Queer Places:
Maple Ave & Center St, Saunemin, IL 61769
Sunny Slope Cemetery, Saunemin, IL 61769
Albert
D. J. Cashier (December 25, 1843 – October 10, 1915), birth name
Jennie Irene Hodgers, was an Irish-born
immigrant who served in the
Union Army during the
American Civil War. Cashier adopted the identity of a man before
enlisting, and maintained it for the remainder of her life. Albert became
famous as one of a number of
women soldiers who served as men during the Civil War, although the
consistent and long-term (at least 53 years) commitment to the male
identity has prompted some contemporary scholars to suggest that Cashier
was a
trans man.[3][4][5][6]
Hodgers was born in
Clogherhead,
County Louth,
Ireland
on December 25, around the year 1843.[7]:52[2]
According to later investigation by the administrator of her estate, she
was the child of Sallie and Patrick Hodgers. Hodgers's later accounts of
how she moved to the United States and why she enlisted were taken when
she was elderly and disoriented, and she was also typically evasive about
her earlier life; therefore, these narratives are contradictory.[2]
Typically, she was said to have been dressed in boy's clothing by her
stepfather in order to find work at a shoe factory in Illinois. Even
before the advent of the war, Hodgers adopted the identity of Albert
Cashier to work.[7]:52
Her mother died sometime in her youth, and by 1862, Hodgers had traveled
as a stowaway to
Illinois
and was living in
Belvidere, where she was working as a farmhand to a man named Avery.[8]
[9]
Hodgers first enlisted in July 1862 after President Lincoln's call for
soldiers.[7]:52
As time passed, the need for soldiers only increased. On August 6, 1862,
she enlisted in the
95th Illinois Infantry for a three-year term using the name "Albert
D.J. Cashier" and was assigned to Company G.[10][11][7]:52
Cashier was nineteen years old upon enlistment, and small in stature.[note
1]
Many Belvidere boys had been at the
Battle of Shiloh as members of the
Fifteenth Illinois Volunteers, where the
Union had suffered heavy losses. Cashier took the train along with
other boys from Belvidere to Rockford in order to enlist, in answer to the
call for more soldiers.[12]:380
Along with others from Boone and McHenry counties, Cashier learned how to
be a volunteer infantryman of the
95th Regiment at Camp Fuller. After being shipped out by steamer and
rail to Confederate strongholds in Columbus, Kentucky and Jackson,
Tennessee, the 95th was ordered to
Grand Junction where it became part of the
Army of the Tennessee under General
Ulysses S. Grant.[12]:380–381
The 95th was a combat regiment. Under General Grant, the regiment
fought in approximately forty battles[11]
in the western field of operations, including the siege at
Vicksburg, where the 95th was one of the first regiments to enter.[12]:381
This campaign proved to be a challenge for Cashier, as she was captured
while performing reconnaissance.[7]:55
Cashier managed to escape, however, and make her way back to the regiment.
After the Battle of Vicksburg, in June 1863, Cashier contracted chronic
diarrhea and entered a military hospital. Somehow, she evaded detection of
her sex.[7]:55–56
In the Spring of 1864, the regiment was also present at the
Red River Campaign under General
Nathaniel Banks, and in June 1864 at the
Battle of Brice's Crossroads in
Guntown, Mississippi, where they suffered heavy casualties.[7]:56–57[12]:382–383
Following a period to recoup and regroup following the debacle at
Brice, the 95th, now a seasoned and batte-hardened regiment, saw
additional action in the Winter of 1864 in the
Franklin-Nashville Campaign, at the battles of
Spring Hill and
Franklin, the
defense of Nashville, and the
pursuit of General Hood.[12]:383
Throughout the war, the regiment traveled a total of about 9,000 miles
during its term.[7]:52[note
2] Other soldiers thought that Cashier was small and preferred
to be alone, which were not uncommon characteristics for soldiers. Cashier
fought with the regiment through the war until August 17, 1865, when all
the soldiers were
mustered out. Cashier was honorably discharged on August 17, 1865.[7]:57
Cashier was only one of at least 250 women who wore disguises and
enlisted as men to fight in the Civil War.[13][14]
After the war, Cashier returned to
Belvidere, Illinois for a time, where she worked for Samuel Pepper and
maintained her wartime identity.[7]:57[15]
She settled in
Saunemin, Illinois, in 1869, where she worked as a farmhand as well as
performing odd jobs around the town.[7]:57
Albert Cashier can be found on records of the town payroll.[7]:57
Albert lived with her employer, Joshua Chesbro, and his family, in
exchange for work, and also had slept in the Cording Hardware store in
exchange for labor. In 1885, the Chesbro family had a small house built
for her.
[16]
For over forty years, she lived in Saunemin and was a church janitor,
cemetery worker, and street lamplighter. Because she lived as a man, she
was able to vote in elections and later claimed a veteran's pension under
the name Albert Cashier.[7]:58
Pension payments started in 1907.[17]
In later years, she ate with the neighboring Lannon family. Later on,
when Hodgers fell ill, the Lannons discovered that she was female when
they asked a nurse to examine her, but they did not make their discovery
public.[7]:59
In 1911, Cashier was hit by a car that broke her leg.[7]:59
A physician discovered her secret in the hospital, but did not disclose
the information. On May 5, 1911, because she was no longer able to work,
Cashier was moved to the Soldiers and Sailors home in
Quincy, Illinois. During this stay, Hodgers was visited by many of her
fellow soldiers from Ninety-fifth Regiment.[7]:59
She lived there until her mental state deteriorated and she was moved to
the Watertown State Hospital for the Insane in March 1914.[7]:60
Attendants at the Watertown State Hospital discovered that she was female
when giving her a bath, at which point she was made to wear women's
clothes again after fifty years.[7]:60
Within six months she was dead.[18]
In 1914, Cashier was investigated for fraud by the veterans' pension
board; former comrades confirmed that Cashier was in fact the person who
had fought in the Civil War and the board decided in February 1915 that
payments should continue for life.[19][20][21]
Albert Cashier died on October 10, 1915. She was buried in the uniform
she had kept intact all those years and her tombstone was inscribed
"Albert D. J. Cashier, Co. G, 95 Ill. Inf."[10]
Cashier was given an official Grand Army of the Republic funerary service,
and was buried with full military honors.[7]:60
It took W.J. Singleton (executor of Cashier's estate) nine years to track
Cashier's identity back to her birth name of Jennie Hodgers. None of the
would-be heirs proved convincing, and the estate of about $282 (after
payment of funeral expenses)[22]
[20][21]
was deposited in the
Adams County, Illinois, treasury. The name on the original tombstone
is Albert D. J. Cashier. In the 1970s, a second tombstone, inscribed with
both of her names, was placed near the first one at Sunny Slope cemetery
in Saunemin, Illinois.[10][23]
Cashier is listed on the internal wall of the Illinois memorial at
Vicksburg National Military Park.[24]
A musical entitled
The Civility of Albert Cashier has been produced based on
Cashier's life; the work was described by the
Chicago Tribune as "A timely musical about a trans soldier".
[25]
Also Known As Albert D. J. Cashier: The Jennie Hodgers Story is
a biography written by veteran Lon P. Dawson, who lived at the Illinois
Veterans Home where Cashier once lived. The novel My Last Skirt, by
Lynda Durrant, is based on her life. Cashier was mentioned in a collection
of essays called Nine Irish Lives, in which Cashier's biography was
written by Jill McDonough.
[26] Cashier's house has been restored in Saunemin.[27]
Authors including
Michael Bronski, James Cromwell,
Kirstin Cronn-Mills, and Nicholas Teich have suggested or argued that
Cashier was a
trans
man due to her living as a man for at least 53 years.[3][4][5][6]
My published books:
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