Mary Ellen Wise, soldier, 1864

Mary Ellen Wise served for two years in the Union army, then was rebuffed while requesting the earned pay, because the mustering out wasn’t properly documented. Abraham Lincoln had to step in before Wise was compensated properly.

Wise’s difficulty in receiving the earned back pay was documented in a letter printed in the Baltimore American.

“The Girl Soldier,” by DeWinttom (from Baltimore American [Baltimore, Maryland] 18 August 1864; p. 4)

Washington, August 15, 1864.

Messrs. Editors Baltimore American:

There is with the Sanitary Commission here a female (who served for a long while in our Western armies as a soldier,) applying for five months’ pay which was due her when, by the discovery of her sex, she was forced to leave the army.—Her name is Mary E. Wise. She is an orphan, without a blood relative in the world, and was a resident of Jefferson township, Huntingdon county, Indiana, when she enlisted in the 34th Indiana Volunteers, under the name of William Wise. She served two years and eighteen days, although not yet twenty years of age; was in six of the heaviest battles of the Western service, and was badly wounded at Chickamauga and Lookout Mountain—at the latter battle severely in the side.

After the discovery of her sex, through her last wound, she was sent to St. Louis, and thence to her place of residence in Indiana. Upon her arrival at home her step-mother, the only relation she had in the world, basely refused her shelter or to assist her in any manner. Miss Wise, therefore, having five months’ pay due her from the Government, started for Washington with the hope of collecting it, arriving here on the 4th instant. Here her troubles have increased—she cannot get her pay. Her Colonel, probably not thinking it necessary, failed or neglected to give her a proper or formal discharge, with the necessary papers. In her difficulties she has repeatedly endeavored to refer her case to the President; but, not having any influential friends to back her, she has uniformly failed in all her efforts to see him, and the Department can only pay her upon proper or formal discharge papers, &c.

Is not her case, then, under the cirsumstances, truly a hard one.

Upon inquiry, I learn that she bore an irreproachable character while in the army, and performed all the duties of a soldier well and faithfully, through the toilsome and exhausting marches, the heat and perils of the battles of most of the Western campaigns. This, what papers she has, clearly shows. In these times, therefore, when so many of our males are guilty of the most unmanly and treasonable acts to escape their duty to their country, when Governors of our most influential States, when treasonable Senators and Representatives of our National Legislature, and others of equal influence in the country, unite in the treasonable efforts to withhold from the Government the men it demands and needs for the successful prosecution of the holy war of the Union; in such times of shameful delinquency and treasonable conspiracy on the part of so large a number of our males, whom every motive of manhood and patriotism should incite to an enthusiastic rally round the old flag, is not a young and delicate female who voluntarily enters the service of the nation, freely shedding her blood, and encountering all the perils, privations and suffering of this most terrible war, entitled, at least to the pay she earned by her blood and services, up to the time of her dismissal from the army? Is she not, indeed, deserving of a monument of brass to her courage and patriotism?

In the hope, therefore of enlisting some one of sufficient influence to assist her in her troubles, or of attracting the eye of the President himself to her claims, I have ventured to pen you this brief history of her services and trials.

Yours, &c.
DeWinttom.

The letter seems to have had a long life; it may have been the source for a piece published in the Home Journal and reprinted in the Springfield Republican [Springfield, Massachusetts] as “An Unrewarded Patient” (21 September 1864; p. 6); this piece appeared in the appended notes for the section on women as soldiers in chapter 16 of History of Woman Suffrage, edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage. (Rochester, New York: Susan B. Anthony, 1881; vol 2, p. 869).

At some point, Wise was able to meet with the President, as recorded in the Washington Daily Morning Chronicle [Washington, District of Columbia]; because the issue is unavailable to me, a reprint will have to serve.

“A Technical Point Disposed of by the President.—A Lady Soldier” (from Jeffersonian [Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania] 10 November 1864; p. 1)

We desire to record the incident which occurred at the Executive mansion on Tuesday last, which was witnessed by Hon. Charles Case, a member of the Thirty-sixth Congress of the United States, from the Tenth or fort Wayne (Indiana) district, and from whose lips we have the following story: While calling upon the President on the day referred to, a modest young girl, apparently about twenty years of age, was ushered into the room in company with an orderly, bearing a letter from the Paymaster General’s office, and in a few words she related her story. Born of poor, but honest parents, she resides in Jefferson township, Huntingdon county, Indiana. Her name was Mary E. Wise. At the beginni[n]g of the war her parents both died, and her only brother enlisted in the 34th Indiana Regiment. Being thus deprived of her protector and left entirely alone in the world, she determined to follow him. Procuring a disguise, she succeeded in being accepted as a private soldier, and through two long years of arduous services, during which the regiment engaged in several severe battles, among which was that of Stone river, she prevented the discovery of her sex, although she never failed to perform her duty as a dolier.

At the battle of Stone river she was wounded slightly in the arm, but recovered, and again entered the ranks without being detected. At the terrible charge of the regiments of Western troops, at Lookout Mountain, however, she was badly wounded in the breast, and all her secret was ascertained by the surgeon.—She was carefully nursed for some time, and as soon as she was able to travel was dismissed the service, and returned to her home in Indiana, having been so marked upon the arm as to render re-enlistment impossible. Five months’ back pay was due her; but on application the paymaster declined to allow it, on the ground that there was nothing in the regulations that would permit him to pay a United States soldier of the female sex. Hence her visit to Washington and her calling upon the President. After patiently listening to her statement, the President, who was deeply interested, wrote a note to the paymaster General, saying that, as she had faithfully served as a soldier for two years, and received the pay as such for the greater part of the time, he could see no good reason why she was not entitled to the remainder, and therefore directed the payment of the balance, concluding with the assurance that, if hereafter it would be found to be contrary to the regulations, he himself would be responsible for the amount. The young lady retired, well pleased with her interview, and started for home in Indiana the next day, having fully accomplished the object of her visit.—Washington Chronicle.

Wise apparently drew the back pay at least three days before DeWinttom’s letter to the Baltimore American (and, as was common in stories about female-bodied individuals wearing male clothing, the editor felt compelled to comment on the person’s attractiveness).

“A Female Soldier Draws Her Pay for Two Years Military Service” (from Evening Star [Washington, District of Columbia] 12 August 1864; p. 2)

Mary E. Wise, a female private of the 34th Indiana volunteers, presented herself at the Paymaster General’s Office this morning and drew her pay for two years military service. Mary was in numerous engagements in the West, and was wounded three times; the last time at the battle of Lookout Mountain, the ball taking effect in the shoulder. She was dressed in male attire, and was conveyed from the battle-field to a hospital. On the surgeon coming round to dress her wound her sex was discovered, and she was mustered out of the service. Mary is by no means bad looking.

Though the Chronicle informed its readers that Wise left happily for Indiana after receiving assurance that the back pay would be released, Wise apparently stayed in Washington. (It’s to be hoped that Wise isn’t the Mary E. Wise reported on 17 August 1864 as having been arrested and fined $2 for “disorderly” in the 4th precinct; see “Police Reports”. Evening Star [Washington, District of Columbia] 17 August 1864; p. 4.)

DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook explain that Wise married a month later: “In September 1864, the Daily Morning Chronicle happily reported that she had married fellow soldier Sgt. Lloyd Forehand at Lincoln Hospital in Washington.” (Chapter 8). It was not a success:

“A Dangerous Wife” (from Evening Star [Washington, District of Columbia] 4 February 1865; p. 2)

Ellen Forehand, once an enlisted soldier, but subsequently discharged, and married to a Sergeant of the 18th V. R. C., was arrested yesterday by office Sprague, on the complaint of her husband, who charged that she had followed him several days armed with a pistol and threatening to take his life. She is about 18 or 20 years old, and is considerably tanned by the sun during her service in an Indiana regiment. Her husband did not wish to prosecute her, but only wanted to be safe. Justice Handy dismissed her to leave the city in the first train, and she took her departure in the 6 p. m. train.

And the “modest young girl” who met with the President has suddenly become “considerably tanned by the sun during her service”. In February. Months after serving in the army. The desperate orphan now has a most unladylike appearance. (Astonishing how waving a gun changes one’s appearance.)

Wise vanishes from the newspapers (Blanton and Cook theorize that Wise and Forehand were divorced) and from available records. An extraordinary person who one hopes lived an extraordinary life.

[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)]