A "Bould Sojer Boy", Cincinnati Daily Press (Article, 1862)
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A "Bould Sojer Boy."
Yesterday afternoon, a smart-looking lad, wearing a military cap and overcoat, applied at the recruiting office of Captain Benjamin, in the Arcade, to be enrolled as a drummer boy. He stated that he was seventeen years of ago, and had served as a drummer boy in the army on the Potomac several months. An officer took him into a private room, where a very brief inspection revealed the fact that the pretend boy was a woman! She was handed over to the custody of the police, and accommodated with lodgings in a cell. Apparel more becoming her sex was supplied her, and she will appear before the magistrate suitably clothed, if not exactly right in her mind. She is the same woman that was arrested at Albion last winter. She tended bar at the Clinton House, in that village, two weeks, going by the name of Charley Miller. Being detected by officer Foster, she was taken before Justice Braley, who discharged her on her promise to leave town.
She says no that she enlisted last spring in the Eighteenth New York Volunteers, Colonel Jackson, as a drummer, and served in that capacity for two months. She was then transferred to the Forty-sixth Pennsylvania Volunteers, Colonel Kaipes, and acted as servant to one of the officers. She was then discharged--whether upon discovery of her sex or not, she did not inform us. She returned home to her mother, to Cayuga County, and to whom she gave the money she had received as wages; but being enamored with the life of a soldier, she determined to enlist again, and came to Rochester for that purpose. In the eighteenth regiment she was called Edward D. Hamilton, but the name she prefers is Charley Miller. Her real name we do not think proper to mention, as she disclosed it under the promise that it should not be published.
We are informed that this woman is more than thirty years old, but she gave her age to use as twenty-one. In crinoline she appeared to be twenty-five or six; in pantaloons seventeen or eighteen. A person who professes to have known her twelve or fourteen years says at that time she was driving a hackney coach for Mr. Benjamin McFarland. Subsequently she was engaged in the same business in Buffalo. Almost from childhood she has chosen to unsex herself and lead a masquerading life in male garb. For some two years she has traveled with a circus. She was her last summer with a concern of that sort in the employ of a man who sold whips from a wagon. So long has she followed an adventurous career, passing herself off as a boy, that she scarcely retains any feminine characteristics. When she is in her favorite attire there is nothing in her general appearance, or in her voice, to indicate that she is other than she seems. A slight peculiarity in her walk is alone likely to betray her.
What disposition will be made of her we can not say. It is scarcely probable that the magistrate will deem her deserving of any severe punishment, as no crime or offense is charged against her except her disguise.--Rochester Democrat, Dec. 18
