09/13/2026
Sarah Rosetta Wakeman went to war as a man. When she died, the Army still did not know who she really was.
In 1862, the 19-year-old New York farm girl cut her hair, changed her clothes and became “Lyons Wakeman.” Women were barred from serving as soldiers, but Wakeman needed money. Presenting herself as male opened doors that poverty had closed. She worked briefly as a boatman before enlisting in the 153rd New York Infantry.
For nearly two years, she lived among male soldiers without revealing her secret. She drilled, marched, carried a rifle and collected a soldier's pay. In letters home, she sometimes seemed almost exhilarated by her independence. “I like to be a soldier very well,” she wrote.
Then came Louisiana.
In 1864, Wakeman's regiment joined the disastrous Red River Campaign. At the Battle of Pleasant Hill, she experienced combat amid a campaign of staggering exhaustion, disease and death.
She survived the fighting.
Disease proved harder to escape.
Wakeman became seriously ill and was admitted to a military hospital in New Orleans. On June 19, 1864, she died of chronic diarrhea, one of the diseases that killed enormous numbers of Civil War soldiers.
She was 21.
Even in death, her identity apparently remained undiscovered. The Army recorded the death of Private Lyons Wakeman. She was buried under that name in Chalmette National Cemetery.
And there the story might have ended.
More than a century later, in 1976, Wakeman's letters were discovered among family possessions. The young soldier suddenly had her identity back. Her own words revealed what the military records never had: Private Lyons Wakeman had been Sarah.
She had carried her secret through enlistment, battle, illness and death.
For 112 years, even her grave kept it.
