Elissa's Legacy

The story in Elissa's Legacy came about from an encounter with a side of CW history that had been introduced to me by my daughter a doctoral occupational therapist with the Veterans' Administration: an awareness of the phenomenon of women serving as men in the Civil War. Research discovered that the role of women on the home front as nurses grew from small beginnings (home front volunteers) to the formal introduction of the Dorothea Dix Corps of Nurses and morphed into first ad hoc assistance closer to the field of battle within military field hospitals both North and South.

I discovered there was far more to this early female participation (i.e., the phenomenon of women serving in disguise as men in actual combat), hundreds of them by War Department actual count. The success of these growing pains was the eventual system of military medical services that exist today.

Deeper research into both areas of interest was spurred by my acquisition of a signed limited edition, 1864, copy of a memoir self-published by such a participant: Emma Edmonds, who served as a nurse, soldier, and spy. My copy was no. 51 in the edition, signed by Emma for the buyer, Miss Lucy Vanilly.

The current work is not a retelling of Miss Edmonds's story (which has been formally republished) but my attempt to meld the phenomenon of women in Civil War military service with the concept of how the actions and experiences of previous generations of a family (my character Elissa's family and my family) can strongly influence behavior, mores, and actions of their descendants. I know this to be true from my own military service (Ordnance Corps EOD), my comrades, and those who currently serve.

The term "band of brothers" is not just a film title. As I grow older, I am ever more conscious how that legacy from my forebears has molded my personality, influenced my character, guided my actions, and helped me inculcate those values into my two daughters so that they may carry on the influence of those of my family who have gone before.