Emma Seelye
IKE Dick Dowling, Emma Seelye was a
combat veteran of the Civil War. Disguised as a man under the name of Frank
Thompson, she enlisted in Company F of the Second Michigan Infantry of the Grand Army of
the Republic. The only woman to enlist in that army, Seelye served with distinction
for two years and was decorated for bravery, masquerading as a man all along.
She served until 1863, when she had contracted malaria and feared detection.
Settling in Houston, she published her memoirs in a book entitled The Nurse and the
Spy. The book about her adventures in the army became a best seller and
sold some 175,000 copies. It also revealed her deception and her disability pension
was withdrawn, although eventually it was restored by an Act of Congress. Seelye
donated much of the profit from her book to Houston hospitals before she died in
1898.
