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puur acting ui men suuueriy roies. Story of Frances Hook.A girl of 22. named Frances Hook, who is described as “of about medium height, dark hazel eyes, dark brown i hair, round features and feminine voice and appearance.’* enlisted with her brother in. the Sixtyqfit'th. Illinois home guards shortly after the beginning of the civil war. She and her brother were orphans. In enlisting the girl assumed the name of Frank Miller. She served three months and was mustered out without the slightest suspicion as to her sex having arisen. Her brother was killed, in action soon after he enlisted. After receiving the three-months' discharge the girl “Frank Miller” re-enlisted in the Union army, this ! time in the Ninetieth Illinois.She was taken prisoner in a battle 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 discovered her sex. The confederates respected her sex and gave her a separate room in the military prison at Atlanta. The girl claimed that during her captivity she received a letter from Jefferson Davis offering her a lieutenant’s commission if she would accept the confederate service, but this fact has never been verified. The girl had 110 home and 110 relatives, but she said that she would rather fight as a private soldier for the stars and stripes than accept any commission up to that of lieutenant-general in the confederate army. She was eventually exchanged. She said upon reaching the North that her captors had tried to extort from her a promise that she would go home and not enter the'Union service again.“Go home?” she replied. “Go home and my brother, the only relative I had in the world, killed by my side at Pittsburg Landing? I’ve got no home to go to, and i would not go to it, even if 1 had one. until the war is over.”This young woman’s subsequent career in the service, if. indeed, she again re-enlisted, is not known.Enlisted With Her Brother.The brother of a young Ohio girl had enlisted, and she determined to join him. She was inspected, accepted and sworn in with the rest of her company. The company marched to Camp Jackson, Ohio, and drilled there for several days and the girl was sent with the Third Ohio regiment to Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati. Here she assisted at all the duties of forming a new camp, handling lumber, doing sentry work, etc., for a couple of weeks, when, ascertaining for the first time that there two camp Dennisons, and that her brother was stationed in the other one, near Lancaster. Pa., she went to her commanding officer. Colonel Morrow.
Newspaper Details
Davenport Daily Republican
Davenport, Iowa, US
Sun, Mar 31, 1901
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
PA, USA 06 Jan 2019
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Davenport Leader
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