When we think of a Civil War soldier, it's a man we see. But there were women out there on the battlefield, too - hundreds of them - fighting and dying for their cause. Let's travel back into the life of a secret lady soldier to find out why they joined, how they hid their identities, what they faced out in the field, how they were caught and what happened when they were. We'll explore their legacy and impact in their era and how they were almost completely written out of our history books.

Franklin Thompson did it all as a Civil War soldier: spied, rode, nursed, and fought. And during his service, almost no one knew his secret: that he was really Sarah Emma Edmonds in disguise. Emma left home in Canada at 17 to escape a life she didn't want, living as a man so she could make her own way in the world. When the American Civil War came, she felt called to join up and fight for the Union. She had many adventures as a soldier and spy, then went on to write a best-selling book about it all. Twenty years later, she fought another kind of battle: one for a soldier's pension, becoming one of the first women to be granted one. Let's explore the life and adventurous times of this fascinating unsung hero.

19th-century women weren't supposed to be devious - and that's what made them such effective spies. Hundreds of women tied gun parts to their crinolines, baked quinine into bread loaves, hid generals in their attics, and made daring midnight rides for their cause. In this episode, we follow four of them: Union ladies Elizabeth Van Lew and Mary Jane Bowser and Confederate dames Rose O'Neal Greenhow and Bell Boyd. They flirted, tricked, and cajoled the men around them, using their prejudice about a woman's place to achieve outrageous feats of courage and ingenuity. You won't believe what they did, and what they risked, to do their part for the conflict raging all around them.