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Exhibition Not an Ostrich: & Other Images from America's Library

Not an Ostrich: & Other Images from America's Library

SAMUEL MASURY. Frances Clalin: Woman who served as a Union soldier in the Civil War—4 months heavy artillery, Co. I, 13 months; Cavalry Co. A, 22 months. ca. 1865

S. [Samuel] Masury. Frances L. Clalin, 4 mo. heavy artillery, Co. I 13 mo., Cavalry Co. A. 22 months, ca. 1866. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (49.00.00)
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SAMUEL MASURY. Frances Clalin: Woman who served as a Union soldier in the Civil War—4 months heavy artillery, Co. I, 13 months; Cavalry Co. A, 22 months. ca. 1865

Clalin is one of an estimated 250 women who dressed as men to fight in the Civil War. A mother of three, Clalin enlisted in Missouri as “Jack Williams,” alongside her husband Elmer Clayton, in the fall of 1861. They fought side by side until he was killed just a few feet in front of her at the Battle of Stones River on December 31, 1862. Clalin fought in seventeen battles, was injured three times and taken prisoner once.