Emma Edmonds, Part 3

...With the battle in Virginia slowing down, the Second Michigan was transferred to the Shenandoah Valley, in Virginia, to support the efforts of General Phillip Sheridan. Private Thompson's reputation as a nurse and also as a spy preceded the transfer and Private Thompson soon found a new territory for spying. On several occasions Emma went behind the Confederate lines as "Cuff," a fellow of whom Emma herself said "I truly admire the little fellow - he's a plucky one; got his share of grit."
In August 1862, Private Thompson again went behind enemy lines, and this time Emma went as a black mammy complete with the black face and the bandanna. On this trip she became a laundress in the camp and while cleaning an officers coat a packet of official papers fell out of his pocket. Emma quickly picked them up and decided it was time to return to the Union side with the packet. She did and the officers were delighted with the information she had garnered.
At the end of 1862, her unit was transferred and this time they were sent to Ninth Corps, commanded by General Ambrose Burnside, near Louisville, Kentucky. As before, the reputation of Private Thompson preceded the transfer, and his secret missions continued in the new area. Here he was asked to assume the role of a young man with Southern sympathies by the name of Charles Mayberry, and go to Louisville to assist in identifying the Southern spy network in the town. Once again Private Thompson succeeded in his mission - this time just prior to the unit's transfer to the army of General Grant in preparation to the battle of Vicksburg.
Under General Grant, Private Thompson worked long hours in the military hospital until a real dilemma arose. She became ill with malaria and could not admit herself to the hospital where her true identity would be discovered. After much soul-searching Emma decided that she had to leave camp for a while and recover in a private hospital. Arriving in Carrio, Illinois, she once again became a woman and checked herself into a hospital for treatment of malaria. Once recovered Emma planned to don her uniform and rejoin her unit - that is until she read the army bulletins posted in the window of the Cario newspaper office. There on the list of deserters from the Union army was the name of Private Frank Thompson.
With the last of her funds, Emma Edmonds bought a train ticket to Washington where she worked as a nurse until the end of the war. There would be no more secret missions for Private Frank Thompson to add to the eleven successful missions in his career.
After the war Emma wrote her memoirs titled Nurse and Spy in the Union Army, which became a very popular book selling thousands of copies. Emma gave all her profits from the book to the U.S. war relief fund. Once the book was completed, Emma became homesick for her native Canada; when she returned there she found love. In 1867 Emma married Linus Seeyle and went back to the United State, initially to Cleveland, Ohio. The marriage was happy, and Emma raised three sons, one of whom enlisted in the army "just like Mama did."
While happy in her home life, Emma continued to brood over being branded a deserter in the Civil War. With the encouragement of her friends she petitioned the War Department for a full review of her case. The case was debated and on March 28, 1884, the House of Representatives passed House Bill number 5335 validating Mrs. Seeyle's case. On July 5, 1884, a special act of Congress granted Emma Edmonds alias Frank Thompson an honorable discharge from the army, plus a bonus and a veteran's pension of twelve dollars a month.
Now satisfied, Emma lived out the rest of her life in La Porte, Texas, where she died on September 5, 1889. She is buried in the military section of Washington Cemetery in Houston, Texas. In honor of her duty and devotion to her country she is the only female member of the organization after the Civil War by Union veterans - The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR.) In her own words Emma said of her adventures:
"I am naturally fond of adventure, a little ambitious, and a good deal romantic - but patriotism was the true secret of my success."