Wilson Collection: Same-Sex Desire in the Civil War

(Civil War soldier carte de visite photograph, taken during 1861-1865)

Under construction.

Same-Sex Desire in the Civil War

The Civil War included soldiers with same-sex desires. For example, in his memoirs Union General Sheridan tells of a pair of women--two “Amazons”--who somehow enlisted as soldiers. While in the army “an intimacy had sprung up between them.” They “secured a supply of 'apple-jack,'” “got very drunk,” fell in a river, and nearly drowned. During resuscitation “their sex was disclosed.”[1]

About an all-male soldier dance, an infantryman reported, “For ladies we had boys in ladies clothes...I guess some of them did get layed with. I know I slept with mine.”[2]

References 1. Jonathan Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976), 227. 2. Jonathan Ned Katz, Love Stories: Sex Between Men before Homosexuality (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001), 136.