Mary E. Hooker

Pension File: 907755
P.O.: Goshen, Indiana
Service: Private, Co. F, 26th Ohio
Applied: 1891
Status: Rejected

The first sign that this folder was going to be fun was the alias after Hooker's name: Charles E. Dewey, Co. K, 26th Ohio.
The second was the headline on the newspaper article I found tucked into this file read: "A Romance of the Late War Comes To Light Through An Application For Pension."
Did it live up to the hype?
Oh yeah.

The newspaper article explains it all.  Mary E. Hooker, then Mary E. Dewey, was a young woman engaged to be married to Benjamin Brown.  The date for the wedding was set, and then Lincoln issued his called for volunteers.  "Benjamin's heart was filled with martial ardor," the article declared, "and insensible alike to his own safety and the protests of his sweetheart," he enlisted in the 26th Ohio.  For Mary, well, "Benjamin might be happy without her, but she could not live away from her lover," so she disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the same company as Benjamin.  They continued to fight side by side, even after Mary was wounded in the knee at Spottsylvania Courthouse.  When the war ended, the pair returned home and were finally married.  Benjamin died years later, and Mary married Mr. Hooker.  Without access to a widow's pension, since she was a married woman, she applied for a pension based on her service as a soldier.  Hence the newspaper article.
Sounds credible so far, right?  From what I could make out of the surgeon's affidavit (the combination of technical terms and spidery hand-writing makes it almost impossible to make out), Hooker did have a scar on her left leg just below the knee, but apparently it was inflicted at Antietam.
So, was it Antietam or Spottsylvania?
Turns out, doesn't matter.
The next paper was a letter from Alexander Fraser, the lieutenant of Co. F, 26th Ohio, to the Pension Bureau stating that there was no such persons as Charles Dewey or Benjamin Brown in the 26th, nor did the regiment fight at Spottsylvania, or Antietam.  In fact, the regiment was mustered out in June, 1862.
Oops.
Needless to say, Mary Hooker did not receive a pension for her service in the line of duty.  That should be the end of it, but it leaves me with a question.  Mary Hooker really had no chance of gaining a pension by lying about her service.  The military records are complete enough to demolish her claims.  For nurses, however, the records are practically non-existent.  Almost every file has a letter from the Bureau to the War Department asking them to examine the records for a specific woman.  The problem is, however, since these women were rarely considered actual military personnel, they're almost never in the records!
Mary Hooker couldn't put forward her fraudulent claim as a soldier, but a woman like Mary Hooker could put forward her fraudulent claim as a nurse with great ease.  Here's the question now that's eating me: how do I tell the difference between a woman who really served, and a woman who's lying?