The Woman Who Soldiered in the Civil War

In 1862, nineteen-year-old Sarah Rosetta Wakeman from New York dressed as a man and enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War. She served for nearly two years. She finally faced the horror of battle at Pleasant Hill in Louisiana. In letters to her family, Rosetta describes day-to-day experiences as a surreptitious soldier, trying to make sense of her life and hoping to make it out alive.