US Cushman, Pauline

Harriet Wood
a.k.a. "Pauline Cushman"
From A to Z - Women​

Born: June 10, 1833

Birth Name: Harriet Wood

Stage Name: Pauline Cushman

(legally changed, about Age 18, in homage to Charlotte Cushman, her favorite performer)​

Other Names: Pauline Fryer

Birthplace: New Orleans, Louisiana

Father: Name unknown, claimed to be a Spanish merchant who had served in Napoleon Bonaparte's army

1st​ Husband: Charles C. Dickinson (1831–1862)

Married: in New Orleans in 1855, until his death in 1862​

2nd​ Husband: August Fichtner ( -1873)

Married: in San Francisco in 1872, until his death in 1873​

3rd​ Husband: Jere Fryer (1849–1902)

Married: in Arizona Territory in 1879, until their separation in 1890​

Children:

Charles Dickenson (1858–1864)​

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Ida Ferris (1859–1868)​

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Emma (Adopted)​

Occupation before the War:

1851: Moved to New York to be an Actress​

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1855: Married a musician, Charles Dickinson​

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1861: As war breaks out, Charles Dickinson enlists in the Union Army as a musician​

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1862: Charles Dickinson becomes ill and is sent home where he dies of head injuries​

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1862: Cushman returns to the Stage …..​

Civil War Service:

1862: Appearing on stage in Kentucky, Cushman was offered $300 by two local pro-Confederate men who were recently parrolled to toast Confederate President Jefferson Davis during a performance​

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She reported the offer to a Union Provost Marshall, Colonel Orlando Hurley Moore, who gave her permission to accept the offer.​

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After letting the local men know she accepted their offer, she went on stage the next day, and during her performance of Seven Sisters, she gave the toast in front of a full theater: "Here's to Jefferson Davis and the Southern Confederacy. May the South always maintain her honor and her rights!" ​

She was expelled from the theater for the incident​

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Union officials asked her to use her reputation as a self-proclaimed Southern sympathizer to become a Camp Follower and secretly report Confederate Camp movements​

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Using her acting skills, and wearing lace and petticoats, she followed the Confederate army through Kentucky and Tennessee as a Camp Follower​

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She saved Union soldiers from being poisoned by a mistress in a boardinghouse when the mistress confessed her deadly plan.​

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She attempted to use her beauty and attractiveness to obtain valuable information for Union Officials, concealing battle plans and drawings in her shoes​

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She was caught in Shelbyville, Kentucky with incriminating spy documents​

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Lt. Gen. Nathaniel B. Forrest sent her to General Braxton Bragg for interrogation, who did not believe her story​

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She was given a military trial as a spy, found guilty, and sentenced to hang​

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Cushman came down with typhoid fever before the execution. her ill health delaying her execution date, she made sure to act like her illness was much worse than it actually was​

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As the Union Army moved into the area, Cushman was miraculously recovered, but was wounded twice​

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Some reports state that she returned to the South in her role as a spy, dressed in male uniform.​

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She was awarded the rank of brevet major by General James A. Garfield​

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She was given an honorary commission as a major of cavalry by President Abraham Lincoln​

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1864: Cushman performed under P.T. Barnum, performing her own show about her exploits, she was billed as the "Spy of the Cumberland" and the "the greatest heroine of the age."​

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Occupation after War:

1865: Her friend, Ferdinand Sarmiento, helped write her exaggerated biography, "The Life of Pauline Cushman: The celebrated Union Spy and Scout"​

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1872: Operated a Hotel and livery stable with her new husband Jere Fryer​

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Lived her last few years in a boarding house in San Francisco, working as a seamstress and charwoman

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1893: Living in Poverty, in June she began receiving back pension based on her first husband's military service in the amount of $12 per month​

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She was disabled from the effects of rheumatism and arthritis, and she had developed an addiction to pain medication​

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1893: On the night of December 2nd, she took a suicidal overdose of opium, she was found the next morning by her landlady​

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1893: Cushman was buried with full military honors.​

Died: December 2, 1893

Age at Death: Age 60

Place of Death: San Francisco, California

Cause of Death: Suicide by overdose of morphine.

Burial Place: Officer's Circle at the San Francisco National Cemetery, San Francisco, California

 

[archieclement]

Is it just me or does her uniform look padded in comparison to the dress?

 

[LondonLincoln]

Think it's just the way it sits and the position she's in.
fascinating read non the less

 

[Pollaco]

Actually it was veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic that gave her the full military funeral in San Francisco.

 

[7thWisconsin]

That coat is a little on the big side. That accounts for the way it drapes... or doesn't. She looks an awful lot like a reenactor when in uniform, I have to admit.

 

[Belle Montgomery]

She wasn't a very good wife and mother in her first marriage. She left her sick husband in Cleveland to travel then he died. After her son died she left her daughter with her sister-in-law Mary Ellen Dickenson Ferris and she died later hence being buried under her aunt's last name "Ferris" All three are buried in Cleveland's Woodland Cemetery. Ida has no marker.