Kerri Hilton
January 5, 2007
5A
Behind Rebel Lines
By Seymour V. Reit
Behind Rebel Lines is a story about Sarah Emma Edmonds and how she made it into the Civil War and what she did under the name Frank Thompson.
Sarah was born in Nova Scotia. Her father was resented her for being born a girl so she tried to do as hard as she could to show him that she should have been a boy. Eventually she ran away from home to the United States. She got rid of Sarah and just stuck with Emma instead. She was vary patriotic and protective over “her country” and so when she was living in Flint, Michigan and the first fliers went out for people to join the army she cut her hair and got into a man’s suit and tried to join. On her fourth try she finally made it under the alias Frank Thompson.
Frank Thompson was a nurse in the fields and after being trained in D.C. her unit and her went to battle. After a few weeks the need for a new spy arose and so she studied up on tactics, weaponry, and other things that could be useful. When she went in to see if she could the interviewers were so impressed that she got the job.
On her first job she decided to be a black slave and, with the help of a chaplain’s wife, put on silver nitrate to darken her skin. She was going to be named “Cuff”. On her first day at the Confederate camp she worked with moving heavy rocks with other slaves and learned a few things but on the second day she traded jobs and learned about the size of the army and their supplies of weaponry. On the third day she was assigned guard duty which gave her the chance to escape.
When she returned with her information the Union general was pleased with her notes and allowed her to go back to her duties as a nurse. But it wasn’t long before she had gotten a new spy job.
Two months later she was assigned her next spy mission but she was worried that people might recognize her as “Cuff” so she went as an Irish-peddler woman named Bridget O’Shea. Once again she was accepted into the Confederate camp. She sold some of her wares and gained more information. She escaped on a Confederate horse, which she named Rebel, and returned to the Union camp with a wounded arm. Once again the General was pleased and allowed her to go back to being Frank Thompson again.
With the war in Virginia slowing she was transferred and went on a few more spying missions as “Cuff”. She also went on another mission as a mammy and one day she was cleaning an officer’s coat when a packet of official papers fell out. She took them and that night returned to Union camp where everyone was delighted at the packets.
She was transferred once again but always stayed a nurse and was told that she had another spy mission. This time as Charles Mayberry, a white man who came out of nowhere to Louisville. Her mission this time was to figure out who was the Confederate spy in Louisville. She finished the mission just in time to return as, Frank Thompson.
Emma worked long and hard hours as the nurse, Frank Thompson. Then suddenly she became ill and her general wouldn’t let her have time off so she left the army and Frank Thompson behind. She went to a hospital to treat her malaria but when she decided to go back she read a poster board that should AWOL people and Frank Thompson was one of them so she went back to being Emma Edmonds.
She wrote her memoirs in a book called Nurse and Spy in the Union Army. She went back to being a nurse in Washington. After a while she petitioned to get a pension
For being in the army and was given one. She then moved back to Canada and found love in Linus Seeyle. They had three sons. She died on September 5, 1889 and was buried in military national cemetery.
Review
I believe this book is just right for 8th graders. But it takes a really long time and isn’t very interesting.
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