Jennie

I stopped by the church on the outskirts of Clogherhead this afternoon while coming back from my Dad's house there. Yesterday evening, I spotted a grotto in the grounds of the church. This is a statue of the Virgin Mary and the halo was red stars lit up. Would have made a cracking Blip, but I was thwarted as the lights were off today.

Looking around, I saw this fairly recent edition. It's a memorial to a girl who was born in Clogherhead in 1844. Feels like a touristy-thing a bit to me. Interesting history though. Her story is as follows:

Jennie Hodgers was born in Clogherhead, Ireland on Christmas Day, 1844. She sailed to America as a stowaway and settled in Belvidere, Illinois. Little is known about her early life because her true identity was not discovered until a few years before her death.

As the Civil War escalated in July of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln sent out a call for an additional 300,000 men to serve in the Union Army. Although she was not a man, 19 year-old Jennie Hodgers wanted to help her country.

On August 6, 1862, she enlisted in the Union Army as an infantryman in the Ninety-Fifth Illinois Infantry Regiment. She was five feet, three inches tall?the shortest person in her regiment?and weighed 110 pounds.

Jennie couldn't read or write, so she marked an "X" on the enlistment papers and passed a physical examination?just a quick look at the eyes and ears, no undressing involved. At that moment Jennie Hodgers was transformed into Albert D. J. Cashier, Private First Class.

Over the next three years, the 95th Regiment traveled thousands of miles and took part in forty battles, including the siege of Vicksburg and the Red River Campaign. When she was captured by a Confederate soldier during the Vicksburg Campaign, she knocked his gun out of his hand and ran away.


Jennie endured long marches, lived in the open air, and performed all other duties required of a Union soldier. When she was off duty, she kept to herself. Fellow soldiers later recalled her as a skilled rifleman.

Jennie survived the war without arousing undue suspicion as to her gender. When the 95th Illinois Infantry Volunteers were discharged in August 1865, they were welcomed home as heroes and honored at a public reception. Each man then went his own way.

Jennie finally settled down in Saunemin, Illinois in 1869, still posing as Albert Cashier. She performed many different jobs: janitor of a church, farm worker, town lamplighter, and handyman. No one suspected "he" was a woman for more than forty years. "He" even voted in the presidential elections, long before Illinois gave women the right to vote.

In November of 1911, Jennie was at work picking up sticks at the home of Illinois State Senator Ira M. Lish. The Senator didn't her behind him and backed his car down the driveway and struck Jennie.

A doctor's examination not only revealed that "he" had a broken leg, but that "he" was also a woman. Jennie pleaded with the men to keep his secret, and they decided that no good would be served by making "his" gender public knowledge.

However, the Senator and doctor agreed that he needed institutional care and applied for his admission to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home at Quincy, Illinois. At the age of 68, Albert D. J. Cashier left Saunemin for the home in Quincy, where he was admitted as a man. Dr. Ross and Sen. Lish requested the secret be kept and records indicate Albert was admitted as a male.

In 1913 authorities committed him to the Watertown State Hospital for the Insane at East Moline, Illinois. Here he was housed in the women's ward and required to wear dresses for the first time in more than 50 years.

Jennie Hodgers, aka Albert D. J. Cashier died at the Watertown State Hospital on October 10, 1915. Wearing his Union uniform and with his casket was draped with an American flag, he buried with full military honors.

A plain tombstone there bears her male alias. It is simply inscribed: "Albert D. J. Cashier, Co. 6, 95 Ill. Inf." Her name is also inscribed on the Illinois monument at Vicksburg. The people of Saunemin have not forgotten their little soldier of the Civil War. On Memorial Day, 1977, they erected a larger monument that bears the name "Jennie Hodgers."