Harriet Ann Jacobs was born into slavery but refused to let the institution define her. Ferociously independent, Jacobs stood up for herself in a time when such actions could result in her death.

Cashier was not the only woman to hide her identity to join one of the Civil War's belligerents. Historians estimate as few as 400 or as many as 1,000 women hid their gender to fight the war as men.