Lyons Wakeman

Sarah Rosetta Wakeman (January 16, 1843 – June 19, 1864) was an American female soldier who served in the Union army during the American Civil War under the male name of Lyons Wakeman. Wakeman served with Company H, 153rd New York Volunteer Infantry. Her letters written during her service remained unread for nearly a century because they were stored in the attic of her relatives.

Early life Wakeman was born January 16, 1843, in Bainbridge, New York, to Harvey Anable Wakeman and Emily Hale Wakeman. She was the oldest of nine children in the farming family of Afton, New York. By the age of seventeen, she had received some formal education and was working as a domestic servant. Wakeman understood the tremendous financial pressure her family was under, and without possible suitors to take on her expenses, Wakeman left her home as a man in 1862 and went to work as a boatman for the Chenango Canal. and enlisted on August 30, 1862, using the name Lyons Wakeman and claiming to be 21 years old. The bounty would have been incredible motivation for Wakeman to enlist, being far more than what she could earn as a woman. Wakeman enlisted as a private of Company H of the 153rd New York State Volunteers in Root, New York.

Death and legacy Pvt. Lyons Wakeman headstone in the Chalmette National Cemetery

The Red River Campaign claimed several lives including Wakeman's own. She contracted chronic diarrhea of which she eventually died on June 19, 1864, in the Marine USA General Hospital in New Orleans. She was buried with full military honors at Chalmette National Cemetery in New Orleans.

Her letters and their record of her military experiences were discovered more than a century after her death in a relative's attic in 1976. Wakeman's letters were subsequently edited and published by Lauren Burgess in 1994 as An Uncommon Soldier: The Civil War Letters of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, alias Pvt. Lyons Wakeman, 153rd Regiment, New York State Volunteers, 1862–1864. Her relatives still have the letters, a photograph, and a ring of Wakeman's.