Emma Edmonds

Emma Edmonds was born in St. John, Canada, in 1839. She had been a disappointment to her father, who always wanted a son. She was a tomboy and always climbed the highest trees and rode the fastest horses. She wore men's clothes as she worked in the fields of her father's farm. But she wasn't a boy and the schism between father and daughter widened. By the time she was sixteen she decided to go it alone and ran away from home. She headed to the nation to Canada's south that she admired for its defense of liberty and free. To the United States, "liberty" and "freedom" were not just words: they comprised the country's foundation and values.

When Emma was twenty-one, President Abraham Lincoln rallied the young men of America to join the Army to help in the fight to save the Union in the Civil War...