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19th-Century Cross-Dressers from Georgia and Elsewhere
C ross-dressing, or transvestism, is,
strictly speaking, the wearing of
what are designated as women’s clothes by
those defined as men, or of “men’s clothes”
by people defined as women. Practitioners
may be “heterosexual” or “homosexual,”
occasional or habitual, serious or playful,
convincing or ludicrous. Their purposes
may be sexual, economic, aesthetic,
ritualistic or any combination of these.
Well documented around the world and
throughout history, it has, until recently,
been little discussed or described, being by
nature subversive of the most rigid and
unquestionable categories at the founda
tion of most societies. This series will only
skim the surface of contemporary gender
theory, notions of “coding,” and so on: we
will look at several cross-dressers of the
past century and at how their society
looked at them.
The most famous bit ot transvestite iore
connected with the Civil War was the
Northern version of the capture of
Confederate President Jefferson Davis near
Irwinville, Ga., on May 10, 1865: Readers
of Northern newspapers were titillated by
images of the gaunt, dour Episcopalian in
hoopskirts and a bonnet. The facts are that
Davis, reaching for his cloak in a dark tent,
grabbed his wife's shawl instead and met
his captors thus attired. Still, the image of
the vanquished archrcbel in full drag
persisted throughout the North for a
generation.
The real Confederate cross-dressers
were women. Some time back this column
was devoted to Martha Johnson Carrithers
of Athens who fought through the war
dressed as a man. There were undoubtedly
many such women on both sides in the
Civil War. One who left an account of her
adventures was Loreta Janeta Velazquez,
aka Lt. Harry T. Buford, CSA.
Loreta Velazquez was born in Havana,
Cuba, in 1842, the daughter of a Spanish
colonial official. When she was very young,
her family moved to Mexico and her father
served as an officer in the Mexican army in
the war with the United States. His
military exploits and hatred of the U.S.
inspired his young daughter who from her
earliest childhood imagined herself not
only a man but a leader of men on the
battlefield. Loreta was sent to live with her
aunt in New Orleans where she received a
convent education and entertained herself
after the household was asleep spending
hours before the mirror in her cousin’s
jacket and trousers. At 14 she eloped with
a young army officer to escape an arranged
marriage.
When the Southern states began
seceding, her husband resigned his commis
sion, enlisted a company of volunteers, and
led them to Florida. Not to be outdone,
Loreta, 19, had a couple of specially padded
uniforms made, donned a fake mustache,
and, as Lt. Harry Buford, set off for Arkan
sas, where she raised a company of volun
teers.
A trusted male friend had initiated her
into the mysteries of such male enclaves as
! saloons, railroad smoking cars, barber shops
and gambling rooms. She learned the
etiquette of standing drinks for companions
(she never risked anything stronger than
cider) and learned to smoke cigars, though
never to enjoy them. She found herself
mortified at the gross obscenity of male
conversation at all social levels; not even
panoramas of mutilated bodies or her own
shrapnel wounds seem to have horrified her
as much.
Having gone to such great lengths to
disguise herself, it seems that it would have
been only an afterthought for Velazquez to
have equipped Lt. Buford with a wedding
band and a daguerreotype of a fictive wife,
thus explaining a certain lack of interest m
the ladies who so eagerly sought the
company ot young officers. Instead she
seems to have enjoyed her role as a male
heartbreaker — no portions of her story are
told with so much relish as the many
episodes in which she is leading some
smitten belle or merry widow down the
garden path. Her delight in these many
episodes stands in contrast with the starchy
novelistic scenes depicting her relations
with her husbands (she resumed her female
aspect briefly after her first husband was
killed — her second marriage took place in
Atlanta in 1863; this husband did not
survive the war either).
As Lt. Buford, Velazquez saw combat at
First Manassas, Shiloh, Fort Donelson and
many other battles. She was wounded
several times, once so grievously that she
was forced to reveal her identity. As an
independent officer without assignment, she
was able-for a time to keep ahead of the
growing awareness of her identity through-
i out the confederate armies, but was
I eventually forced to resume her skirts and
I act as a spy and saboteur behind federal
lines. Her autobiography is less remarkable
for her military adventures than tor her
espionage behind the curtain of Southern
chivalry.
Next week:
Out On the Town.
©1996 John Ryan Seawright
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