More Than Mulan: A History of Cross-Dressing for War

We're covering seven real female warriors and soldiers across four continents and almost 1,900 years of history — women who disguised themselves as men to fight, and women who didn't have to. Featuring Hannah Snell (the British soldier who enlisted to hunt down her husband), Sarah Rosetta Wakeman (a Civil War soldier who kept her secret to the grave), Nadezhda Durova (the Russian cavalry officer awarded the St. George Cross), the Trung sisters (who led an army of 80,000 to overthrow Han China), Mai Bhago (the Sikh warrior who turned back an army of deserters), and Yaa Asantewaa (the Ashanti queen mother who led her people to war). Plus: what Deborah Sampson's story has in common with all of them.

A history podcast episode on women warriors, female soldiers, and women in war — from the American Revolution and the Civil War to the Napoleonic Wars, the Mughal-Sikh Wars, and the Ashanti Empire.

Sources:

Hannah Snell:

Hannah Snell — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Snell

Forces News: “Hannah Snell, A Female Soldier In Disguise”

Royal Marines History: “Hannah Snell Joins the Marines, 1747”

British Tars, 1740–1790: “Hannah Snell, A Woman and a Marine”

The Hunterian Blog: “Hannah Snell — Cross Dressing in the 1700s”

Academic: “Body and Gender Expressed by the Cross-Dressing of Hannah Snell…” (Academia.edu)

Primary: Robert Walker (attrib.), The Female Soldier; or, The Surprising Life and Adventures of Hannah Snell (1750)

Deborah Sampson: