Civil War Amazons

From the Personal Memoirs of Philip H. Sheridan (1888), a former Union army general: while fighting in the south, the colonel in command of the regiment would send out soldiers on a foraging expedition to find food for the troops. Routinely, these expeditions would encounter heavy fire from the Confederate forces. After one of these expeditions returned successfully, the colonel informed General Sheridan "the two females belonging to the detachment" had behaved in a mortifying way, having gotten drunk and demoralized the men. General Sheridan, of course, thought the colonel mad.

The colonel informed the General that there were, in fact, two women serving under him as soldiers. One is a teamster in the division wagon-train and from East Tennessee; the other a private soldier in a calvary company temporarily attached to the General's headquarters for escort duty. Somehow, the colonel said, these two "Amazons" had found one another and "an intimacy had sprung up." They got drunk and somehow had fallen into Stone River and nearly drowned. Their true sex was then discovered, and both placed under arrest, discharged from the army, and put back in proper clothes for a woman.


(enter TEAMSTER and CALVARY, dressed as Union soldiers; they stare for a long time at one another)

CALVARY
No, you don't understand.
I only knew of one other woman in the army.
There was only Molly and me.
Then, raiding a plantation,
going through a bedroom,
must've been the daughter of the house,
the bitch jumped out of a closet and shot her.
Blew off half her face.
See these stains on my sleeve---that's Molly's blood and brains.
For the longest time,
Molly was the only one.
She and I were going to,
we were planning to buy up some cheap plantation
after the war,
we were hording jewelry
belonging to those southern bitches,
like the one who killed her.

TEAMSTER
I'm sorry.

CALVARY
No, you don't understand,
losing her was horrible, evil,
but all this time,
I convinced myself I was the only one.

TEAMSTER
You're not.
There's more of us out there
than anyone could imagine.
Only reason why we're winning the war.
I wasn't gonna show no one this,
but this is a special goddamn occasion for you.
(pulls out a flask)
Apple-jack.

CALVARY
Where you get apple-jack?

TEAMSTER
Same place I got my cunny:
a gift from God.
(takes a swig and tosses the bottle)
Go on.
You need it.
You gotta pull yourself together;
you can't let the bastards see you.

CALVARY
I can't take from you---

TEAMSTER
Then trade me.
You got something I want more than
cider?

CALVARY
(takes a long drink)
Goddamn I can feel my toes again!
It's going straight to my head, yes sir.

(they pass the bottle back and forth as they talk)

TEAMSTER
What you do to that southern bitch?
The one who killed---

CALVARY
The same thing any Union soldier would do
who was pillaging a confederate south.
Only,
I told her what I was first.
The way she looked at me,
you'd think I was the devil herself.
I did it for Molly:
so she have something to laugh at in hell.

TEAMSTER
Why ain't she in heaven?
(they laugh)
Yeah, that's a stupid fucking question.
(abruptly kisses CALVARY)
There.
That makes us even.

CALVARY
I think you owe me change.

TEAMSTER
I gotta take a piss first.

CALVARY
I should, too.

TEAMSTER
Let's piss off the bridge.
You ever piss off a bridge like a man?

CALVARY
How else do you think I lasted this long in the army?

TEAMSTER
(kisses CALVARY again)

CALVARY
I thought we were going to piss.

TEAMSTER
Yeah, we are.
I just wanna make sure
we're even.

CALVARY
I think you're trying to slip me
some foreign money.
Some French coins.

TEAMSTER
If I was a real man right now,
you'd have to put
a French coin on me.
I'm too drunk to do it myself.

CALVARY
And too drunk to finish,
just like a man.

TEAMSTER
I may wear trousers,
but I still can finish like a woman.

CALVARY
I really need to piss now!
Come on,
we got time still.
(drags her off)

END OF SCENE