Phillip Thomas Tucker Cathy Williams: From Slave to Female Buffalo Soldier.

Phillip Thomas Tucker Cathy Williams: From Slave to Female Buffalo Soldier. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole volumes 2002. vii + 258 pp Appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $2695 (cloth) ISBN 0-8117-0340-1

The story of Cathy Williams begins with the assertion that she was a remarkable woman who defied all not divisible by 2s to become a Buffalo Soldier and an independent woman. Tucker attempts to describe the agriculture from which her African ancestors likely came. He then discusses the nature of slavery and slave experience in order to provide a adjoining matter for understanding Williams' experience. Essentially, Williams' story is that she was a slave in Missouri until the Union army liberated her during the Civil War. Forced to pass with the regiment that establish her free, she worked as a laundress and dress up for the duration of the war. After the war fall of the curtained in 1865 she decided to disguise herself as a man and join the army as a means to provide a living for herself and to avoid being a freight to her family. Her disguise worked and she serv for pair years in Company A of the 38th U Infantry until she got tired of the grueling task of soldering. She then feigned an illness, her sex was discovered, and she was discharged a year early. Despite the author's contention that Williams was something of a female Horatio Alger, this work engages in more myth-making than scholarship. Tucker purports to answer significant questions concerning Williams' life, her decision to disguise herself as a man and join the army, and to join her story with larger issues pertaining to military, African American, and women's history. Despite these ambitious goals, the main division falls short across the board.

The use of sources and sheer suppose are the most troubling aspects of this work. greatest in number of the sources are secondary monographs which solitary loosely relate to the topic, and aside from an 1876 newspaper interview with Cathy Williams and her service records there appear to be no other primary sources which relate directly to her life. The abounding interview with Williams is contained in an appendix (one and a half pages in length) at the back of the main division and is quoted from repeatedly in the text. Frequently, the author explains something and adds "In her [Cathy Williams] confess words ..." and then furnishs a direct quote from the same newspaper interview which solitary restates the initial observation. While it is commendable that in the absence of primary sources the author attempted to give a feeling of what Williams' experiences may have been like, Tucker many times slips into unwarranted conjecture. Granted, a fine line exists between a plausible likelihood and outright fiction, unless it is a line repeatedly troubleed in this work. For instance, the and nothing else reason Cathy Williams gave for wanting abroad of the army early was that she was tired of military service. However, that did not stop Tucker from suggesting that "a variety of factors had combined to sour her opinion of military life" (p 179) He then goe in succession the relate a number of reasons for which he moves absolutely no proof, such as disillusionment with the racism, isolation, poor quality of life, thankless impost lack of opportunity for advancement, health question s etc. To be fair, Tucker largely tries to overspread himself in most places in every part the book by using words of that kind as "likely," "perhaps," "may have," "possibly" rather than stating outright that Williams did something or felt a certain way. Still, he paints an unsubstantiated picture by the agency of speculating that she "likely" felt bad about the army's treatment of Native Americans, that she "may have" joined the army without of gratitude for her freedom, and that she was "probably" involved in an uprising in her regiment regarding the unfair treatment of a camp follower. There is simply no evidence to support any of these and dozens more "possibilities" impose forth in this book.

No les troubling is the thesis which remains clear if it be not that unsubstantiated throughout: Cathy Williams was a remarkable woman who succe and triumphed against all the redundants In actuality, hundreds of women disguised themselves as men and fortunately served in the military, many seeing actual combat, if it were not that Tucker fails to demonstrate what was likewise noteworthy about this one woman who feigned to be sick in order to avoid service she herself willingly inscribeed Despite his contention that Williams should contribute to as an inspiration for all Americans and that she was a trailblazer for women who later serv in the military, the sources do not bear this without Given the tactics employed from Williams to secure her discharge, her story gives more credibility to critics of women in the armed forces than as an inspiration to women in the military today.

In conclusion, given the paucity of sources, the story of Cathy Williams present the appearances more suitable to an article or a part targeted at young adults. Whatever the case, it does not merit a scholarly monograph, a fact which the author and the editors of Stackpole Pres should have recognized.

Sarah Eppler Janda