The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-10-21

1 y
has been revived which recounts thai
considerable number of sldventur.
Gus young women are soldering in the
ranks of the American army down in
the Philippines. Every time a regi-
mental outfit comes up to the States
from the far islands this fairy tale
finds renewed circulation. The story is
generally sprung by the mischievous
returning bucks just for the fun OF
observing and studying the credulity
of the Juniper civilian listeners. The
girls in uniform are solemnly said to
have followed their soldering sweet
hearts down to the Philippines and to
have donned the Government
straights' SO as 10 be near their fight
ing beaux. All of these narratives, it
is hardly necessary to say. are the
purest nonsense. No applicant breaks
into the United States army nowadays
without the severest sort of physical
examination-which is all that requires
to be said to dispose of these uniforms
ed girls stories of the present day.
But it was very different during the
Civil War. Physical examinations dur
ing the Civil War did not, as a rule,
amount to much more than the re-
eruiting officers eye measurement Of
the applicants inches and general
physical condition. If the applicant
a iT41a 10 IN, oh
and was not obviously blind, halt, lame
or deaf and dumb. instant admission to
the ranks was given. The wonder,
therefore, does not seem so great that
a number of women actually soldiered
as uniformed men during the Civil
War. A majority of these sure enough
adventurous women enlisted on the
Union side, and their sex in most cases
was only revealed when they were
wounded in action. There were, no
doubt, great many more women who
enlisted as men on both sides of the
gigantic conflict than the records show
women who, having escaped wounds
and detection, were mustered out at
the close of their enlistments or at the
conclusion of the war without their
sex becoming known to their officers or
comrades. 1t seems almost incredible
that some of these women, whose cases
are well authenticated, should have
carried out their deception with such
success under difficult circumstances,
but the fact remains that very few of
them were discovered to be women
through their poor acting of their sol
dierly roles.
A girl of %, named Frances Hook,
h. oh :; ,,v,,
height, with dark hazel eyes, dark
brown hair, rounded features and fem
mime voice and appearance enlisted,
with her brother, in the Sixty-fifth
Illinois Home Guards shortly after the
beginning of the Civil War. She and
her brother were orphans. In en1isting
the girl assumed the name of Frank
Miller. She served for three months
and was mustered out without the
slightest suspicion of her sex having
arisen. Her brother was killed in ac
ton soon after he enlisted After re-
ceiving her three months discharge
the girl Frank Miller re-enlisted in the
Union Army. this time in the Nine
tieth Illinois. She was taken prisoner
In skirmish near Chattanooga. In
attempting to escape she was shot
through the calf of the right leg. The
Confederate soldiers who picked her
up searched her for papers and dis
covered her sex. They treated the girl
with chivalrous respect, and she was
given separate room in the military
prison at Atlanta She was finally ex-
changed
The betrothed of a young Ohio girl
mad enlisted, and she determined to fol-
low him. She was inspected, accepted
and sworn in with the rest OF the com
pany to which she applied for enlist
ment- The company marched to Camp
jackson, Ohio, and drilled there for sew
eral days, when the girl was sent with
the Third Ohio Regiment to Camp Den
n1son, near Cincinnati. Here she as
sisted In all of the duties of forming a
new camp. handling lumber, doing SEN
try go, and so on, for couple of weeks,
when, ascertaining for the first time
that there We're two Camp Dennisons,
and that her betrothed was stationed
at the other one, near Lancaster, Penn,
she went to her commanding officer,