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My Last Skirt: The Story of Jennie Hodgers, Union Soldier
Jennie Hodgers dressed as a boy for the first time in order to help support her impoverished Irish family with a shepherd’s wages. Then her arrival in America confirmed her belief that the world offers better opportunities to young men than to young women. So Jennie maintained her outward identity as Albert Cashier, serving as a grocery clerk in Queens, New York; as a farmhand in Ohio; and as a recruit in the 95th Illinois Infantry during the Civil War. Not only did she survive three years in combat with her true identity undiscovered, she chose to continue living as Albert for nearly all of her life.
Combining careful research with vivid insight, Lynda Durrant portrays Albert Cashier as a soldier who served his adopted country and his comrades with loyalty and heroism, and Jennie Hodgers as a woman of a woman of astonishing strength, courage, and adaptability—a woman sometimes at war with her own secrets. Author’s note, bibliography.
Combining careful research with vivid insight, Lynda Durrant portrays Albert Cashier as a soldier who served his adopted country and his comrades with loyalty and heroism, and Jennie Hodgers as a woman of a woman of astonishing strength, courage, and adaptability—a woman sometimes at war with her own secrets. Author’s note, bibliography.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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195 people want to read
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Lynda Durrant
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
March 12, 2014
I have written about the subject of this nook, Albert D. J. Cashier, for various sites dedicated to transgender figures in history. Albert was born Jenny Hodgers in Northern Ireland and emigrated to America in about the mid-1800s. He lived as a man for over 60 years and served with the Illinois 95th as an infantryman during the American Civil War, fighting in the siege of Vicksburg under Gen. U. S. Grant. His biological gender was only found out when after he broke his hip in an accident the doctor and nurse examining him removed his clothing.
When I bought this book I was under the impression it was an autobiography. That was what I had gleaned from sources and passed on in my own articles. I was disappointed while reading it to discover that it is at best a fictional "autobiography", a novel really penned by Lynda Durant. Before I go on to explain how much this disappointed me, I will say that the book is very well written, engaging, and offers what appears to be a terrific eyewitness account of the lives and battles of Civil War foot soldiers. As fiction, the author tries hard to create a more complete story than real life can provide, giving Jenny a credible story and a love interest. I appreciated the battle scenes enough to recommend the book to my friend and battle consultant Jack.
But... but.. it is fiction. How much I can't tell by the afterword. The love interest is a fictional character based on a real person, a man who wrote detailed accounts of his comrades in the battles pictured in the novel.
The problem is that it is part of the fate of so many GLBT people in history to have their lives reinterpreted by historians as much as historical novelists to "clean them up", make them not GLBT and even inventing sweethearts to prove the person did not in fact lean toward same sex relationships or an alternate gender identity. Perhaps the authors don't approve of who these individuals may actually h ave been, or they want to identify with them, or maybe they just want to sell books and feel they must gloss over the less seemly issues. I just hate that. The whole reason I have been writing GLBT historical fiction is to repair just this erasure of people's lives from the record, if b no other means than, as Mnique Wittig wrote, "invent" plausible interpretations. It reminds me of all the stories I read as a teen of women who fought as knights, hoping against hope to find a heroine I, as someone who believed she was female, could regard as a role model, someone I could relate to. It never happened. All I found were stories of women who lived as knights until the right man came along to show them being loved by a real knight was better than being one. Now that I am living as the transgender man I am, finding this reinterpretation of Albert Cashier was an even worse disappointment.
Before I realized the book is a novel and not a true biography I started to question whether "transgender" was the right term for Cashier's gender identity. I have been leaning to a definition of someone who at least chose to be believed to be identified as the opposite gender from their bodies. How can we really know except in rare cases what the individual him or herself intended? It seems clear that the Chevalier d'Eon by her own insistence saw herself as female, and Billy Tipton went so far as to marry a woman long before same sex marriage was legal anywhere. But did surgeon James Barry who passed as a man to gain entrance to medical school and continued to identify himself to others as male until his death actually believe himself to be male, somehow accepting as valid what we now know is truye for transgender people, the gender of one's brain being the factor rather than the genitals? In Cashier's case I was about ready to throw in the towel and admit he was not, in fact, a transman but a woman masquerading as a man.
Now I am not so certain. I now know that the conditions that influenced me were Durant's invention.
Just as Durrant may have wanted to write about someone with whom she could identify, I want to identify with him as well. I want to write about him as a transman. Which is more valid? Probably neither and both.
I will however quibble with the details imposed on Cashier's story, in particular the love interest and also the guilt Cashier feels for pretending to be a man, lying to everyone, regretting how lying separated him from others. Then in the Afterword the author philosophizes about how isolated Cashier must have felt, lonely hiding her true nature from others. Well, yeah, especially if he was a transman and his "autobiographer" chose to cram him into the trappings of a heterosexual female, never even considering , for so it seems, that Cashier may have been transgender. Shades of all the gay men in history who have had their stories retold so they could fit into "acceptable norms".
I also regret that Durant's novel is lost to transgender youth and adults as a story of someone who lived true to his inner nature bravely and without hiding from the life he wanted to live. Like biographers who insist that Pres. James Buchanan was either thwarted in his love for a woman or was actual asexual in spite of fifteen years living with another man wand together called "Mr.and Mrs. Buchanan as well as "Aunt Nancy and Uncle Fancy"", I find myself angry that GLBT people's lives can only fall into two categories, utterly overlooked or in fact fraudulently reinterpreted. It just makes me sad, as I felt in a novel where a character who committed suicide because she could not live the life she preferred as a transwoman is completely reinvented by the male name on her headstone. It is, as Shakespeare wrote, "the unkindest cut".
When I bought this book I was under the impression it was an autobiography. That was what I had gleaned from sources and passed on in my own articles. I was disappointed while reading it to discover that it is at best a fictional "autobiography", a novel really penned by Lynda Durant. Before I go on to explain how much this disappointed me, I will say that the book is very well written, engaging, and offers what appears to be a terrific eyewitness account of the lives and battles of Civil War foot soldiers. As fiction, the author tries hard to create a more complete story than real life can provide, giving Jenny a credible story and a love interest. I appreciated the battle scenes enough to recommend the book to my friend and battle consultant Jack.
But... but.. it is fiction. How much I can't tell by the afterword. The love interest is a fictional character based on a real person, a man who wrote detailed accounts of his comrades in the battles pictured in the novel.
The problem is that it is part of the fate of so many GLBT people in history to have their lives reinterpreted by historians as much as historical novelists to "clean them up", make them not GLBT and even inventing sweethearts to prove the person did not in fact lean toward same sex relationships or an alternate gender identity. Perhaps the authors don't approve of who these individuals may actually h ave been, or they want to identify with them, or maybe they just want to sell books and feel they must gloss over the less seemly issues. I just hate that. The whole reason I have been writing GLBT historical fiction is to repair just this erasure of people's lives from the record, if b no other means than, as Mnique Wittig wrote, "invent" plausible interpretations. It reminds me of all the stories I read as a teen of women who fought as knights, hoping against hope to find a heroine I, as someone who believed she was female, could regard as a role model, someone I could relate to. It never happened. All I found were stories of women who lived as knights until the right man came along to show them being loved by a real knight was better than being one. Now that I am living as the transgender man I am, finding this reinterpretation of Albert Cashier was an even worse disappointment.
Before I realized the book is a novel and not a true biography I started to question whether "transgender" was the right term for Cashier's gender identity. I have been leaning to a definition of someone who at least chose to be believed to be identified as the opposite gender from their bodies. How can we really know except in rare cases what the individual him or herself intended? It seems clear that the Chevalier d'Eon by her own insistence saw herself as female, and Billy Tipton went so far as to marry a woman long before same sex marriage was legal anywhere. But did surgeon James Barry who passed as a man to gain entrance to medical school and continued to identify himself to others as male until his death actually believe himself to be male, somehow accepting as valid what we now know is truye for transgender people, the gender of one's brain being the factor rather than the genitals? In Cashier's case I was about ready to throw in the towel and admit he was not, in fact, a transman but a woman masquerading as a man.
Now I am not so certain. I now know that the conditions that influenced me were Durant's invention.
Just as Durrant may have wanted to write about someone with whom she could identify, I want to identify with him as well. I want to write about him as a transman. Which is more valid? Probably neither and both.
I will however quibble with the details imposed on Cashier's story, in particular the love interest and also the guilt Cashier feels for pretending to be a man, lying to everyone, regretting how lying separated him from others. Then in the Afterword the author philosophizes about how isolated Cashier must have felt, lonely hiding her true nature from others. Well, yeah, especially if he was a transman and his "autobiographer" chose to cram him into the trappings of a heterosexual female, never even considering , for so it seems, that Cashier may have been transgender. Shades of all the gay men in history who have had their stories retold so they could fit into "acceptable norms".
I also regret that Durant's novel is lost to transgender youth and adults as a story of someone who lived true to his inner nature bravely and without hiding from the life he wanted to live. Like biographers who insist that Pres. James Buchanan was either thwarted in his love for a woman or was actual asexual in spite of fifteen years living with another man wand together called "Mr.and Mrs. Buchanan as well as "Aunt Nancy and Uncle Fancy"", I find myself angry that GLBT people's lives can only fall into two categories, utterly overlooked or in fact fraudulently reinterpreted. It just makes me sad, as I felt in a novel where a character who committed suicide because she could not live the life she preferred as a transwoman is completely reinvented by the male name on her headstone. It is, as Shakespeare wrote, "the unkindest cut".
March 26, 2021
This book is a biography of a female who dressed as a man and fought in the Civil War.
Originally from Ireland, she and her brother immigrated to the US. She found it easier to
get work as a man, so she began to live her life as a man and continued until long after the
Civil War.
Well written about subjects that I find fascinating: the Civil War and women in non-traditional roles.
Originally from Ireland, she and her brother immigrated to the US. She found it easier to
get work as a man, so she began to live her life as a man and continued until long after the
Civil War.
Well written about subjects that I find fascinating: the Civil War and women in non-traditional roles.
February 2, 2009
I like reading historical fiction, especially set during the Civil War. This one was such a good read and informative about the experiences of a young Irish girl who lived her life as a boy and then as a man. A true account of an Irish immigrant who struggled with the way woman were not valued in the workforce in Ireland and then here in America.
I have read other accounts of women who went into battle during the Civil War and the difficulties they encountered. This one was well written and I have put all of Lynda Durrant's titles on hold!
I have read other accounts of women who went into battle during the Civil War and the difficulties they encountered. This one was well written and I have put all of Lynda Durrant's titles on hold!
June 13, 2019
Skirts are very, very comfortable. Unlike skinny jeans, they don’t cut off circulation to your calves, or get immediately too small if you eat anything, or show plumber butt when you bend over.
Skirts are not, however, always practical, as the heroine of our tale, Jennie Hodgers, knows all too well growing up scavenging seashells and cockles on the cold, rainy beaches of her seaside village in Ireland. She decides that her lot in life is severely limited by her brown skirt, not only because it gets muddy along the shore and slows her running across the shingle, but because girls do not have the sorts of financial opportunities or adventures that boys like her brothers do. It is the mid-1800’s, and against all social and religious mores, she trades her skirt in for pants and a whole new life. She begins in her village, where her new employer assumes she is yet another of her father’s sons. After time, the pants become her new identity, and a ticket to a life of travel, intrigue, and freedom, but with a few costly sacrifices: love, family, and the softness of femininity are all but impossible in that era for someone like her. Inspired by the newly famous Darwin of her era, she reflects that “People decide to adapt. They can change overnight if they really set their minds to it.” Only at the end of her life is her real identity discovered. Though she spends her last days in a mental institution, she has few regrets. Now, I personally like skirts. They hide a lot more flaws than pants. But Jennie's pants are a symbol of a quiet rebellion, her bold determination to seize a dream and reinvent her own fate.
Skirts are not, however, always practical, as the heroine of our tale, Jennie Hodgers, knows all too well growing up scavenging seashells and cockles on the cold, rainy beaches of her seaside village in Ireland. She decides that her lot in life is severely limited by her brown skirt, not only because it gets muddy along the shore and slows her running across the shingle, but because girls do not have the sorts of financial opportunities or adventures that boys like her brothers do. It is the mid-1800’s, and against all social and religious mores, she trades her skirt in for pants and a whole new life. She begins in her village, where her new employer assumes she is yet another of her father’s sons. After time, the pants become her new identity, and a ticket to a life of travel, intrigue, and freedom, but with a few costly sacrifices: love, family, and the softness of femininity are all but impossible in that era for someone like her. Inspired by the newly famous Darwin of her era, she reflects that “People decide to adapt. They can change overnight if they really set their minds to it.” Only at the end of her life is her real identity discovered. Though she spends her last days in a mental institution, she has few regrets. Now, I personally like skirts. They hide a lot more flaws than pants. But Jennie's pants are a symbol of a quiet rebellion, her bold determination to seize a dream and reinvent her own fate.
October 19, 2013
This fictionalized biography describes how Jennie starts wearing pants in Ireland as a young girl, to be paid the boy’s rate for shepherding. After she moves to America, she retains the disguise to earn better wages, and eventually takes the name Albert Cashier. When the Civil War breaks out she joins an Illinois brigade, and maintains her secret through all the hardships of war.
Cutting most of the section before the war would improve this book. Durrant was clearly trying to establish how Jennie started cross-dressing and to trace her actual path in life, but the scenes jump so far in time they end up being choppy and emotionless. For instance, Durrant describes Jennie’s father’s horrific, cliff-fall death in one sentence, and neither Jennie nor her brother experience any grief, although they apparently loved him.
The Civil War section will appeal primarily to war buffs, with reams of information about sieges and expeditions and privations; other readers may weary of such detail. Most interesting is Jennie’s lifelong struggle to maintain her charade as a man in a woman’s body, even though she is not transsexual. The book gives a clear picture of why Jennie chose the man’s role, and in both describing her life and fictionalizing a doomed romance for her, Durrant shows some of the myriad difficulties inherent in maintaining it. A sympathetic and intriguing woman, Jennie is the rare plot-driven cross-dressing character who retains her disguise through most of her life.
Cutting most of the section before the war would improve this book. Durrant was clearly trying to establish how Jennie started cross-dressing and to trace her actual path in life, but the scenes jump so far in time they end up being choppy and emotionless. For instance, Durrant describes Jennie’s father’s horrific, cliff-fall death in one sentence, and neither Jennie nor her brother experience any grief, although they apparently loved him.
The Civil War section will appeal primarily to war buffs, with reams of information about sieges and expeditions and privations; other readers may weary of such detail. Most interesting is Jennie’s lifelong struggle to maintain her charade as a man in a woman’s body, even though she is not transsexual. The book gives a clear picture of why Jennie chose the man’s role, and in both describing her life and fictionalizing a doomed romance for her, Durrant shows some of the myriad difficulties inherent in maintaining it. A sympathetic and intriguing woman, Jennie is the rare plot-driven cross-dressing character who retains her disguise through most of her life.
June 6, 2008
My last skirt by Lynda Durrant tells the true story of a girl, Jeannie Hodgers, who living in Ireland converts her identity to male to watch sheep for the needed money. When her father dies suddenly her and her brother leave for America to make their own way. Jeannie maintains her male identity and eventually becomes a well paid store keeper while her brother, living with her, remains lower on the social ladder and jealous. Once her brother reveals her identity to her employer she leaves with her money to join the army. She lives through the civil war risking life and limb for her friends and fighting side by side of the men facing inconceivable horrors of war. A very good story that will be enjoyed by historical non-fiction lovers. Although it seemed slow and unclear in the beginning it picks up and unfortunately ends abruptly.
January 25, 2010
Young Lady Jennie Hodgers who was the only woman to receive a Civil war Pension as an soldier.
Ireland, Man's world found work. Friend knew who she was, died of fever from his wounds.
Interesting life. Said part is she died w/o finding her brother and had no children.
Ireland, Man's world found work. Friend knew who she was, died of fever from his wounds.
Interesting life. Said part is she died w/o finding her brother and had no children.
Read
July 1, 2020I had a thing for girl-army books, apparently! This one took the twist of the woman choosing to retain her identity as a man until old age!
December 24, 2017
Durrant, Lynda My Last Skirt: The Story of Jennie Hodgers, Union Soldier, 208 p. Clarion –
As a girl in the hills of Scotland, Jennie masqueraded as a boy in order to help her family earn much needed coins. When she and her brother immigrate to America, she keeps up the charade, going as far as to join a Union regiment during the Civil War. Even after the war she maintains the fiction, until one day her lifelong secret is discovered.
Full of fascinating details of battles as life as a soldier, but the human parts are rather stiff and sketchy. If you need a new Civil War novel to round out a collection, then buy in hardcover, otherwise wait for the paperback.
EL, MS-OPTIONAL
As a girl in the hills of Scotland, Jennie masqueraded as a boy in order to help her family earn much needed coins. When she and her brother immigrate to America, she keeps up the charade, going as far as to join a Union regiment during the Civil War. Even after the war she maintains the fiction, until one day her lifelong secret is discovered.
Full of fascinating details of battles as life as a soldier, but the human parts are rather stiff and sketchy. If you need a new Civil War novel to round out a collection, then buy in hardcover, otherwise wait for the paperback.
EL, MS-OPTIONAL
August 2, 2020
Civil War
What an interesting and sad story about Jennie/Albert. Her life was quite an adventure, coming to a new country, finding work at such a young age and being willing to do whatever it took to make a living.
What an interesting and sad story about Jennie/Albert. Her life was quite an adventure, coming to a new country, finding work at such a young age and being willing to do whatever it took to make a living.
May 10, 2024
I hate being mean… but this was the worst book I have read in my entire life. If you’re too scared to include any sort of LGBT themes in a true story about an LGBT person, do not write the book, its really that easy. You can’t change history to cater towards your own idealistics.
December 10, 2017
I was fascinated on how a woman was able to pose as a man and fight side by side without anyone be wise to her. Enjoyed the story and history. Thank you to my sister for the recommendation.
January 26, 2009
So I wanted to learn a bit more about the Civil War in the US, and since I am not really that interested in dry historical texts someone suggested to me that I should look at young adult fiction.
I searched for "Civil War" in the young adult section of the Toronto Public Library and to my surprise discovered this book which is not only a tale about a Union soldier, but a story about a woman who goes undercover as a man in order to survive as an Irish immigrant with no family to support her.
What an amazingly courageous woman, to go into battle for a country that is not her own with nothing but an altered corset to hide her sex from the 299 men she travels with and fights alongside.
It's really a fascinating story - and true - I would recommend this to anyone.
I searched for "Civil War" in the young adult section of the Toronto Public Library and to my surprise discovered this book which is not only a tale about a Union soldier, but a story about a woman who goes undercover as a man in order to survive as an Irish immigrant with no family to support her.
What an amazingly courageous woman, to go into battle for a country that is not her own with nothing but an altered corset to hide her sex from the 299 men she travels with and fights alongside.
It's really a fascinating story - and true - I would recommend this to anyone.
April 5, 2015
An intriguing look at one of the interesting stories in American history. Women fighting as men within the Civil War is the focus of the novel. The story traces the path of the one of the women who was able to pass herself as a man and become a combatant in the Civil War. The reader is shown glimpses of the Battle of Vicksburg and the Union army's march across the south.
The novel raises many interesting questions about identity, especially when you consider that Jennie Hodgers continued to live as a man after the war. Sexuality, gender, and identity create a compelling mixture for this work of historical fiction.
Another important sidelight to the story is that it has a local flavor. Jennie Hodgers lived and died in central and western Illinois.
The novel raises many interesting questions about identity, especially when you consider that Jennie Hodgers continued to live as a man after the war. Sexuality, gender, and identity create a compelling mixture for this work of historical fiction.
Another important sidelight to the story is that it has a local flavor. Jennie Hodgers lived and died in central and western Illinois.
June 3, 2010
This is a good historical fiction about the Civil War for middle school to maybe freshman teens. My Last Skirt is based on the real life of Jennie Hodgers, who was an infantryman in the Civil War and known as Albert Cashier. Hodgers immigrated to the United States using a male identity, which she maintained for over 50 years. The book focuses on her presumed struggle to conceal her physical sex and the lonliness this most likely brought to Hodger's life.
September 23, 2013
The book My Last Skirt is a book about a girl who dresses as a boy then moves to America and changes her name to Georgie and works at a food market. Then she leaves and goes and work on a farm. She leaves again and enlisted for the civil war on the union side. Will somebody find that she is not a guy?
My Last Skirt is an okey book. I don't think I would read it again.
My Last Skirt is an okey book. I don't think I would read it again.
February 28, 2008
Based on the life of a real Irish woman who disguises herself as a man to find better paying employment, immigrates to America with her brother Tom and eventually fights as a Union soldier in the Civil War.
February 21, 2009
A story of an Irish immigrant, Jennie, who disguised herself as a boy, and eventually she joined the Union army and fought in the Civil War. She continued her masquerade for over fifty years before being discovered.
January 3, 2010
Good book. Left me wondering about how girls are treated, what it would be like to live in that era, and how much life has changed for women over the last 150 years. Boys will like this book too for the action and Civil war action.
June 23, 2011
An interesting and engaging YA historical fiction book about one of the women who fought in the Civil War on Northern Side. She leaves Ireland after her parents die, dresses up as a man and eventually joins the Union Armty. I learned about her listening to the NPR Civil War Chronicles.
June 27, 2008
Just couldn't get into it.
December 8, 2008
While this one had a slow start, it picks up quickly. Well researched historical fiction -- about a real woman who dresses in men's clothing and fights in the civil war.
April 14, 2011
The true story of a petticoat soldier in the Battle of Vicksburg. Well written and easy to read for junior high students.
June 21, 2013
a book for young readers, it's a well-written, well-imagined piece of historical fiction. if you're interested in the story of Albert Cashier, definitely worth a quick read.
June 22, 2013
Reading young adult books found on my child's shelf.
June 2, 2014
It was okay.
June 16, 2014
It was a good book, but it still wasn't something that I would want to read all the time.
June 2, 2014
This book has a very interesting subject matter and tells about a true story. I thought that the story showed real problems a petticoat soldier would face.
September 12, 2014
It was ok but it was a little weird.
July 20, 2015
A simple, good read about a brave soldier. Not much more to go in to other than that. But I would definitely recommend to middle schoolers, especially those interested in historical fiction.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews