Soldier Jennie – the Irish woman who fought as a man in the American Civil War

The life and times of Private Albert D.J. Cashier are one of those historic anomalies that make you scratch your head and wonder: ‘How the hell could that happen?’

Private Cashier served in the ranks of the 95th Illinois for three years – from their muster in on September 4, 1862 until they were discharged in August 1865.

Cashier was a member of the regiment’s Company G, and was present at hard-fought battles like Vicksburg and Nashville. A comrade later remembered Cashier as being the type of person who preferred their own company and who never took part in any of the sports or games that were organised by the unit.

So far so unremarkable, but the other distinguishing thing about Private Cashier was that the soldier was, in fact, a woman by the name of Jennie Hodgers

In his book, The Irish in the American Civil War, Damian Shiels documents the fascinating story of Hodgers, who was born in Clogherhead, Co. Louth in 1843.

Jennie emigrated to the United States shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. It is thought her uncle may have got her a job in an all-male shoe factory on her arrival – a position that may have opened her eyes to the possibilities of masquerading as a man.

If that is the case then it certainly prompted her to take on an extraordinary challenge when she presented herself for enlistment in Belvidere, Illinois on August 3, 1862 as one Albert Cashier.

Pvt Cashier aka Jennie Hodgers

There was no medical examination conducted and so she was duly signed up, spending the next three years with her regiment marching across the South without her secret ever being discovered.

Jennie remained in the guise of ‘Albert Cashier’ after the war, even spending time working as a labourer before moving to Saunemin, Illinois in 1869, where she continued to live her life as a man for the next 40 years.

At one stage, through illness and an injury to her leg, Cashier’s true sex was revealed to her friends, but they kept her secret. It wasn’t until her old age, when Jennie moved to the Soldiers and Sailors Home in Quincy, Illinois, in 1913, that the truth about Jennie/Albert finally came out.

http://www.amazon.com/Irish-American-Civil-Damian-Shiels/dp/1845887689/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369056034&sr=8-1&keywords=the+irish+in+the+american+civil+war

The news caused a sensation. A reporter writing in the The Hartford Republican went to visit Cashier and described the scene: I had expected to meet an amazon. A woman who had fought in the death grapple of a nation and had lived and toiled as a man through half a century should be big, strong and masculine. And when I entered her hospital ward there rose and came to meet me, in her faded soldier’s uniform, just a little frail, sweet-faced, old-lady, who might be anybody’s grandmother.

Poor Jennie/Albert was eventually moved to an insane asylum, where she died on October 11, 1914. The headstone in the local cemetery now bears both her names – Albert Cashier, the former Union soldier, and Jennie Hodgers, the woman who gave as good as she got in a man’s world.

The Secret History of the British Werewolf

It’s a question often posed by historians and enthusiasts the world over – what if Hitler had won the Second World War? Well, one thing’s now for sure, if the Nazi jackboot firmly established itself on the English mainland there would have been trouble.

The Auxiliary badge

Much has been written about Hitler’s Werewolves – groups of resistance fighters sworn to keep the fight going after the Allied victory. In reality, they were a disorganised bunch which was largely ineffective in terms of opposition. They lacked structure and resources.

The same can’t quite be said of their British counterparts, who are finally getting the recognition that they undoubtedly deserve.

Churchill had once vowed to ‘set Europe ablaze’ through commando operations in the early stages of the war when Britain’s military resources were scant and they were struggling to establish themselves on a war footing. He wanted the same guerilla warfare to be conducted in the event of a Nazi occupation of Britain.

His ‘secret army’ – the Auxiliary Unit – was founded in 1940 by Colonel Colin Gubbins.It numbered four thousand brave volunteers, who were ordered to disappear and report to hidden bases if wartime church bells rang to warn of enemy invasion.

Colonel Colin Gubbins

Trained at Coleshill, in Oxfordshire, each Auxiliary cell was issued with sealed orders. Their role was to disrupt the enemy’s supply chain, take out strategic targets and execute collaborators. As well as unarmed combat, volunteers were trained in making booby traps and explosives, and how to blow up fuel dumps.

Most of its members worked in the countryside and many of them were in specialist occupations which were prohibited from joining the regular Forces.

They were chosen for their knowledge of the local area and ability with a weapon. Unable to tell anyone about their activities, Auxiliary Unit members disguised their real mission by pretending to belong to the Home Guard.

The unit was disbanded in 1944 when the threat of invasion had waned. Several of its members went on to join the SAS, while others saw action in France.

Now, however, the Royal British Legion has decided to honour these unsung heroes and have invited members of the Auxiliary units to parade with regular ex-serviceman at this year’s Remembrance Day ceremony in November.

It’s been a long time coming, but Churchill’s secret army looks like it will finally get the credit it deserves.

The Tan Who Was Hanged By His Own Side

When the Black and Tans were first deployed in Ireland in March, 1920 they soon proved themselves to be a pretty brutal bunch. They were liberal with the use of their rifles, were often drunk and even engaged in arson and robbery.

The Tans were ex-servicemen, many of them scarred from their time in the trenches during World War One. In my novels Tan and also The Golden Grave, I write about such veterans and their difficulty in adjusting to post-War life.

From intimidation, to physical assaults to outright murder, they were a law unto themselves who sowed fear amongst the communities they patrolled. My own grandfather, who was involved with the IRA during the War of Independence, felt their wrath when once they used pliers to pull a fingernail from his hand during an interrogation

Pvte William Mitchell

But there is one Black and Tan who has a special place amongst their ranks. His name is Private William Mitchell and he holds the dubious claim to fame of being the only Tan or British soldier to be hung for crimes committed while in Ireland.

I came across the story of William Mitchell through historian Denise Kelly, who has produced a fascinating book on him, called Running With Crows: The Life And Death of a Black and Tan. Kelly has conducted impressive research to tell Mitchell’s tale, from his upbringing in the notorious Monto area of Dublin, through to his service with the British Army in India,  then in World War One and, finally, in Ireland.

Mitchell was one of the 20-odd per cent of Tans who were actually Irishmen. His career in the military was chequered to say the least – imprisoned for insubordination while on the frontline, he served his sentence before being injured during a German attack and was sent home.

Mitchell was a petty criminal who, it would appear, got too ambitious and bit off more than he could chew during a robbery at the house of a local magistrate in Wicklow. The robbery was bungled and the magistrate was shot dead.

Tan outrages in Ireland had up ’til then gone unpunished but such was the furore over their lawlessness that an example was decided to be set in this case.  Mitchell denied any involvement but he was charged nonetheless. A rushed trial, with rather dubious evidence, would see to it that he paid the ultimate price.

Denise Kelly’s book paints a detailed picture of Mitchell, from birth to death, and gives fascinating insights into slum life in Dublin and what soldiering was really like in the fading days of the British Raj.

Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle format

Mitchell, who was hanged in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin in 1921, seems to have been cut from the same cloth as many of his fellow Tans. What Kelly has done, though, is to put a face and a real story to one of the most notorious paramilitary groups ever to stain the character of the British military.

William Mitchell’s body remains in the soil of Mountjoy to this day, unclaimed by any relatives. His story is typical in so many ways of his comrades, yet his final penalty means that he will always be the anomaly – the Tan who was executed by his own side. It’s not much as epitaphs go, but it is enough to ensure a peculiar kind of notoriety in a time when the gun and the bullet ruled the day.

The Seven Lives of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Napoleon once said that he liked his generals to be lucky, well, if Adolf Hitler had served under the Emperor he would undoubtedly have become a firm favourite in the French Army because when it came to luck, Hitler was overflowing with the stuff.

Author Iain C Martin (he has a great blog on the American Civil War  – http://www.iaincmartin.blogspot.ie) passed on a curious story to me about a British soldier’s lost opportunity to kill Hitler before he became infamous.

It got me to thinking of other lost chances to kill the Nazi dictator. Aside from him being temporarily blinded by a British gas shell in 1916 and receiving a shrapnel wound to his leg n 1918, I was surprised to come across seven other occasions. Read them and weep….

THE IRISHMAN WHO RESCUED HITLER: Carlow man Michael Keogh probably tormented himself until his death in 1964 because, back in  the spring of 1919, he actually saved Hitler from being ripped apart by an ugly mob.

Keogh, an ardent republican, had enlisted in the British Army in 1913. He became a POW during the war, joined the Irish Brigade and then later enlisted in the German Army as he felt the Germans could advance the republican cause in Ireland.

Michael Keogh

He rose to the rank of Field Lieutenant. In his regiment he met a certain Lance Corporal called Adolf Hitler. After the war, Keogh joined the Freikorps, an early fascist organisation sworn to smash Communism. He was duty officer at a Munich barracks when he was called to quell a riot that had erupted in a gym.

When he got there a crowd of some 200 soldiers were busy beating two men to a pulp.  Some of the attackers held bayonets and it seemed to Keogh that the two victims were about to die.

He ordered his men to fire a volley over the heads of the mob. The crowd dispersed and Keogh managed to drag the two victims out of the gym “cut, bleeding and in need of the doctor”.

Keogh recalled: “The fellow with the moustache gave his name as Adolf Hitler. It was the Lance Corporal of Ligny. I would not have recognised him. He was thin and emaciated from his wounds.”

After the war he’d say: “If we’d been a few minutes later or Hitler had got a few more kicks to his old wounds or he’d been shot — what would have happened if we hadn’t intervened and he’d died?”

What if, indeed….

Private Henry Tandey, VC

THE BRITISH SOLDIER WHO DIDN’T PULL THE TRIGGER:

On September 28, 1918, Private Henry Tandey, a British soldier serving with the 5th Duke of Wellington Regiment near the French village of Marcoing, reportedly encountered a wounded German soldier and decided not to shoot him.

Tandey, a native of Warwickshire, was actually awarded a Victoria Cross for “conspicuous bravery” during the action to capture Marcoing. He later told sources that in the final moments of that battle, as the German troops were in retreat, a wounded German soldier entered Tandey’s line of fire. “I took aim but couldn’t shoot a wounded man,” Tandey remembered, “so I let him go.” The German soldier nodded in thanks, and disappeared.

A photograph that appeared in London newspapers of Tandey carrying a wounded soldier at Ypres in 1914 was later portrayed on canvas in a painting by the Italian artist Fortunino Matania. It is said that when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain went to Germany in 1938 to engage Hitler in a last-ditch effort to avoid war, he was taken by the Führer to his country retreat in Bavaria. There, Hitler showed Chamberlain his copy of the Matania painting, commenting, “That’s the man who nearly shot me.”

The authenticity of the Tandey-Hitler encounter remains in dispute, though evidence does suggest that Hitler did have a reproduction of the Matania painting as early as 1937.

On returning to England, Chamberlain contacted Tandey and recounted his conversation with Hitler. Tandey would later tell a journalist: ‘If only I had known what he would turn out to be. When I saw all the people and woman and children he had killed and wounded I was sorry to God I let him go.’

The evidence is somewhat sketchy it must be said. The destruction of military records makes it impossible to clarify the exact location of Hitler on 28 September 1918, though Hitler’s regiment was in the region of Marcoing at the time of the alleged encounter.

THE CAR ACCIDENT:  Otto Wagener, a Major General and one-time economic advisor to Hitler, wrote in his memoirs (Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant) that the future dictator of Germany was almost killed in a car accident on March 13, 1930. Wagener was a passenger in Hitler’s Mercedes at the time.

A heavy trailer truck collided with the vehicle, but the driver hit the brake quickly enough to avoid crushing the car. The insurance claim signed by Hitler was sold on eBay in 2000. If that truck driver had braked one second later, well, who knows…

Georg Elser

THE BEER HALL BOMB: A Nazi Party tradition was its annual meeting at the  Bürgerbräukeller in Munich to celebrate the anniversary of the “Beer hall putsch” of November 8, 1923.

Georg Elser, a carpenter by trade and a communist sympathiser, used the event as the perfect place to try to assassinate Hitler.

He built a time bomb with which he travelled to Munich in the weeks preceding Hitler’s anniversary speech. Elser managed to stay inside the Bürgerbräukeller after closing hours each night for over a month, during which time he hollowed out the pillar behind the speaker’s rostrum, and placed the bomb inside it

Hitler would usually speak to the party faithful at length, but in 1939 he was forced to begin his speech earlier than expected in order to return to Berlin by train. Fog had closed Munich airport, from which he had later intended to fly.

The Nazi leader started his speech half an hour earlier than planned. Had he not done so he would not have left the cellar at 9.07pm but would have been blown to bits by the bomb which exploded at 9.20pm, killing eight and wounding sixty people.

Elser had by this time been apprehended as a suspected smuggler, whilst attempting to cross into Switzerland. The contents of his knapsack, including a postcard of the beer cellar, aroused suspicion. He initially denied any involvement but eventually confessed after several witnesses identified him as being a frequent visitor to the cellar. He was finally murdered in Dachau concentration camp on April 9, 1945, just weeks before the end of the war in Europe.

Col Claus von Stauffenberg

THE WOLF’s LAIR BOMB: On 20 July 1944, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg entered Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair field HQ and placed a briefcase containing the bomb beneath the map table at which Hitler was standing and then left the room.

Unfortunately, a General who was present moved the case further away, behind a thick piece of wood which supported the table. The wood absorbed much of the blast and Hitler escaped with some cuts and bruises.

The failure of both the assassination and the military coup d’état which was planned to follow it led to the execution of almost 5,000 people, resulting in the destruction of the organised resistance movement in Germany.

MURDER PLOT ON THE TRAIN: Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE)  had extensive experience of derailing trains using explosives. The plan was dropped because Hitler’s schedule was too irregular and unpredictable: stations were only informed of his arrival a few minutes beforehand.

Another plan was to put some tasteless but lethal poison in the drinking water supply on Hitler’s train. However, this plan was considered too complicated because of the need for an inside man.

THE SNIPER:  Through a captured prisoner, who had been part of Hitler’s guard at the Berghof, British Intelligence learned the Fuhrer liked to take a 20-minute morning walk at around the same time (after 10:00). Hitler liked to be left alone during this walk, leaving him unprotected near some woods, out of sight of sentry posts. When Hitler was at the Berghof a Nazi flag, visible from a cafe in the nearby town, was flown.

The scheme called for the SOE to parachute a German-speaking Pole and a British sniper into the area surrounding the compound, wearing German army uniforms. The men would infiltrate the Berghof compound before moving to a spot where they were concealed, were within effective rifle range, and had a good view of the path used by Hitler.

A sniper was recruited and practiced by firing at moving dummy targets with a standard German Army rifle under conditions which simulated the actual assassination. An inside man was also found, who, lived in Salzburg, 20 kilometres from the Berghof.

The plan was submitted in November 1944, but was never carried out because controversy remained over whether it was actually a good idea to kill Hitler: his poor attempts as a strategist meant that he was more of a help than a hindrance to the Allies. It was felt that whoever replaced him would probably do a better job of fighting the war.

Seven lost chances to kill a monster… Hitler had the Devil’s own luck, but luck runs out in the end – it’s just a pity it took so long in his case.

The Dogs of War and Other Battlefield Animals

In recent years Steven Spielberg’s movie War Horse celebrated the role of our four-legged friends in World War One, but animals have had and still have a long and distinguished career within the military. The wonderful website history.com has produced a series of fascinating articles on the subject, which I have compressed into the piece below.

It may be man’s best friend, but never underestimate a canine when it comes to battle. Attila the Hun knew this well enough. He sent packs of giant Molosser dogs to attack the enemy during his campaigns. The use of canines became more sophisticated in later centuries. During two world wars dogs were given duties ranging from carrying messages to helping to locate mines.

There are numerous stories of canine heroism, but I particularly like the role played by Stubby, a bulldog terrier with the US 102^nd Infantry Regiment in World War One, which saved the lives of many men.

Sergeant Stubby was highly decorated

Thanks to his great sense of smell and hearing, Stubby could warn troops of incoming shells and gas attacks. He would also locate wounded soldiers in No Man’s Land, standing by their side and barking until a medic arrived. He even detained a German spy who was mapping out the American trenches. Stubby’s actions earned him the rank of Sergeant.  He died in 1926, a national hero.

In World War Two, the Soviets even used bomb-carrying dogs to attack the Germans. However, the tactic failed as the poor dogs were often too scared and fled back to their own lines with the bombs still strapped to them.

From 1964-1973 America deployed about 4,000 war dogs to Vietnam. They and their handlers foiled surprise attacks to such an extent that the Viet Cong placed a price tag on their heads. In modern theatres, like Iraq and Afghanistan, dogs have proved vital in sniffing out Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), saving many lives in the process.

John Simpson Kirkpatrick (centre) with Duffy

DONKEYS: It is estimated that eight million horses perished during World War One, from disease, wounds or exhaustion. One story highlights the dedication of these beasts of burden. In 1915, John Simpson Kirkpatrick served with the ANZAC force at Gallipoli where he took it upon himself to use a donkey to carry wounded soldiers away from the front line and back to the beach for evacuation.

Despite the obvious dangers from gunfire and shrapnel, Kirkpatrick and his donkey, Duffy, went back and forth from the battlefield rescuing soldiers. Kirkpatrick did his rescue work for three weeks until he was killed by Turkish machine gun fire whilst leading Duffy and a wounded soldier back to safety. The donkey, however, continued along the path that they had used so often, returning the wounded man to where he could be treated.

ELEPHANTS: Hannibal’s use of troop-mounted elephants in his battles against the Romans is well known. The use of war elephants had is drawbacks, however. It was noted that they panicked and stampeded at the sound of a squealing pig. As a result, pigs were often set ablaze and flung form the walls of besieged towns in a bid to spook the elephants.  Elephants were used in war theatres as late as 1942-45 in Burma to haul heavy equipment along rugged tracks

CAMELS: Camels have obviously been used in the Middle East, but they were also deployed in America. The US Camel Corps was formed in 1855 to move supplies in the campaigns against Mexico and Native Americans. The Corps was disbanded at the outbreaks of the American Civil War, partly because of the camels’ tendency to frighten the horses due to their taciturn attitude.

LITTLE CRITTERS: In World War One, soldiers would trap glow worms in jars and use the small light they emitted to read maps and correspondence in the dark trenches.

Also during the Great War, the common garden slug was deployed by the U.S. army as an early warning to the presence of mustard gas. The highly sensitive slugs would indicate their discomfort to the presence of gas in enough time for the soldiers to put on their gas masks.

The Romans were no less inventive. They would unleash angry swarms of bees by catapulting bee hives into advancing armies. Even in World War One, bee hive booby traps were used by both sides, when a hive would fall onto the unwitting soldier after they activated a trip wire.

PIGEONS: To prevent German homing pigeons sending messages to and from spies within the UK in World War Two, MI5 trained peregrine falcons to patrol the skies. When a batch of pigeons were sighted flying from the Scilly Isles for France in 1942, the falcons were sent on two-hour patrols, with the task of killing any pigeon that came into view.

DOLPHINS & SEALIONS: From the 1960s to the 1990s the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program trained dolphins and sea lions for military uses. The bottlenose dolphin’s biosonar makes it the perfect ally to help detect and recover underwater mines, while the sea lion’s incredible underwater vision and agility makes it the ideal marine sentry, helping to spot approaching enemy swimmers.

Both animals can even be trained to attach a device onto an enemy swimmer which will then deploy a buoy, alerting crew nearby to the intruders’ presence. These animals’ ability to dive to great depths also enables them to help with tagging and recovering objects from the seabed. Dolphins helped protect U.S. ships during the Vietnam War and were even deployed to Bahrain in 1987 and 1988 to patrol the USS La Salle in harbour. More recently, sea lions were sent to the Persian Gulf to help protect U.S. and British warships during the Iraq War of 2003.

Thieves, Drunks and Killers…Meet The Family

We all have the odd skeleton or two lurking in the family cupboard, and most of us would happily keep them there, but that may no longer be possible as a new archive of criminal records becomes available in Britain for those eager to find the ‘black sheep’ of their family.

More than 2.5million records from 1770 to 1934 have been put online by family history website findmypast.co.uk and Britain’s National Archives, chronicling the fates of fraudsters, counterfeiters, thieves, murderers and drunkards in England and Wales.

Dolly Dyer, who murdered up to 400 infants

For example, if your name is ‘Dyer’ you might like to look up dear old great, great aunt Dolly and learn how she strangled up to 400 adopted infants with dress ribbon in the 1880s and dumped them in the Thames. She was hanged at Newgate Prison in 1896, aged 58.

Or perhaps you’re a ‘Smith’ – plenty of those about. You could be related to the ‘brides in the bath’ killer George Joseph Smith, a bigamist and serial killer whose crime was one of the first to be solved by forensic analysis back in 1915. It’s a gruesome family factoid, and not one I would recommend sharing at any relation’s wedding.

Any ‘Websters’ out there might want to look away now. The newly released records tell of Catherine Webster, who killed widow Julia Martha Thomas by pushing the poor woman down the stairs and then strangling her. As if that wasn’t enough she outdid herself with the next part – by chopping up Thomas’s body and boiling it. Julia’s head was found in TV presenter David Attenborough’s garden in 2010.

The collection contains mugshots, newspaper articles scanned images of court documents as well as appeals for clemency. Crimes are catalogued by name, age, occupation, court date, area, victim’s name and sentence.

To find villains in your family, type your surname into the ‘crime and punishment’ section of the findmypast.co.uk website. A further click takes you to scanned images of the original handwritten records.

Think of all the fascinating hours ahead, learning about those relatives who were transported to Australia, left to languish in prison hulks or dangled at the end of the hangman’s noose.

Happy hunting….

The Killer Trees of World War One

When is a tree not a tree? Well, that’s not quite the esoteric problem you might imagine. Actually, it’s one grounded in fact…and deadly serious fact at that because, during World War One, a man’s life might depend on the answer to that very question.

Both the British and the Germans vied in the cunning methods they deployed to outwit and kill each other during the war. For example, underground mines were regularly placed beneath enemy positions to blow soldiers to smithereens. In fact, the British used a series of such mines at Messines Ridge in 1917. They caused a massive explosion that killed ten thousand Germans and created a blast that was heard by Lloyd George in Downing Street.

Similarly, the British came up with an enormous and deadly hidden flame thrower that rose up from the ground and devastated enemy positions. A less spectacular weapon, but one that was just as lethal for its victims on the Western Front, was the use of artificial trees on the battlefield. Yes, you read correctly.

Under cover of darkness, real battle-scarred stumps in no-man’s land would be replaced with artificial replicas. Made of wrought-iron and steel, these were ingeniously camouflaged and were used as observation posts from which to spy on and snipe at the enemy.

The British tasked special groups of Royal Engineers to carefully select a real tree on the battlefield. The ideal ‘candidate’ would be dead and often bomb scarred. The tree would be meticulously measured, photographed and sketched from all angles.

The information was then sent to a workshop where artists constructed an artificial tree of hollow steel cylinders, inside which was scaffolding for support and enough room for a sniper or observer to climb.

Various examples of ‘O.P. Trees’ that were used during the war

Then, under cover of night, the team would cut down the real tree, dig a hole in the place of its roots and insert the replica.

Come daybreak, the enemy would not know the difference and instead of a harmless stump there would now sit a deadly sniper tower. Simple, but very effective…

Firing from these perfectly camouflaged structures, snipers from both sides claimed many victims. The Germans called them ‘Baumbeobachter’ – or ‘tree observer’ – the British christened them ‘O.P. Trees’. Presumably, the initials stood for ‘Observation Post’.

London’s Imperial War Museum houses several sketches depicting camouflaged trees, including work by the artist Leon Underwood, who was one of the original camoufleurs.
And next summer, you can see one of these intriguing structures for yourself if you visit the Museum. An original camouflage tree, believed to be the only one of its kind, will be on display there at the new First World War Galleries section.

Back in 2008, a reconstructed tree was put on display by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra after it was captured by Australian troops in 1917.

According to Diane Rutherford, who wrote about it on the memorial’s website, the tree was ‘from Oosttaverne Wood, also sometimes spelt Oostaverne Wood, near Messines in Belgium.

‘We don’t know when the tree was erected in the wood, but it could have been used by the Germans up until June 7, 1917, when the Oosttaverne area was captured by the British during the Battle of Messines.

‘It was hidden among a group of real trees in the wood and would have been difficult to spot as a fake – especially from a distance.’

We’ve had World War One and World War Two, now, thanks to the devious military mind, we can look back in horrid fascination at the heartache wrought by World War Tree…