Sarah Rosetta Wakeman was born on the family farm in Bainbridge, New York, the oldest of nine children. Growing up, she worked on the farm and later as a domestic servant. Her family’s financial problems posed difficulties in finding her a possible suitor. In addition, she realized that manual labor is more profitable than domestic work, so at 19 years old, Wakeman left her home looking for a job disguised as a man. Soon she began to work as a boatman on a coal barge traveling on the Chenango Canal.
While on a trip upriver, she met army recruiters who offered her a $13 monthly salary and a $152.00 signing bonus if she joined the Union Army. The offer was too good to refuse, and on August 30, 1862, she got enlisted to the 153rd New York Infantry Regiment as a 21 years old man named Lyons Wakeman.
In her first year on service, her regiment protected the food supplies in Virginia, and Washington, DC. In February 1864, the unit got transferred to Louisiana to participate in the Red River Campaign. They marched almost 700 miles through swampy terrain with limited food and water to reach the Pleasant Hill, Louisiana battle. After the Union army was forced to retreat, Wakeman and her fellow comrades fought at the Monett’s Bluff before arriving safely in Alexandria, Louisiana.
During the battle, Wakeman, like other thousands of Union soldiers, had to drink water from streams contaminated by rotting dead animals, which caused her chronic diarrhea. She was hospitalized in the Marine USA General Hospital in New Orleans, where she died at 21 years old. Her true identity was not revealed, and she was buried in a military service at Chalmette National Cemetery under her fake male name Lyons Wakeman.
Throughout the war, she corresponded with her family, sending them money and detailing her experiences, thoughts, and observations as a soldier. Her family preserved the letters and kept them hidden for centuries until 1976, when her sister’s great-grandson found them in the attic of the farmhouse where she grew up, discovering the heroic story of his relative and telling it to the world.
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