Nurse and Spy in the Union Army: by EDMONDS, Sarah Emma - 1865 Comprising the Adventures and Experiences of a Woman in Hospitals, Camps, and Battle-Fields. With Illustrations.

Hartford: W. S. Williams & Co.; Jones Bros. & Co., Philadelphia and Connecticut; J. A. Stoddard & Co., Chicago,, 1865. Second edition of this scarce memoir by Sarah Emma Edmonds, a Canadian-born woman who disguised herself as a man to serve with the Union Army during the American Civil War. The book was first published in 1864, under the title The Female Spy in the Union Army. Inspired by Maturin Murray Ballou's novel Fanny Campbell, the Female Pirate Captain (1844), Edmonds (1841-1898) disguised herself as a man named Franklin Thompson and enlisted into the Union Army on 25 May 1861. She joined a volunteer infantry company in Flint, Michigan, in which she served as a male field nurse. She participated in several campaigns under General McClellan, including "the first and second Bull Run, Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, the Seven days in front of Richmond, Antietam, and Fredericksburg... she penetrated the enemy's lines, in various disguises, no less than eleven times, always with complete success and without detection" (p. 5). Edmonds's semi-autobiographical account of these experiences became a huge success, selling over 175,000 copies. In 1886, she was able to have the charge of desertion dropped, received an honourable discharge, and began receiving a government pension of $12 a month for her military service; the following year, she became one of two women admitted to the Grand Army of the Republic, the Civil War Union Army veterans organization. Octavo. Original brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt, spine and covers decorated in gilt, brown endpapers. With publisher's advertisement card loosely inserted. Engraved portrait frontispiece, with tissue guard, and 8 plates by G. E. Perine and R. O'Brien. A little rubbed, spine faded and ends frayed, pale stains to covers, light foxing and browning to first and last few pages, occasional spot to contents, contents otherwise clean. A very good copy.