Fact or Folklore?   May 3, 2003

Reviewed by aNN Brown
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers


Review For Cathy Williams Book   July 19, 2002
  2 out of 4 found this review helpful

I just finished this wonderful book....enjoyed it very much..One can see all the truly great research that went into this book...This Missouri Author Phillip Tucker has written about 25 Civil War Books..All have best good sellers...I would recommend everyone reading his books....Dr. AJ & Janet Canpbell


interesting and well written   June 15, 2002
  1 out of 2 found this review helpful

I found this book to be interesting and very enjoyable. It is an example of how one woman turned adversity into her triumph. I would recommend it highly.


A Seriously Flawed Book!   April 5, 2002
  10 out of 17 found this review helpful

This is a book that should, at best, have been an article in a scholarly journal or popular magazine. The great majority of the text is what politely might be termed "fluff." There is so little actually known about the subject of the book that the author has filled his pages with generalities and speculations to lengthen to story. The first three chapters deal with Cathy Williams' supposed service with the 8th Indiana Infantry Regiment, which is based exclusively on a newspaper account published in 1876. Tucker admits "no official record existed of her Civil War service" yet takes that article at face value and attempts to find support for it. One aspect of the tale should serve to show how weak it is. Williams claimed to have been with the regiment during the Red River Campaign in 1864. This was patently impossible because, at that time, the unit was home on veteran furlough. Tucker apparently did not research this or chose to ignore the fact since it contradicts Williams' tale.

Again, there is no proof that the person calling herself "Cathy Williams" for the newspaper story had, in fact, disguised herself as a man and served as "William Cathay" in the 38th U. S. Infantry after the Civil War. The woman whose tale was published might easily have gotten the discharge certificate from the real William Cathay and then claimed it as her own. Tucker's six chapters on the service of William Cathay are also almost exclusively "fluff." They are replete with "probablys" and "might haves" since not one scintilla of evidence exists to describe Williams' activities if she actually had been in the 38th U. S. Infantry. Far too many of these speculations about Williams' feelings and thoughts are colored by a 21st century "politically correct" perspective.

Finally, in talking about a doctor who examined Williams and found her in good health, Tucker writes: "It is possible that he had not served in the Civil War or in any Indian War like Cathy Williams, and felt that he was less of a man upon meeting a female veteran of two wars." This and other comments that follow reek of "politically correct" psychobabble and impugn the reputation of a man about whom Tucker knows nothing. He too easily points a finger at "racism" and "sexism" as the reasons for denying Williams' pension application, when the truth is that there simply was no evidence to support her claim. Oddly, Tucker fails to cite Williams' pension file found in the National Archives even though it is available to any researcher. His only source is a journal article about Williams' alleged service as a Buffalo soldier.