Maria Lewis (soldier)

Lewis was born around 1846, in Albemarle County, Virginia, where she and her family were kept as slaves.[2] At the age of seventeen, she emancipated herself from slavery by disguising herself as a "darkly tanned" white man, and joining company C of the 8th New York Cavalry.[3] She adopted the name George Harris, after the character from Uncle Tom's Cabin, who similarly escaped by passing himself for a Spanish man.[4] She originally planned to use the identity to travel North, she decided to stay with the army, after finding she enjoyed the freedom life as a white man brought her. Lewis remained with General Philip Sheridan's cavalry unit in the Shenandoah Valley for an additional eighteen months.[4] While serving, she fought at the Battle of Waynesboro on the second of March.[2] Lewis distinguished herself amongst her fellow soldiers, and became a member of the honor guard assigned to present seventeen captured rebel flags to the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton.[4] She became friends with an abolitionist family from New York, the Wilburs, and after her service, she came to them and confessed to being a woman. The family gave her skirts, and found her a place to work. Lewis later received "lessons" from Julia's sister, Frances, presumably learning to read and write, of which was barred to enslaved people prior to the civil war.[5] Little is known about her life after the war.

• List of female American Civil War soldiers
• Cathay Williams
• Loreta Janeta Velázquez
• Mary Bowser