Across the war lines from Sarah Emma Edmonds was Loreta Janeta Velazquez. According to her 1876 memoir, "The Woman in Battle," she was born in Havana, Cuba, on June 26, 1842, to a Spanish father and a French-American mother and educated by an English governess for much of her early life. Her father's plantation wealth allowed her to travel to New Orleans to complete and perfect her education in English. She lived there with an aunt, who later sent her to a school run by the Sisters of Charity. The dreamy young Loreta spent her allowance on fairy-tale books instead of the usual sweets that most children preferred. ...

Like Sarah Edmonds, Loreta Velazquez claimed unhappiness with her early betrothal, to a Spaniard named Raphael. Though she did not initially protest the engagement, the idea of a traditionally arranged "marriage of convenience," as she called it, began to plague her. Threats of being sent to a convent or even back to Cuba notwithstanding, Loreta ultimately eloped with William -- a young American Army officer -- on April 5, 1856, and consequently became estranged from her family. ...

By fall 1860 Loreta wrote in her memoir that her three children had died, either of fever or shortly after childbirth, and she distracted herself with the coming military conflict between the North and South. The talk of war stirred up her childhood impulse to dress as a man and participate in her own glorious hero fantasies by joining her husband in combat. Having been a loyal United States military man for so long, her husband William had his doubts about the wisdom of secession. But with her own desire for adventure coupled with a Confederate fervor, Loreta added to the familial pressure already put upon William to depart for Richmond and join the Southern troops.

According to Loreta, her first foray into male guise -- complete with false mustache, wig, and one of William's suits -- was accomplished in the company of her husband in Memphis, Tennessee, shortly before his departure to the Confederate capital for service. To prove to his wife the coarseness and generally "demoralizing" environment of men in camp, and to dissuade her from following him to the battlefield, William agreed to a nighttime excursion to the bars, saloons, and gambling venues of the city. Without the moderating influence of "decent women," William informed her, men were nothing short of rude and intolerable. Instead of dissuading Loreta, however, the experience showed her how possible it was to masquerade successfully as a male. The "loud-talking, hard-drinking, and blaspheming" souls she witnessed only strengthened her resolve to be a good soldier and put them to shame. Tellingly, she longed to be an "actor" in the war, which she initially saw as a "sublime, living drama."

(From "She Went to the Field: Women Soldiers of the Civil War," by Bonnie Tsui. Published by The Globe Pequot Press, 2003. For more information visit www.globepequot.com.)

Researcher Brooke Cain searches journals and other sources for talk about the South. She can be reached at (919) 829-4579 or bcain@newsobserver.com.

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