All the Daring of the Soldier

These are the stories of the women who worked as spies, as daughters of the regiments, or, disguised, as male soldiers to play their heroic part in the Civil War. Here are the stories of Belle Boyd, a proud Confederate loyalist and key player in Stonewall Jackson's struggle to hold the Shenandoah Valley, army woman Annie Etheridge, whose four long years of courageous work on the field earned her a Kearney Cross for bravery, Sarah Emma Edmonds, who enlisted as "Franklin Thompson," remained with her regiment as a much respected soldier for two years, and fought at Fredricksburg and elsewhere; and many other courageous women.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.