Sarah Jane Smith, a resident of Washington County, Arkansas, traveled to Missouri with her cousins. Sarah and her cousins, who were noted guerrillas, destroyed the telegraph line between Rolla and Springfield twice in 1864. The group destroyed three to four miles of telegraph wire and cut down several telegraph poles outside Springfield in May 1864. They were caught and eventually paroled in Rolla. On her release, she destroyed another section of telegraph wire outside of Rolla in September 1864. After the second incident, Sarah was sentenced to death; her sentence was commuted to imprisonment for the duration of the war, and she was sent to Alton Military Prison in Illinois to serve her sentence.
Other women took an active part as soldiers in the Civil War. On August 10, 1861, a female corporal who enlisted in the 1st Kansas Infantry under the alias Alfred J. Luther was one of the 873 Union soldiers wounded at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek.
Numerous women fought and died on both sides while passing themselves off as men during the war.
