was buried with full military honors.[7]: 60  It took W.J. Singleton (executor of Cashier's estate) nine years to track Cashier's identity back to her birth name of Jennie Hodgers. None of the would-be heirs proved convincing, and the estate of about $282 (after payment of funeral expenses)[22] [20][21] was deposited in the Adams County, Illinois, treasury. The name on the original tombstone is Albert D. J. Cashier. In the 1970s, a second tombstone, inscribed with both of her names, was placed near the first one at Sunny Slope cemetery in Saunemin, Illinois.[10][23]

Cashier is listed on the internal wall of the Illinois memorial at Vicksburg National Military Park.[24]

A musical entitled The Civility of Albert Cashier has been produced based on Cashier's life; the work was described by the Chicago Tribune as "A timely musical about a trans soldier". [25]

Also Known As Albert D. J. Cashier: The Jennie Hodgers Story is a biography written by veteran Lon P. Dawson, who lived at the Illinois Veterans Home where Cashier once lived. The novel My Last Skirt, by Lynda Durrant, is based on her life. Cashier was mentioned in a collection of essays called Nine Irish Lives, in which Cashier's biography was written by Jill McDonough. [26] Cashier's house has been restored in Saunemin.[27]

Authors including Michael Bronski, James Cromwell, Kirstin Cronn-Mills, and Nicholas Teich have suggested or argued that Cashier was a trans man due to her living as a man for at least 53 years.[3][4][5][6]

References

Notes

  1. ^ Sources differ about how tall Cashier was. Some say 5'3" [7]: 54  and others say 5 feet[12]: 380 . In addition, Tsui claims Cashier was blue-eyed, with auburn hair and a fair complexion,: 54  while Clausius says "dark-haired".: 380 
  2. ^ According to the regimental historian, the 95th had traveled 9,960 miles in three years of campaigns.[12]: 384 

Citations

  1. ^ "What part am I to act in this great drama?" (PDF). Salt. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-10-08. Retrieved 2007-12-14. ((cite journal)): Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ a b c Blanton, DeAnne; Cook, Lauren M. (2002). They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 9780807128060. ((cite book)): Unknown parameter |lastauthoramp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ a b Cromwell, Jason (1999). "Transvestite Opportunists, Passing Women, and Female-Bodied Men". Transmen and FTMs: Identities, Bodies, Genders, and Sexualities. University of Illinois Press. pp. 77–78. ISBN 9780252068256.
  4. ^ a b Bronski, Michael (2011). "A Democracy of Death and Art". A Queer History of the United States. Beacon Press. pp. 69–70. ISBN 9780807044391.
  5. ^ a b Teich, Nicholas (2012). "The History of Transgenderism and its Evolution Over Time". Transgender 101: A Simple Guide to a Complex Issue. Columbia University Press. pp. 76–77. ISBN 9780231157124.
  6. ^ a b Cronn-Mills, Kirstin (2014). Transgender Lives: Complex Stories, Complex Voices. Minneapolis: Lerner Publishing Group. p. 41. ISBN 9780761390220.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Tsui, Bonnie (2006). She Went to the Field: Women Soldiers of the Civil War. Globe Pequot. Guilford, Connecticut: TwoDot. ISBN 978-0-7627-4384-1. OCLC 868531116.
  8. ^ Benck, Amy. "Albert D. J. Cashier: Woman Warrior, Insane Civil War Veteran, or Transman?". OutHistory. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  9. ^ McAuliffe, Nora-Ide. “When Jennie Came Marching Home – An Irishwoman's Diary on Albert Cashier and the US Civil War.” The Irish Times, The Irish Times, 10 Apr. 2018, www.irishtimes.com/opinion/when-jennie-came-marching-home-an-irishwoman-s-diary-on-albert-cashier-and-the-us-civil-war-1.3456012.
  10. ^ a b c Hicks-Bartlett, Alani (February 1994). "When Jennie Comes Marchin' Home". Illinois History. Archived from the original on 2006-09-05. Retrieved 2007-12-13. ((cite web)): Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ a b Blanton, DeAnne (Spring 1993). "Women Soldiers of the Civil War". Prologue. 25 (1). Archived from the original on 5 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-14. ((cite journal)): Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Clausius, Gerhard P. (Winter 1958). "The Little Soldier of the 95th: Albert D. J. Cashier". Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. 51 (4): 380–387. ISSN 2328-3246. JSTOR 40189639.
  13. ^ "The Women Who Fought in the Civil War". Off the Beaten Path. Retrieved August 5, 2018.
  14. ^ Steve Hendrix (August 25, 2017). "A history lesson for Trump: Transgender soldiers served in the Civil War". Washington Post. Retrieved 10 August 2018.
  15. ^ "Deposition of J. H. Himes" (January 24, 1915) from Blanton (Spring 1993)
  16. ^ "Recollections - Albert D. J. Cashier". Saunemin, Illinois. Google Sites. Retrieved 10 August 2018.
  17. ^ "The Handsome Young Irishman of the 95th IL Infantry". eHistory, Ohio State University. Retrieved August 3, 2018.
  18. ^ Wheelwright, Julie (1989). "6. The Wounds That Would Not Heal". Amazons and military maids : women who dressed as men in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. London: Pandora. pp. 140–141, 146–147. ISBN 978-0-00-831501-6. OCLC 718007447. Retrieved 11 September 2018.
  19. ^ McAuliffe, Nora-Ide. "When Jennie Came Marching Home – An Irishwoman's Diary on Albert Cashier and the US Civil War". www.irishtimes.com. The Irish Times. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  20. ^ a b "Women in the Civil War". Warfare History. Retrieved August 3, 2018.
  21. ^ a b DeAnne Blanton, Lauren Cook Wike (2002-09-01). They Fought Like Demons. LSU Press. p. 174. ISBN 9780807128060. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
  22. ^ "The Handsome Young Irishman of the 95th IL Infantry". eHistory, Ohio State University. Retrieved August 3, 2018.
  23. ^ "Albert D. J. Cashier". Find a Grave.
  24. ^ Bonnie Tsui (2006-07-01). She Went to the Field: Women Soldiers of the Civil War. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781461748496. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
  25. ^ Jones, Chris (7 September 2017). "'Civility of Albert Cashier': A timely musical about a trans soldier". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  26. ^ McDonough, Jill (2018). "The Soldier". Nine Irish Lives. Algonquin Books. pp. 68–99.
  27. ^ "For Love Of Freedom". Saunemin Historical Society. July 2012. Retrieved 2012-07-14.

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