Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the
Speaker 1: third season of Criminalia. Our first season was all about
Speaker 1: women poisoners. Our second season was all about stalkers. And
Speaker 1: this season we were exploring the lives and motivations of
Speaker 1: some of the most notorious impostors in history. I'm Maria
Speaker 1: Tremarqui and I'm Holly Fry. And today we are talking
Speaker 1: about a woman who did not dawn, a new identity
Speaker 1: for financial or social game, which many of the impostors
Speaker 1: were talking about this season due Sarah Emma Edmondson pretended
Speaker 1: to be a man so that she could enlist in
Speaker 1: the army during the American Civil War. Sarah or Emma
Speaker 1: as she was known, was born in December of eighteen
Speaker 1: forty one to Isaac Edmondson and Elizabeth Leeper's in Mackadavick,
Speaker 1: which is in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. Isaac
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth had had a son who was born with
Speaker 1: epilepsy before Sarah arrived. Isaac had been hoping for another
Speaker 1: son to help him with the family farm, but that
Speaker 1: wasn't meant to be, and beginning with her birth, Isaac
Speaker 1: resented his daughter. In eighteen fifty seven, at the age
Speaker 1: of sixteen, Emma left home to escape not only her
Speaker 1: father's abuse, but also to escape an impending arranged marriage.
Speaker 1: She changed her name slightly to Sarah Emma Edmonds, and
Speaker 1: she worked in a milliner's shop in the town of Moncton,
Speaker 1: which was about a hundred and forty miles from her family.
Speaker 1: Since we are talking about Canada, will do the translation here,
Speaker 1: that's about two thirty kilometers. And after about a year
Speaker 1: she decided to escape her father completely and get out
Speaker 1: of the country. So she immigrated to the United States
Speaker 1: to travel undetected and also to find a decent paying job.
Speaker 1: Emma cut her hair and put on a men's suit,
Speaker 1: disguising herself as a man. She began calling herself Franklin
Speaker 1: Thompson or Frank. She landed her first job in the
Speaker 1: United States as a traveling Bible salesman based out of Hartford, Connecticut.
Speaker 1: Much later, and this was long after her deception had
Speaker 1: been exposed. Her employer recalled in the last thirty years
Speaker 1: he'd been hiring salesman that no one ever sold Frank
Speaker 1: Thompson Emma had by this time developed Frank's reputation as
Speaker 1: an upstanding young man. By eighteen sixty, that is, three
Speaker 1: years after leaving the family farm, Emma moved to Flint, Michigan.
Speaker 1: In the following year. In April, the Civil War began.
Speaker 1: Fueled by a love of her new country and a
Speaker 1: desire to stamp out slavery, Emma went to Detroit and
Speaker 1: they're volunteered to fight for the Union Armies. So it
Speaker 1: may sound a little weird that a Canadian woman would
Speaker 1: enlist in the United States Army to fight an American war,
Speaker 1: but it actually wasn't that unheard of. While Emma may
Speaker 1: have been the only female Canadian to enlist, which we
Speaker 1: can't be one sure that she was or wasn't, she
Speaker 1: certainly wasn't the only Canadian to do so. There was
Speaker 1: an estimated fifty thousand who fought, mostly motivated to end slavery.
Speaker 1: But it absolutely should sound a little weird that a
Speaker 1: woman enlisted, because that was not at all legal at
Speaker 1: the time of the Civil War. Regardless, though a lot
Speaker 1: of women put on pants to volunteer, up to two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty women disguised themselves as men to serve
Speaker 1: in the Confederate armies, and historians have found that an
Speaker 1: estimated four hundred to one thousand women and perhaps even
Speaker 1: more fought on the Union side because they were disguised.
Speaker 1: Though this makes all of this reckoning a little bit difficult.
Speaker 1: It is impossible to know just how many female soldiers
Speaker 1: actually served in the war because they all would have
Speaker 1: been in some sort of disguise. So it actually took
Speaker 1: a few tries for Emma to enlist, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: because she had a poor disguise. It was because she
Speaker 1: was five six, which meant that inc was five six,
Speaker 1: and that was just shy of the army's height requirement,
Speaker 1: which Holly and I think was about five eight or so,
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit shorter. Yeah, there are some differing
Speaker 1: statistics about that, but it's almost always mentioned that her
Speaker 1: height was the the factor that kept her out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're looking at probably five seven, five eight, you know,
Speaker 1: not not too off from the five six um. But regardless,
Speaker 1: it wasn't until President Lincoln ordered seventy additional troops to
Speaker 1: fight that height really became a non issue. Yeah, those
Speaker 1: rules got loosened a bit a bit. What changed, you
Speaker 1: may wonder between her first physical and the one that
Speaker 1: she passed well. Although army regulations required all recruits to
Speaker 1: have a physical, both the Confederate and the Union armies
Speaker 1: were at this point so desperate for troops that examinations
Speaker 1: became we'll call it lax, Yeah, a little, a little lax.
Speaker 1: I would call it sloppy gelop. But I say that
Speaker 1: there weren't in it at all. Historian Dane Blanton explained
Speaker 1: this in the following way quote, Often they just have
Speaker 1: recruits walk by, and if they weren't lame or blind,
Speaker 1: and if their trigger finger worked, they were in some
Speaker 1: standards right there. Um So, on May eighteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: Emma became Private Franklin Thompson and was mustered into Company
Speaker 1: F of the second Michigan Regiment of Volunteer Infantry as
Speaker 1: a three year recruit. On an interesting historical note here,
Speaker 1: it wasn't actually until eighteen seventy two when army physicals
Speaker 1: became actually important, and because of that change, it would
Speaker 1: have been almost impossible, if not impossible, for Emma or
Speaker 1: any other woman to disguise herself an enlist. It makes
Speaker 1: you wonder how many people realized this was going on
Speaker 1: kind of turned a blind eye, and then we're like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to change those rules. Actually, that's going
Speaker 1: to have to stop. Somebody's going to ask us a question,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to be the one to answer right.
Speaker 1: And there were a variety of reasons a woman would
Speaker 1: decide to join the army. So some enlisted to follow
Speaker 1: a man, whether that was a member of the family
Speaker 1: or just a friend or a lover, while others were
Speaker 1: simply looking for adventure or wanted to outrun a bad situation.
Speaker 1: And some of them, though we should say, we're in
Speaker 1: it for the money. Many of the women who volunteered
Speaker 1: were girls who worked in factories or as seamstresses, and
Speaker 1: in those jobs you would make about four dollars a month,
Speaker 1: and if you were looking for a better paycheck, and
Speaker 1: if you were looking for freedom from the traditional domestic
Speaker 1: role of women at the time, the thirteen dollars a
Speaker 1: month that the Union paid an army private probably sounded
Speaker 1: pretty great. Emma, disguised as Frank, was not, of course,
Speaker 1: as we said, fighting for any of that. She was
Speaker 1: motivated by her love for her adopted country, and she
Speaker 1: also wanted to be a nurse as Private Thompson. Emma
Speaker 1: did actually find herself in the role of nurse as
Speaker 1: well as an active fighter in the war. She participated
Speaker 1: in several major battles, among them the Skirmish at Blackburn's Ford,
Speaker 1: the Peninsular Campaign, the Battle of Antietam, and the Battle
Speaker 1: of Fredericksburg. At Fredericksburg, she served actually as an orderly
Speaker 1: for her commander, who was Colonel Orlando po So. As
Speaker 1: we said earlier, in addition to a woman enlisting in
Speaker 1: the army, there is another unusual part to this story.
Speaker 1: Emma was able to serve for two years undetected, disguised
Speaker 1: as Frank. We have to put an asterisk here because
Speaker 1: that's kind of like mostly she was undetected. She was right.
Speaker 1: There is some very small, small evidence that has come
Speaker 1: up that was written in two journals. One was written
Speaker 1: by a male nurse named Jerome Robbins and the other
Speaker 1: was written by a Lieutenant Reid. By October of eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty one, Emma had begun a possible romantic relationship with
Speaker 1: one of those two soldiers, and at least one fellow soldier,
Speaker 1: probably Jerome, actually knew her true identity. Scandalous and so
Speaker 1: many levels. Uh. So, we we know that Emma is
Speaker 1: a master at deception, and we know she's really good
Speaker 1: at it because she's a private in the army. But
Speaker 1: she was so stealthy that she was sometimes asked to
Speaker 1: serve as a spy. So as Frank, Emma actually made
Speaker 1: at least eleven trips, if not more or way more
Speaker 1: behind Confederate lines, disguised as one of a few different characters.
Speaker 1: Um one was an Irish immigrant, there was a black
Speaker 1: enslaved woman, and I believe I read that there was
Speaker 1: a white boy that she would sometimes go in as,
Speaker 1: and sometimes a black man. However, let's have a side
Speaker 1: conversation about this espionage business, because in eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: Emma wrote a book of memoirs entitled Nurse and Spy
Speaker 1: in the Union Army. And though she writes about her
Speaker 1: experiences crossing enemy lines, some historians today question if it
Speaker 1: actually happened or if she had added some embellishment to
Speaker 1: her story. So, after this espionage intrigue go, there's actually
Speaker 1: one more thing in her memoirs that we learned about
Speaker 1: her career in the military, and it sounds so commonplace
Speaker 1: compared to spy. But she from time to time also
Speaker 1: served as a mail carrier. I feel like there's a
Speaker 1: fun play on words with the mail, but too lazy
Speaker 1: to make the connection right now. Well, well I'll just
Speaker 1: make it for you. We are going to take a
Speaker 1: break and have a quick word from a sponsor, and
Speaker 1: when we're back, we are going to talk about how
Speaker 1: and why the war challenged the traditional role of the
Speaker 1: American woman. Welcome back to Criminalia. We're back to talk
Speaker 1: about how the Civil War became a formative part of
Speaker 1: the proto feminist movement. Okay, So this image of the
Speaker 1: woman warrior appears in the myths and histories of various
Speaker 1: cultures throughout human history. Joan of Arc is a very
Speaker 1: well known example, as are the Amazons, but there are
Speaker 1: way more out there. There is a famous and perhaps
Speaker 1: infamous depending on your point of view, eighteenth century British
Speaker 1: woman named Mary Reid who disguised herself as a man
Speaker 1: named Mark Reid to serve in the infantry and the
Speaker 1: cavalry in the War of the Spanish Succession. And all
Speaker 1: of that was before she more famously became a pirate,
Speaker 1: and all the way back to the American Revolutionary War,
Speaker 1: historians know that Deborah Sampson, Margaret Corbin, and Nancy Hart
Speaker 1: all fought for the North American colonies. Like Emma, these
Speaker 1: were women who saw the war as an opportunity to
Speaker 1: fight for their country and for their meets. During the
Speaker 1: Civil War, Southern black women were known to work as spies, scouts, careers,
Speaker 1: and guides to support the Union, Harriet Tubman being the
Speaker 1: most famous among them. We also immediately think of Kathy Williams,
Speaker 1: who fought under the name William Cathy and as William.
Speaker 1: She became the first black woman to enlist and became
Speaker 1: the only documented female Buffalo soldier. The Buffalo Soldiers were
Speaker 1: a regiment known for their buffalo coats and really their
Speaker 1: general badassess. Maria Lewis is another great example. She was
Speaker 1: a black woman who was able to pass as a
Speaker 1: white male soldier in the eighth New York Cavalry. The
Speaker 1: Civil War, regardless of a woman's desire to join the
Speaker 1: military or not, also challenged what was considered the traditional
Speaker 1: role of an American woman. Up until the war began.
Speaker 1: An American woman was expected to be submissive and domestic.
Speaker 1: Mostly women played the rules of nurses, cooks, and laundresses
Speaker 1: during the war, but sometimes it was necessary for a
Speaker 1: woman to defend herself and that was usually with a gun.
Speaker 1: All of this was considered the honorable work of a
Speaker 1: woman while men went to war. But things were a
Speaker 1: little different for women who were disguising themselves as men
Speaker 1: in order to enlist. The act of dressing in men's
Speaker 1: clothing was a brazen choice at the time, and it
Speaker 1: actually wasn't until the twentieth century, early twentieth century when
Speaker 1: it was acceptable for women to wear pants, and then
Speaker 1: only on very few occasions like bicycling. Right, we just
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta wear some pants, as we've said on
Speaker 1: the show before, illegal in France to wear pants until
Speaker 1: the modern era. We're not lying so today, many historians
Speaker 1: considered the American Civil War to really be a formative
Speaker 1: part of the proto feminist movement in the US. Feminism
Speaker 1: is a concept that has come up for us before.
Speaker 1: It's the first flavor of feminism that happened specifically before
Speaker 1: the turn of the twentieth century. During this period in history,
Speaker 1: some women were eyeing or even enjoying the freedom that
Speaker 1: came from living disguise as a man. A woman named
Speaker 1: Lizzie Cook told The Missouri Democrat that her quote strong
Speaker 1: impulse to shoulder a musket came from her desire to
Speaker 1: quote escape the monotony of a woman's life. But you know,
Speaker 1: of course, there are always the dissenters. So not all
Speaker 1: women saw equality as a positive thing, and many argued
Speaker 1: that Many among that group argued that politics weren't proper
Speaker 1: for women. Women's rights might have been some sort of
Speaker 1: new and possibly threatening thing to men of the time,
Speaker 1: but to these women, it was just unacceptable. Some pronounced
Speaker 1: that voting might cause women to and I'm going to
Speaker 1: quote this here because it's that great grow beards. When
Speaker 1: I had to start shaving after I turned eighteen and
Speaker 1: started voting, I mean very difficult. I mean, you're eighteen,
Speaker 1: so embarrassing my stubble. Well, you cover it nicely, right,
Speaker 1: And here's the thing, right, that also presumes that women
Speaker 1: never have facial hair like it's based on a very
Speaker 1: specific identity of what femininity and womanhood is. That's already
Speaker 1: messed up. So there are layers to this onion of wrongitude.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear some of the other things
Speaker 1: that this group of women thought was proper and It
Speaker 1: was Clara Barton, who is known for founding the American
Speaker 1: Red Cross, who once claimed that the four year Civil
Speaker 1: War advanced the social role of women by at least
Speaker 1: fifty years. Additionally, in their eight one manifesto called History
Speaker 1: of Woman Suffrage, written by women's rights activist Susan B. Anthony,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Katie Stanton, and Matilda Gauge, it was a serted
Speaker 1: that females who served on the front line of the
Speaker 1: Civil War should be granted the same rights as men
Speaker 1: who defend their country. We don't have to make a
Speaker 1: quick side step here, because that movement, if you know
Speaker 1: much about it, was unfortunately riddled with problems, uh, particularly
Speaker 1: racial divisions. It was basically all about white women's suffrage
Speaker 1: rather than voting rights for all women or even all people.
Speaker 1: Because at one point they were like, no, no, we
Speaker 1: want black people to vote, but after we get it
Speaker 1: for us, which I laughed that, but I'm just laughing
Speaker 1: because it's ridiculous thought. Yeah, yeah, we only want those
Speaker 1: bearded women. They wanted their rights first, and they will
Speaker 1: help you, we swear, but us first. I promise that
Speaker 1: I won't leave you by yourself. So um, continuing women
Speaker 1: who disguised themselves as men, fought for the North and
Speaker 1: the South, and virtually every major battle of the Civil War.
Speaker 1: We know that four Confederate women were promoted to the
Speaker 1: rank of captain and at least one held the rank
Speaker 1: of major. Historians report that at least eight women fought
Speaker 1: at the Battle of Antietam, which is considered the bloodiest
Speaker 1: day in American history. And as a side note, I
Speaker 1: did look it up to see if it still was
Speaker 1: the bloodiest day in American history, and it is. Union fighters.
Speaker 1: Catherine Davidson's right arm was amputated, and Mary Galloway was
Speaker 1: shot in the neck. A woman fighting for the Confederacy
Speaker 1: died in the cornfield. Five women also fought at Gettysburg,
Speaker 1: and one Confederate woman was shot in the leg, and
Speaker 1: the list goes on and on. So these discovered women,
Speaker 1: which is what you'll often see them called, we're often
Speaker 1: discovered after being wounded and sent to a field hospital
Speaker 1: for care. Clara Barton, who we mentioned earlier, was caring
Speaker 1: for wounded soldiers when Mary Galloway was brought in with
Speaker 1: a neck wound that she received at the Battle of Antietam,
Speaker 1: and at that point her true identity was revealed to Clara.
Speaker 1: Women were also discovered if they got sick, or if
Speaker 1: they were taken prisoner, or as with a New Jersey
Speaker 1: sergeant and five other soldiers gave birth, which I have
Speaker 1: to tell you, just the fact that they were fighting
Speaker 1: right up until that point. I like to think that
Speaker 1: there was like some colonels somewhere who was like, we
Speaker 1: can even give birth in the military. We don't know
Speaker 1: anybody else, so finding a woman in their ranks wasn't
Speaker 1: really a problem. Men during the war described being surprised
Speaker 1: and for some even feelings of respect similar to what
Speaker 1: we just discovered. I I can't believe you managed all
Speaker 1: of this and had a child. However, this also served
Speaker 1: as a reminder that war was considered a man's job. Yes,
Speaker 1: getting caught could mean one's moral character could be questioned,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't want that. You could also be discharged
Speaker 1: and sent home noe. Most wouldn't be punished Beyond that,
Speaker 1: although there are a couple of reports of women being imprisoned,
Speaker 1: but very very few, hard to know if they're real.
Speaker 1: And though there were hundreds of women fighting, the press
Speaker 1: was actually more interested in covering the women dressed in
Speaker 1: men's uniforms, than whether or not the women were good soldiers,
Speaker 1: or even the philosophical take on whether or not women
Speaker 1: should be fighting at all. Well, because one sells papers
Speaker 1: and the other harder, I mean, it's right. Okay, We're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break here, and when we
Speaker 1: come back we will talk about how Emma, as Frank
Speaker 1: was considered a deserter. Welcome back to Criminalia. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk now about Frank as a deserter and what
Speaker 1: that meant for Emma. In April of eighteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: the Second Michigan were so in to the Army of
Speaker 1: the Cumberland and they were sent to Kentucky, and by
Speaker 1: the time they arrived near Vicksburg, Mississippi, Emma had contracted malaria.
Speaker 1: That's something that actually claimed the lives of a lot
Speaker 1: of people during the Civil War. And as Frank requested
Speaker 1: a furlough, but that request was denied. Not wanting to
Speaker 1: be discovered by one of the nurses, she disguised herself
Speaker 1: again and she sneaked out of her camp and it
Speaker 1: was then that Franklin Thompson was charged with desertion, which
Speaker 1: can of course be punishable by death. During this time.
Speaker 1: So after Emma escape, she resurfaced in one of two places,
Speaker 1: um and so it was maybe Pittsburgh, but it was
Speaker 1: also maybe and more likely that she resurfaced in Oberlin, Ohio.
Speaker 1: Some sources report that she enrolled at Oberlin College. This
Speaker 1: was the first college to offer higher education to both
Speaker 1: men and women, and they began admitting women long before this.
Speaker 1: I think it was back in seven So it was
Speaker 1: either there Pennsylvania or Ohio where she recuperated from malaria.
Speaker 1: And there is no record she studied at Oberlin, but
Speaker 1: there is proof she worked at the Christian Commission as
Speaker 1: a nurse from June until the end of the war.
Speaker 1: And it's right around this time when she resumed using
Speaker 1: her female identity end name right. Why would you go
Speaker 1: to the trouble of keeping up the ruse if you
Speaker 1: do not have to? Exactly it doesn't I don't know
Speaker 1: if she kept wearing pants though, I mean I went
Speaker 1: they're comfortable. Almost immediately following the Civil War was what's known,
Speaker 1: of course, is the Progressive era, and this was a
Speaker 1: time budding with activists and reformers who wanted to end
Speaker 1: the political corruption and improve the lives of all citizens
Speaker 1: and expand government intervention to protect citizens. One end the
Speaker 1: goal through the suffrage movement was to grant women equal rights,
Speaker 1: including of course, the right to vote, and that took
Speaker 1: some time, when men were not granted full voting rights
Speaker 1: until long after Emma had passed away. On August nineteen twenty,
Speaker 1: state legislatures ratified the nineteenth Amendment giving women the right
Speaker 1: to vote. Okay, So, while that's a super important history lesson. Actually, um,
Speaker 1: this is all happening right around the time that Emma
Speaker 1: decides to move to Harper's Ferry, which is in West Virginia,
Speaker 1: and it's there where she worked as a nurse with
Speaker 1: the Christian Commission. Again um, but it's also in Harper's
Speaker 1: Ferry where she met and fell in love with Lina Seely.
Speaker 1: He was a carpenter who was like Emma from New Brunswick, Canada.
Speaker 1: The couple married on April eighteen sixty seven in Okay. Again,
Speaker 1: because this is actually getting funny to me, probably Cleveland, Ohio.
Speaker 1: It's really hard to pin Emma down because she moves
Speaker 1: around a lot, and at this time, just to make
Speaker 1: things even a little bit more confusing, Emma, now that
Speaker 1: she was married decided that she would start using her
Speaker 1: first name again. Sarah. I like that she's addicted to change.
Speaker 1: She just needs to jazz it up a little bit
Speaker 1: from time. I need a different locale, I need a
Speaker 1: different moniker. I got to switch it up. Sarah and
Speaker 1: Linus went on to have three children. They had two
Speaker 1: sons named Linus and Homer, and a daughter named Alice Louise,
Speaker 1: but their family was really beset by tragedy. Linus died
Speaker 1: just before his third birthday, and Homer passed away shortly
Speaker 1: after he was born. Alice too died while she was
Speaker 1: still very young, and their deaths were blamed on measles,
Speaker 1: although there isn't any verification of that. That's not unusual
Speaker 1: for children's deaths during this time for there to not
Speaker 1: be a lot of paperwork about it. Many sources report
Speaker 1: that the Seelye's also adopted two boys, that was George
Speaker 1: Frederick and Charles Finney. In eighteen seventies six, Sarah decided
Speaker 1: to attend a reunion of the Second Michigan and was
Speaker 1: war only welcomed by her fellow male soldiers. It always
Speaker 1: bothered Sarah that, as Frank Hopson, she was considered a deserter.
Speaker 1: She always maintained her reasons for leaving camp were the
Speaker 1: fear of being found out that she was a woman,
Speaker 1: of course um, but also exhaustion, and she always expected
Speaker 1: that she would return. But it turns out the men
Speaker 1: she fought side by side with didn't consider her a
Speaker 1: deserter either. The group began a writing campaign in an
Speaker 1: effort to get the U. S. War Department to recognize
Speaker 1: Sarah's service as Frank Thompson and to remove the charge
Speaker 1: of desertion from her military records. They were joined by
Speaker 1: others who had served with her, including former military officers
Speaker 1: and other distinguished men, and their campaign it worked. But
Speaker 1: even with all of that support behind her, there was
Speaker 1: still a lot of bureaucratic red tape surprise. It took
Speaker 1: eight long years for this to work, but it did work.
Speaker 1: On July before, in special Act of Congress, Sarah was
Speaker 1: granted an honorable discharge from the Army for quote her
Speaker 1: sacrifice in the line of duty, her splendid record as
Speaker 1: a soldier, her unblemished character and disabilities incurred in the service.
Speaker 1: Sarah also received a modest cash bonus, as well as
Speaker 1: a veterans pension of twelve dollars a month. She was
Speaker 1: the only woman to receive a veterans pension after the
Speaker 1: Civil War that was huge. For fifty years, the Adjudent
Speaker 1: General's office denied that female soldiers even existed. According to
Speaker 1: historian Blatin, who we mentioned earlier, Jewil Early, who was
Speaker 1: the Confederate general and also the head of the Southern
Speaker 1: Historical Society, dismissed females among Confederate troops, calling the whole
Speaker 1: idea a hoax. What we could wrongly but easily assume,
Speaker 1: if you listen to the rhetoric at the time, is
Speaker 1: that any discovered or dismissed female soldiers were and I'm
Speaker 1: going to quote this crazy whores or homosexual. Despite this
Speaker 1: whole judgment that she was going to get a pension,
Speaker 1: Sarah didn't actually receive any payments until eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: and with back pay that's some amounted to write around
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars. The Sea Leaves had hoped to open
Speaker 1: a veteran's home. That was a long held dream, but unfortunately,
Speaker 1: in they lost all of their belongings. When a major
Speaker 1: economic depression swept the country that was known as the
Speaker 1: Panic of eighte It was a national economic crisis, usually
Speaker 1: cited as being catalyzed when two of the country's largest employers,
Speaker 1: that's the Philadelphia and the Reading Railroad and the National
Speaker 1: Courtage Company both collapsed. That has its own long and
Speaker 1: interesting story as part of American history, which we are
Speaker 1: not going to get into today. I will talk forever
Speaker 1: about gold and silver standard and why um. But it
Speaker 1: affected every part of the economy, and of course that
Speaker 1: that it negatively impacted the Seeley's dream. So after moving
Speaker 1: around the United States from Ohio to Michigan, to Kansas
Speaker 1: to Kentucky and pretty much everywhere in between, which makes
Speaker 1: me think that Sarah wanted to live in every state,
Speaker 1: and Sarah and Lynas finally settled in Texas in Laport. There,
Speaker 1: Emma was accepted as a full member of the Grand
Speaker 1: Army of the Republic, the Union Army Veterans Organization. She
Speaker 1: was the only female member. Sarah passed away from a
Speaker 1: stroke on the morning of September five, and though she
Speaker 1: was initially buried at Laport Cemetery, in nineteen o one,
Speaker 1: her remains were relocated to the Military Section of Washington
Speaker 1: Cemetery in Houston, Texas, where she is the only female
Speaker 1: whose burial in the Civil War Veterans plot has been permitted.
Speaker 1: They're a small limestone marker reads Harold, the life of
Speaker 1: a heroic Canadian who helped preserve the United States and
Speaker 1: free a people from slavery. In addition to that quote,
Speaker 1: in her own words from her memoir Sarah said about
Speaker 1: her experience, and I'm gonna quote this, I could only
Speaker 1: thank God that I was free and could go forward
Speaker 1: and work, and I was not obliged to stay at
Speaker 1: home and weep. I love that quote so much. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's summits so beautifully, like the desire for agency. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's I feel it sums up her entire reason and experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great one. Her memoirs, which are dedicated to
Speaker 1: quote the Sick and Wounded Soldiers of the Army of
Speaker 1: the Potomac, recount the story of her remarkable life. Years
Speaker 1: after the war, when she was asked if her book
Speaker 1: was true, she was a combination of truthful and coy
Speaker 1: about it, she said, quote not strictly so. Most of
Speaker 1: the experiences they are recorded were either my own or
Speaker 1: came under my own observation. I would like, however, to
Speaker 1: write differently of that portion of my life. She wanted
Speaker 1: to be more of a male carrier. She may have
Speaker 1: wished to just do a more truthful version, we don't know,
Speaker 1: or a very salacious version. I want to believe that
Speaker 1: she wanted to set the record completely straight, but actually
Speaker 1: I feel like she would be that kind of a
Speaker 1: woman too. Yeah, she did work on a sequel to that,
Speaker 1: but it was never published, and anything that she did
Speaker 1: create out of that that effort has since been lost
Speaker 1: to the ages. All proceeds of Sarah's memoirs went and
Speaker 1: still go to the Sanitary Commission, the Christian Commission, and
Speaker 1: other soldier aid organizations. And so I'm going to take
Speaker 1: us on a quick trip forward. Up to this is
Speaker 1: when Emma's courage and her contribution to the Union's espionage
Speaker 1: and military fronts were recognized beyond her pension. She was
Speaker 1: inducted into both the United States Military Intelligence Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame and the State of Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: In her own country, she was elected to New Brunswick's
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. In So, this is not exactly a
Speaker 1: funny story. There's not a fake princess involved, made up
Speaker 1: foreign land, but Emma instead makes being a pretender and
Speaker 1: an impostor seem fairly righteous. Agree. Are you ready for
Speaker 1: a mocktail Maria? That's right, it's mocktail time. Tell me
Speaker 1: about it. It's mocktail again. Remember, for my drinkers in
Speaker 1: the crowd, I'll tell you how um, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: how to kick it up to a more adult version.
Speaker 1: This is when I was thinking about all of the
Speaker 1: different roles that she had in her life, and so
Speaker 1: I tried to include a lot of different things, each
Speaker 1: of which contribute their own aspect to this particular drink.
Speaker 1: And this is called Sarah's Secret. It's intriguing. So it
Speaker 1: starts out pretty simply. It's a mix of juices. You're
Speaker 1: gonna do one ounce of each of these, so one
Speaker 1: ounce of orange juice, one ounce of pineapple juice, one
Speaker 1: ounce of guava nectar, or if you can just get
Speaker 1: guava juice, that also works great. This is an instance where,
Speaker 1: even though it is a mocktail, I encourage you to
Speaker 1: use a shaker and put those three together and give
Speaker 1: it a good hard shake and a cocktail shaker, because
Speaker 1: it's gonna all infuse together a lot better. You're gonna
Speaker 1: get better incorporation than if you just stir it, and
Speaker 1: then you can pour that into your glass and top
Speaker 1: it off with three ounces of lemon lime soda. I
Speaker 1: find it to be very very sweet if you use
Speaker 1: regular lemon lime soda, so I went for a diet version.
Speaker 1: Not everybody likes diet versions because they don't like that
Speaker 1: artificial sweetener thing. So either way it's fine. But here's
Speaker 1: the secret. So this on its own is very bright
Speaker 1: and refreshing and quite a pretty color and really fun
Speaker 1: to drink. But then you're gonna take a fresh halipeenio
Speaker 1: And now I've sat up in my chair. This is
Speaker 1: the secret part. So cut a slice, a circular slice
Speaker 1: of a fresh hallepegno, and you're also gonna cut a
Speaker 1: little bit from an orange peel, like the exterior of
Speaker 1: an orange peel. Like a channel knife is your friend
Speaker 1: if you have one. That's just kind of like dig
Speaker 1: into the skin and and pull it off, but you
Speaker 1: can also do it with a knife. Just be very careful.
Speaker 1: Give the orange peel a little squeeze over your glass.
Speaker 1: It's not going to create a bunch, but there's like
Speaker 1: a fine mist of orange oil that adds to it.
Speaker 1: But then you're gonna put those two things together on
Speaker 1: a toothpick or a skewer, depending on the depth of
Speaker 1: your drink, and you're just gonna drop it on in
Speaker 1: there and give it a little swizzle and let it
Speaker 1: sit there while you drink, and it honestly does this
Speaker 1: completely weird thing that changes the flavor. It was funny
Speaker 1: because my husband and I were each trying this and
Speaker 1: he was like, why do I keep getting a note
Speaker 1: of coconut when there's street like the Guala and you
Speaker 1: think it like there's something that happens where it. I
Speaker 1: didn't catch that initially, but then after he said it
Speaker 1: and I tasted it, I was like, I understand exactly
Speaker 1: what you're saying. So that was interesting. It just changes
Speaker 1: the flavor of it completely, and as you're drinking it,
Speaker 1: that gets a little bit more intense, you get a
Speaker 1: little more hallpeenia flavor. Obviously, a fresh hallepeno depending on
Speaker 1: which one you get, is going to have a different
Speaker 1: character anyway. Some are very hot, some are milder, and
Speaker 1: that just adds an extra bound of fun. Now, if
Speaker 1: you are like Maria and myself a drinker, you might
Speaker 1: want to add something extra to it. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you how amazing this is. With an ounce or an
Speaker 1: ounce and a half of good bourbon, Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: it just adds this beautiful, smoky depth to it that's
Speaker 1: a little bit subtle, but it makes all of the
Speaker 1: fruit flavor like pop in a new way. It's absolutely delicious.
Speaker 1: I'm literally going to make when when you finished recording,
Speaker 1: so I never know what in what like the ingredients
Speaker 1: of the drink are going to be before Holly comes
Speaker 1: on the show. And I do it on purpose because
Speaker 1: I don't want to know, Like I like it to
Speaker 1: be like a little Christmas evening your song for me um.
Speaker 1: And so when you got to the bourbon, I literally
Speaker 1: was like, wow, what this is not going to be
Speaker 1: a mocktail for me. I also was thinking when you
Speaker 1: mentioned um, depending on the depth of your glass, and
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, my mind immediately went to my glass has
Speaker 1: no death. Just keep pouring the bourbon into it. If
Speaker 1: you don't have a long skewer, you want to stick
Speaker 1: to something like a rock's glass. It's a little shorter
Speaker 1: so a toothpicks will not completely get devoured by the liquid,
Speaker 1: like you'll still be able to see it a little bit.
Speaker 1: You could always use one of those like grilled forks
Speaker 1: for your your bucket sized version of this work to U. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but if you put it in like a Collin's glass
Speaker 1: or something, that's just gonna be taller and you would
Speaker 1: lose your your toothpick, You're never going to touch it
Speaker 1: again until you dumped the whole thing out. Also, you
Speaker 1: could put other spirits in it. If you're not a
Speaker 1: bourbon person, I still recommend you try it that way
Speaker 1: because I'm not historically a bourbon person. Loved bourbon with this.
Speaker 1: I was surprised, but it would work fine with gin
Speaker 1: or um a vodka if you get a botanical of
Speaker 1: either of those extra bonus points for new flavors. That's
Speaker 1: Sarah's secret. And it's quite tasty and like I said,
Speaker 1: I want another immediately. I loved it in its non
Speaker 1: alcoholic version. I wanted another. And then I was like,
Speaker 1: this is a perfect happy hour drink as well. It
Speaker 1: does sound delicious both ways. Yes, I'm telling you, man,
Speaker 1: it's like it's just right beautiful. Well, you sip this.
Speaker 1: If you would like to subscribe to the show, we
Speaker 1: recommend that, But otherwise, thank you so much for spending
Speaker 1: this time with us. We cannot wait to talk to
Speaker 1: you again next week about more imposters. Criminalia is a
Speaker 1: production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.