Event+From+The+Past

__Women In The Civil War__
In the times of the Civil War, it was accepted that only men fought in the army; that women be prohibited from joining in. For their own individual reasons, women would have dressed up as men, and even take up the alias of men to join the war. In 1888, Mary Livermore, of the U.S. Sanitary Commissions would write: “Some one has stated the number of women soldiers known to the service as little less than four hundred. I cannot vouch for the correctness of this estimate, but I am convinced that a larger number of women disguised themselves and enlisted in the service, for one cause or other, than was dreamed of. Entrenched in secrecy, and regarded as men, they were sometimes revealed as women, by accident or casualty. Some startling histories of these military women were current in the gossip of army life.”
 * General:**

Others such as Mary Owens would be found. She had taken the alias of John Evans and had served in the Union army for eighteen months. She was had a wounded arm, and was discovered to be female. She would be sent home to Pennsylvania. Sarah Edmonds was a Canadian who enlisted into the Michigan Infantry in Detroit in 1861. She would take up the alias of Franklin Thompson. The regiment she was in took part in campaigns and many battles. In 1863 she would desert upon getting malaria; fearing her ailment would reveal her gender. Albert D. J. Cashier was a nineteen year old Irish immigrant. She enlisted in the Illinois Infantry in 1862 and participated in over forty battles and skirmishes within four hard years. By 1865, her regiment had been mustered out. In 1913, a surgeon would notice that she was female. She died the next year, having lived her adult life a man.

Quite the reverse of Mark Twain’s approach, women in the Civil War period would uptake what they believed to be a stereotypical man. Yet not just nay man, a soldier nonetheless. This is similar to Mark Twain’s writing in the fact that stereotypes and public ideal is used to make the proper judgment of a fake alias.
 * Significance:**

Also Mark Twain’s ideology that people and the public were ignorant and non-intelligent is shown. How hundreds of women could enlist in the army without notice of the officers. This shows the same stupidity in the incident with Huck dressing as a girl and fooling the woman. However, like in the book, the frauds would be discovered. The women would be revealed; and Huckleberry Finn would be found. The example of Mark Twain’s ideals on society, and how people cannot always tell who is to be trusted.

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