My Last Skirt: The Story of Jennie Hodgers, Union Soldier (review)

Loosely based on the experiences of real-life Civil War soldier "Albert Cashier," this fictionalization traces Jennie Hodgers' life from girlhood in Belfast, where she dons boys' clothes to land a job tending sheep, to her early years in America (again, posing as a boy to obtain better wages than women could command), and then through her days with the 95th Illinois and their engagements in Vicksburg and beyond. The romantic attraction between Jennie/Albert and doomed comrade Frank Moore (a fictional figure based on the 95th's historian, Wales Wood) is clearly stitched in for dramatic effect, since the actual Mr. Wood survived the war and Jennie/Albert lived out most of her long life as a man. It is much to Durrant's credit, however, that apart from that particular plotline, readers gradually forget they are following the career of a woman in men's attire and accept her as her fellows-at-arms did—an indefatigable soldier. A closing note touches on Cashier's later years, and a selected list of primary and secondary sources directs readers to additional information.