Andrew s's letter

Dear War Department,

Hi im Sarah Emma Edmonds I just found out that you gave a dishonorable discharge to Private Franklin Thompson and thats me and I wanted to change it to honorable discharge.

    When I was younger I dropped the Sarah and became Emma Edmonds and disguised myself as a man named Franklin Thompson and joined the union army and to prove i am telling the truth i am going to tell you four of the things i did as a private in the union army serving general McClellan. I disguised myself under cover as a black slave named cuff and brought back information about all their weapons, artillery, and earthworks and i hid them in my shoe and brought it to General McClellan and he personally thanked me for my service. Another Mission i did for the union army was i went under cover again and i got info that our enemies had fake cannons to scare us and the size of their gun batteries and new fortification of enemy comment.

    When i had done so much for the union army undercover and also hurt my arm in a horse chase my colonel gave to time off and he signed my furlough papers and said you've earned a good rest take time off to heal that arm. When it healed i just couldn't come back it was getting very hard for a girl like me and when i healed i became a nurse and i still am today. That's four thing i did in the union army. Thank you and i really hope that you will forgive me for leaving but i couldn't fight anymore things were getting hard for a girl like me and i hope you will change my status from dishonorable discharge to honorable discharge. Thank you.

From Emma Edmonds (aka Franklin Thompson)