Originally Posted by Sunny Day

A friend of mine is a Civil War reinactor. She does the part of a private. What she doesn't do is as a reinactor is play the part of the 400+ documented women who dressed as men and fought bravely in the Civil War. One woman, in a battle watched her husband killed in a first charge against enemy troops. When ordered, fixed her bayonet stepped over her husband's body and attacked the enemy.
Women did fight in both the War of 1812 and the Revolutionary War disguised as men.
One Civil War soldier was not found out until the 1900's as she served as a worker for a US congressman when his car hit her and she was hospitalized. It was there she was outed. Took an act of congress for her to keep the Civil War veteran's pension she earned for brave fighting in several battles.
"They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War"

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...#ixzz23J6eruLt