Frances Louise Siegel, veteran, 1870

“An Extraordinary Woman: She served in the United States Army.” Meriden Daily Republican [Meriden, Connecticut] 5 January 1870; p. 2.

On Monday evening a masculine looking woman named F. L. Siegel came to Meriden and asked for assistance from the members of the Grand Army of this city. She was directed to S. A. Smith, Quartermaster of Merriam Post, and a committee investigated her claims. Her papers were found to be quite correct, and the Post paid her board for the nigh and her fare as far as Hartford. Her case is a very extraordinary one, and she is a very extraordinary woman, if all told of her be true. She is a German by birth, but speaks good English, is about thirty-five years of age, stands nearly six feet high, has dark hair and eyes, is of a rough weather-beaten complexion, chews tobacco and swears like a pirate. Her story is this: The beginning of the war found her and her husband in Missouri, and ill prepared for the bad time coming, so she dressed herself in male attire and joined the 18th Missouri Union Cavalry as a private. She served two years, and her sex was never suspected. She fought in the battles of Shiloh and Stone River, and took part in eighteen skirmishes, being once wounded in the arm. The gentleman who favored us with our information, inquired if her sex was not then discovered. She answered in the negative, and, baring one of her brawny arms, displayed a muscle a navvy might envy. Her general development is like that of a man, being flat breasted and having scarcely any waist. She admits that it is only by tight lacing she can make herself at all of a feminine appearance. During her career in the army, she had a muss with one of her comrades, and they fought it out, the woman proving best man. She was discharged at the end of two years’ service and produced her papers to our informant for examination, together with other documents from well known men in support of her story. On obtaining her discharge she procured an engagement in the government detective service, in which she continued a year, arresting bounty jumpers and deserters, excepting three months of the time, when she was employed as nurse on board the United States ship Tamerlane, stationed at Galveston, Texas. We had omitted to state that between her discharge and employment in the detective service she was taken prisoner by rebel guerrilas and kept for fifteen days. She was then permitted to go on to Missouri. Her husband is now in New York, sick and without employment, and she is striving to obtain funds to emigrate to the West. For this purpose she is now on her way to friends at Nashua, N. H., where she expects to obtain assistance. A short time ago she was insulted in the streets by a New York ruffian, but she administered a terrific left hander on the eye and put the orb into eclipse. Both she and her assailant were arrested and taken before a Police Court. The Police Judge inquired with what weapon she had struck the insulting individual, and she replied, “with nature’s weapon,” displaying a fist that would fell an ox. The Judge presented her with a hawthorn billy, loaded with lead, he had just received from a prisoner, and told her to use that in future when molested. She handles the weapon like a Trojan and displayed it to great advantage among the astonished boarders of the hotel where she stopped last night. She leaves this morning on the 8:45 cars to Hartford, where she will apply for further assistance to aid her in reaching Nashua. Our informant desires us not to mention her [sic] name, as he is afraid of “that billy” if she should stop this way on her return to New York. For his sake we will keep it a secret.

A few weeks since. Ellsworth American [Ellsworth, Maine] 3 March 1870; p. 3.

A few weeks since we published an account of a woman who has the right to talk of suffrage, she having served in the army two years as a soldier, dressed in male attire, and one year as a detective. All our readers will recollect the account published Feb. 3d. Well, this veritable character dropped into our office one day last week, dressed in female attire, and looking for all the world as if she had seen hard times, and as if she had learned some of the vices of males, for we noticed that the “vile weed” was a favorite with her.

“A Cavalry Woman.” N. O. Times; reprinted in Bangor Daily Whig and Courier [Bangor, Maine] 16 September 1870; p. 4.

Mrs. F. L. Siegel, a woman whose career as a soldier in the western army has attracted considerable attention, is now in our city endeavoring to raise means to take herself and husband, who is blind, to Minnesota, where they have friends in humble circ[u]mstances. She last evening visited Phil. Kearney Post, G. A. R., and a considerable amount was raised for her assistance. She states—and her story is corroborated by documentary and by other evidence—that herself and husband enlisted as brothers early in the war in a Missouri cavalry regiment, and that she participated in the battles of Stone River and Shiloh, in addition to sixteen smaller battles and skirmishes. In the battle of Stone River her husband was instantly killed at her side, being struck in the breast by a shell. After two years of active service, she was detailed to hospital duty, and afterward acted as a spy. Being captured by the rebels she was sentenced to be hung, but managed to make her escape. She subsequently married a Minnesota soldier, whose eye-sight was destroyed by an accidental explosion, and who she is now desirous of getting back to his friends in the west. She was a member of the G. A. R. under the old ritual, but has not taken her degrees under the new code. Mrs. Siegel would easily pass for a male when dressed in that attire, as she has a masculine appearance, and in her actions gives no indications of her effeminacy.

[N. O. Times.