She was brought to me, and put in duress under
charge of the division surgeon until her companion could be secured.
To the doctor she related that the year before she had "refugeed" from
East Tennessee, and on arriving in Louisville assumed men's apparel
and sought and obtained employment as a teamster in the
quartermaster's department. Her features were very large, and so
coarse and masculine was her general appearance that she would readily
have passed as a man, and in her case the deception was no doubt
easily practiced. Next day the "she dragoon" was caught, and proved
to be a rather prepossessing young woman, and though necessarily
bronzed and hardened by exposure, I doubt if, even with these marks of
campaigning, she could have deceived as readily as did her companion.
How the two got acquainted, I never learned, and though they had
joined the army independently of each other, yet an intimacy had
sprung up between them long before the mishaps of the foraging
expedition. They both were forwarded to army headquarters, and, when
provided with clothing suited to their sex, sent back to Nashville,
and thence beyond our lines to Louisville.
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