In the time since Nazis marched in Charlottesville to protest the proposed removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, a man who kept slaves and fought literal battles to retain his right to, there’s been some consideration as to who deserves a statue to be made of them. Who do we celebrate by committing them to expensive materials, and why do we celebrate them?
Though odds have been offered at 33/1 that Donald Trump - who has, somewhat predictably, said there were ‘both sides’ to the march which saw a car, allegedly driven by a man with ties to the far-right, plough into antifascist protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Hayer - will replace the statue with himself, there are some other, far better suggestions.
One came from Dredd, a Twitter user, who suggested that Cathay Williams be celebrated:
In response, another user said Williams 'pulled a Mulan’ and asked 'Where tf is Disney?’
Fully understanding it’ll take Disney a little while to put this movie together, here’s your need-to-know on what happened to the real-life Cathay Williams.
Born in 1844 in Independence, Missouri (yes, funny name for a place lived in by people who kept slaves), Williams was a house-servant on a plantation outside Jefferson City.
According to an interview she gave to the St Louis Daily Times in 1876, kindly reported by AmazingWomenInHistory.com ‘My master died [in Jefferson City] and when the war broke out and the United States soldiers came to Jefferson City they took me and other coloured folks with them to Little Rock, Colorado. Benton of the 13th army corps was the officer that carried us off. I did not want to go.’
Because the Union army was the side fighting against slavery (the Confederates, whose flag is still upheld by those keen on a return to the good ol’ days, were pro-slavery), it wasn’t right for them to keep slaves.
So they were employed, and Cathay, aged 17 in 1861, when the war started, worked as a cook and washerwoman for the army. She didn’t have much choice in the matter, and though she was actually paid for her duties, it wasn’t much and she was carted about to several key battlegrounds. After the war, there weren’t many jobs about for black people - rich plantation owners in the south didn’t want to suddenly start paying them - so Cathay assessed her options and thought she should enlist.
Women weren’t allowed to serve in the US Army until 1901, but Cathay, who stood at 5’9, switched her name to William Cathey and ‘passed’ well enough to become a soldier.
From November 15th 1866, when she was declared fit for duty (there were no medical examinations required to become a soldier), she was in Company A of the 38th Infantry. A cousin and a friend - both male - were in the same regiment, and they knew her secret, but never said anything: ‘They never “blowed” on me . They were partly the cause of me joining the army. Another reason was I wanted to make my own living and not be dependent on relations or friends.’
Cathay was in the all-black regiment, one of the Buffalo Soldiers as they were known, for two years before a surgeon discovered her secret: after contracting smallpox, she had spent a lot of time in hospital. Her fellow soldiers and superiors weren’t too pleased about the revelation, she later said: ‘The men all wanted to get rid of me after they found out I was a woman. Some of them acted real bad to me.’
Thanks to old-school prudery, Cathay's disability discharge does not acknowledge her gender fraud, with her commanding officer Captain Charles E. Clarke writing that Cathay was ‘feeble both physically and mentally, and much of the time unfit for duty. The origin of his infirmities is unknown to me.’
In New Mexico at the time of her discharge, Cathay stick about marrying briefly to a man who she left after he stole from her. She then moved to Trinidad, Colorado, where her waning health affected her terribly. Diabetes resulted in several toe amputations, and Cathay applied for a soldier’s pension, but it was denied her. The refusal didn’t acknowledge her gender deception, but said there was no grounds for her to get a disability pension. She died sometime around 1892-1900, meaning she didn’t live much past 50.
Cathay may not have fought in the Civil War, or seen much combat, but her labours contributed to the war effort - how could soldiers fight if they didn’t get fed? - and she went on to do whatever she could to survive without having to depend on anyone else. She was one of an estimated 400 women who posed as men to join the army, and for the 1860s, a time when women, and black women especially, were bottom of the pecking order, that’s a pretty huge feat. There's already a statue of her in Leavenworth, but why not another one?
*Feature Image: Painting form the U.S Army Profiles Of Bravery *
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The Only Woman To Fight In Boih World Wars Was Pretty Incredible
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.