Albert Cashier

Albert D. J. Cashier (December 25, 1843 – October 11, 1915) was an Irish-born American soldier who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Cashier became famous as one of at least 250 soldiers who were assigned female at birth and enlisted as men to fight in the Civil War. He adopted the identity of a man before enlisting, and maintained it until death. The consistent and nearly lifelong (at least 53 years) commitment to a male identity has prompted some historians to believe that Cashier was a trans man.

Early life According to a later investigation by the administrator of Cashier's estate, Albert Cashier was born Jennie Irene Hodgers in Clogherhead,notetag|This is spelled "Clogher Head" in the Tsui book.

Cashier was elderly and suffering from dementia He could not read or write and instead marked an X on the enlistment papers. Along with others from Boone and McHenry counties, Cashier was trained to be an infantryman of the 95th Regiment at Camp Fuller in Rockford. After being shipped out by steamer and rail to Confederate strongholds in Columbus, Kentucky and Jackson, Tennessee, the 95th was ordered to Grand Junction where the regiment became part of the Army of the Tennessee under General Ulysses S. Grant. Settling in Saunemin, Illinois in 1869, he worked as a farmhand as well as performing odd jobs around the town, and can be found in the town payroll records. For over forty years, Cashier lived in Saunemin and was a church janitor, cemetery worker, and street lamplighter. Living as a man allowed Cashier to vote in elections and to later claim a veteran's pension under the same name.

In later years, Cashier ate with the neighboring Lannon family. The Lannons discovered his birth sex when he fell ill, but decided not to make their discovery public. and was buried in uniform. The government supplied the typical small gravestone used to mark a veteran's resting place which was inscribed "Albert D. J. Cashier, Co. G, 95 Ill. Inf." He was given an official Grand Army of the Republic funerary service, and was buried with full military honors. Also Known As Albert D. J. Cashier: The Jennie Hodgers Story is a biography written by veteran Lon P. Dawson, who lived at the Illinois Veterans Home where Cashier once lived. The novel My Last Skirt, by Lynda Durrant, is based on his life. He was mentioned in a collection of essays called Nine Irish Lives, in which his biography was written by Jill McDonough.

In Michael Leali's 2022 young adult novel, The Civil War of Amos Abernathy, Cashier stands in for a pen pal.

Cashier's one-room house is now a historic site. The house served as a tool shed and nursery for hatchling chickens at one point and was relocated eight times in 137 years. In 1982, members of the local Women's Club moved it back to Saunemin with plans to display it that never fully materialized. After this it was so dilapidated that local firefighters planned to burn it down as a training exercise. Former Pontiac tourism director Betty Estes rescued it in 1996 hours before the firefighters could set it ablaze. She relocated the house to Pontiac, and utilized it as a streets department shed. Later on, volunteers such as local historian and village board member Al Arnolts meticulously restored the house. "We built a new framework and put it back together," Arnolts said. "The shake shingles that are on the roof came from a cedar tree right here in town." The newly restored home was dedicated in a ceremony in August 2011.