Bet Lee: An American Civil War Novella

Abstract

An estimated 400 women disguised themselves as men to fight in the American Civil War. Though the war ended nearly 150 years ago and over 65,000 books have covered every aspect of the subject in that time, only a handful of recent works have explored the subject of the female civil war soldier. The vast majority of these women lived in secret; and, since secrets kept are difficult to research, it is likely that the published historical studies on the subject have found all that can be discovered (Leonard, 1999; Cooke and Blanton, 2002; Hall, 2006). This novella takes what information exists about these women and crafts a story about one - a composite of research and imagination - into a novel, thereby adding to their remembrance by reaching a wider audience through a popular medium and suggesting the rest of the story.