Lucy Brewer and Loreta Janeta Velázquez: Tall tales about military service
My most popular presentation is Women at War: The Female Soldiers of the American Civil War and Those Who Wished They Were.
I open the presentation with the following:
"Contrary to popular belief, women did in fact fight in the American Civil War. They also infiltrated the United States Army in earlier wars. Deborah Sampson served for 17 months in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War as Robert Shurtliff and Lucy Brewer served with the Marines aboard Old Ironsides as George Baker during the War of 1812. Once a taboo topic, modern historians are finally shedding light on the role that female soldiers played in the Civil War and the women who made a living off of lying about their military service."
Although the meat of my presentation is about women who actually disguised themselves and fought in the American Civil War, I spend time during my presentation talking about women who lied and made up stories about having spent time in the military. The women realized they could sell their stories to newspapers and publishers to make money. Many women's accounts of military service were taken as gospel. It wasn't until modern scholars delved deeper into the subject that they were able to separate fact from fiction.
Was Lucy Brewer a real woman? Was she really the first female Marine? Will we ever be able to solve the mystery?
First, we must establish that Lucy Brewer is a pen name. "Lucy's" story begins in Massachusetts. She was a young woman who fell on hard times and ended up working in a Boston brothel. Disillusioned with life, Lucy disguises herself as a man and boards the USS Constitution as a Marine sharpshooter. She fights in the War of 1812 and then goes home to live a pretty average life. She recounts all of this in her 1815 biography "The Female Marine, or the Adventures of Lucy Brewer.”
The United States Marines' official stance is that Lucy Brewer never existed and that she was not the first female Marine. No records have ever been found to prove that a young woman named Lucy Brewer lived in Massachusetts and traveled to Boston during the times that Brewer recounts in the book. Furthermore, the Marines insist that the close quarters on the USS Constitution would have made it nearly impossible for Brewer to have successfully disguised her sex.
The book written about Lucy Brewer and her exploits was most likely written by a man, Nathaniel Hill Wright, or Wright's publisher, Nathaniel Coverly.
"Old Ironsides" is the popular nickname for the USS Constitution, a three-masted wooden-hulled heavy frigate of the United States Navy
Other women who have told tall tales about military service?
Loreta Janeta Velázquez is a woman who claimed to have fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Modern historians and scholars have raised doubts about her accounts. One scholar even called her a "con artist".
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