she landed at Muscatine, from which place
she expected to travel by land to her father's house. She
was a large-sized, hearty-looking girl, eighteen years of
age. Arriving at Muscatine, some strange freak induced her
to assume man's apparel and enlist in the Twenty-fourth
infantry, then in rendezvous at that city. She did this
without exciting any suspicion, burned all her feminine
garments and papers, neglected to inform her friends of her
arrival, and became a soldier. Some comment was elicited by
her beardless face and girlish appearance, but as she did
her duty promptly and was particularly handy in cooking and
taking care of the sick, the young warrior speedily became a
general favorite alike with officers and men.

She passed through all the campaigns in which the regiment
was engaged without a scratch, except a close call from a
minie ball at Sabine's Cross Roads, which took the skin off
the back of her left hand, voted with the other members of
the regiment for president in 1864, and was finally mustered
out with her comrades at the close of the war. When she was
discharged she procured female apparel--although in doing so
she was obliged to make a confidant of one of her own
sex--and procured work in Illinois, not far from Rock
Island. Six months elapsed before the tan of five summers
wore off, and when she had again become "white," and had
re-learned the almost forgotten customs of womanhood, she
presented herself at her father's house, where she was
received with open arms.

To all the questions which were asked by the various members
of the family she replied that she had been honestly
employed, and had never forsaken the right way. She had been
economical in the army, and invested several hundred dollars
in land in Northern Iowa, which rapidly appreciated in
value, and to-day she is well off. With the remainder of her
money she attended school. Last January a worthy man, who
had been in the same regiment, but in a different company,
made her an offer of marriage. Like a true woman she was
unwilling to bestow her hand when any part of her former