Albert D. J. Cashier was a soldier serving in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was born Jennie Irene Hodgers in Clogherhead, County Louth, Ireland, on Christmas Day in 1843. Jennie Hodges emigrated to the United States sometime before 1862 at which time she was living as a man named Albert Cashier. Cashier joined the 95th Illinois Infantry Regiment, part of the Army of the Tennessee under General Ulysses S. Grant from Belvidere, Illinois, where he had been living.
Cashier was thought by fellow soldiers simply to be smaller than most men and a bit of a loner, but it would be many years before anyone suspected his biological identity as a woman. He served in approximately forty battles, including the siege at Vicksburg, the Red River Campaign and the combat at Guntown, Mississippi, where the regiment suffered heavy casualties. he remained in the army until August 17, 1865, when all soldiers were mustered out.
Cashier returned to Belbidere, Illinois, and later relocated to Saurmin, Illinois, where he held a number of laborer jobs, inclluding farm hand, church janitor, and city lamplighter. One of his employers built him a small one-person house where he lived for many years and which is currently being restored as a landmark. Under his Cashier identity he voted before women's suffrage, and he claimed and received a veteran's pension from his service from 1862-1865.
It is believed that Cashier kept his secret until a family he ate with at their house asked a nurse to check on him, but they never revealed his gender. Some years later n 1910 when Cashier was hit by a car and broke his leg, the doctor who attended him also learned the truth, but he also never revealed what he learned. Not even a year later on May 5, 1911, Cashier was moved to the Soldier and Sailors home in Quincy, Illinois. He lived there until his mind deteriorated and was moved to the Watertown State Hospital for the Insane in March 1913. He could no longer hide that he was female and was forced to wear a dress from then on until his death on October 10, 1915.
Albert Cashier was buried as he wished in his full army uniform which he had preserved for over 50 years. His tombstone read "Albert D. J. Cashier, Co. G, 95 Ill. Inf." The executor of his estate took nine years to track his identity to Jennie Hodges from Ireland, but no convincing record was found of suitable standing to award his estate. It totaled nearly $150,000 and deposited with the treasury of Adams Vounty, Illinois. In 1970 a new tombstone bearing both Cashier's names was placed on his grave.
There are two books about Cashier's life:Also Known As Albert D. J. Cashier: The Jennie Hodgers Story, a biography written by veteran Lon P. Dawson, who lived at the Illinois Veterans Home where Cashier once lived.
My Last Skirt
, a novel by Lynda Durrant.