Mary Jane Johnson, prisoner of war, 1863

Civil War soldiers who were born female endured almost all the privations of military life, from marching to fighting, being wounded, and dying. Or becoming a prisoner of war, like Mary Jane Johnson, of the 16th Maine. The story was told in the newspapers in three pieces published in Richmond, Virginia, site of the notorious Libby Prison and Belle Island, used as a prison at various times. In the newspapers, the story is simple.

“A Female Soldier” (from Richmond Examiner [Richmond, Virginia] 12 December 1863; p. 1)

Yesterday a rather prepossessing looking lass was discovered on Belle Isle, disguised among the prisoners of war held there. She gave her real name as Mary Jane Johnson, belonged to the Sixteenth Maine regiment, and has been a prisoner for some time. She gave as an excuse for adopting her soldier toggery, that she was following her love, to shield and protect him when in danger. He had been killed in battle, and now she would have no objection to return to the more peaceful sphere for which nature, by her sex, had better fitted her.

The heroine of a novel yet to be written in Yankeedom, was considerably sunburned and roughened by the hardships she had encountered, but still retained marks of some womanly comeliness, which would be heightened by a calico frock and crinoline. Upon the discovery of her sex, Miss Johnson was removed from Belle Isle, and is now confined at Castle Thunder. She will probably go North by the next flag of truce. She is about nineteen years of age.

“The Yankee gal” (from Richmond Examiner [Richmond, Virginia] 17 December 1863; p. 1)

The Yankee gal, Miss Mary Jane Johnson, who was detected on Belle Isle, among the Yankee prisoners, dressed according to soldier regulations, has had them substituted at the Castle for a frock, petticoat and crinoline, and yesterday looked as though she was again clothed in her right apparel as well as her right mind.

“Gone North” (from Daily Dispatch [Richmond, Virginia] 27 February 1864; p. 2)

By flag of truce boat, which left City Point yesterday afternoon, the following prisoners, who were confined in the Libby prison, were sent North: Major A B Wade, 73d Indiana; Lieutenant E J Doughty, Quartermaster 51st, do; Surgeon J T Galloupe, 17th Mass; Assistant Surgeons R T Baker, 12th N Y cavalry; and A Robinson, 16th Illinois cavalry; Privates Thos J Baker, 9th N Y; W H Tillson, 84th Illinois, and E J Goodwin, 80th Illinois.

From Castle Thunder the following persons were sent North by the same boat: S S Bulkely, Reporter for the New York Herald; Mrs Mary Jane Johnson, sent from Belle Isle some time since, and captured in Federal uniforn in Tennessee; F Murtaugh, Sutler’s Clerk in the Yankee army; and citizens D Hackendorn, John Watson, E P Matthews, and Pat C Coghlan.

“These parties were the subjects of special exchange and parole; but wherefore, we have not learned,” the Richmond Whig commented on its own printing of the story. [27 February 1864; p. 1. The copy is missing two pages; this actually may be page 4.] Bureaucracy may have kept Johnson in Richmond later than expected; a truce boat did leave with two exchanged prisoners in mid-January 1864. [“Sent Off.” Daily Dispatch [Richmond, Virginia] 16 January 1864; p. 2.]

Simple story: identified, draped in calico, sent back North. It’s once you fit the newspaper stories with other contemporary mentions that Johnson’s story becomes complicated.

At the time Johnson was on Belle Island, another Union soldier was found to be wearing a man’s uniform on a female body. “Collier” was identified to prison authorities by other prisoners: “A woman found among us—a prisoner of war. Some one who knew the secret informed Lieutenant Bossieux and he immediately had her taken outside, when she told him the whole story—how she had ‘followed her lovyer [sic] a soldiering’ in disguise, and being of a romantic turn, enjoyed it hugely until the funny part was done away with and Madame Collier, from East Tennessee, found herself in durance vile; nothing to do but make the best of it and conceal her sex if possible, hoping for a release, which, however, did not come in the shape she wished. The lieutenant has sent her over to Richmond to be cared for and she is to be sent north by the first flag of truce boat. She tells of another female being among us, but as yet she has not been found out.” [John L. Ransom. Andersonville Diary, Escape, and List of the Dead. Auburn, New York: John L. Ransom, 1881; entry for 23 December 1863; pp. 20-21.] Presumably, the yet-unidentified solder was Mary Jane Johnson. In Ransom’s diary, Johnson hasn’t yet been identified on December 23, while in the newspaper, Johnson has been identified and clothed as a woman by December 17.

F. F. Cavada’s description of a prisoner identified as female could be either Collier or Johnson: “[T]hese horros have not been endured by men alone. Lately, a woman disguised as a soldier, was discovered among the prisoners on Belle Isle. She had more than a month endured the terrors of a situation which needs no comment, and had preserved her incognito unsuspected until compelled by sickness to repair to the hospital, where she confessed her true sex. She is a young girl of seventeen or eighteen years of age, of prepossessing appearance, and modest and reserved demeanor. She persistently refused to throw any light upon her previous history, or to reveal the motive which had induced her to adopt the garb and the calling of a soldier. She had served during more than a year in a cavalry regiment in the West, when made a prisoner. She had probably followed to the field some patriotic lover, or adventurous spouse. When these facts became known to us in the Libby, a sum was at once contributed by the officers, sufficient to purchase the female soldier garments suitable to her sex, wherewith she might present a more becoming appearance on her return to the Union lines.” [F. F. Cavada. Libby Life: Experiences of a Prisoner of War in Richmond, Va., 1863-64. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: King & Baird, 1864; p. 145]

So, a soldier who in the newspaper of 12 December is “following her love” sounds like Collier, but is identified as Mary Jane Johnson, who according to Ransom hadn’t been identified by December 23. Cavada mentions neither Collier or Johnson by name, but implies that there was only one prisoner identified as female. Perhaps he’s describing Johnson and didn’t hear about Collier; perhaps he’s merged the two into one example of stalwart womanhood. Perhaps Ransom hadn’t heard before December 23 that Johnson had been identified.

Collier doesn’t appear in available Richmond newspapers from November 1863 to February 1864, either as a prisoner identified as female or as a passenger on any truce boat. Johnson appears to be the only female-bodied prisoner mentioned during these months.

So what exactly happened? Richmond newspapers certainly seem eager to point out female-bodied Union prisoners when they’re identified, and two in the same prison would receive a lot of press. Did Collier actually exist? Or did Ransom record prison rumor, which created two individuals where only one existed? Difficult to tell.

Johnson disappears after leaving Richmond, the Examiner’s story of the discovery the only mention in Union newspapers through February 1864. It’s to be hoped that the rest of Johnson’s life was less hazardous than the months as a prisoner in Richmond.

[In my research, I used DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook. They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War. (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 2002)]