Ulrika Eleonora Stålhammar
Ulrika Eleonora Stålhammar (1683 in Svenarum – 16 February 1733 at Björnskog in Hultsjö), was a Swedish corporal and crossdresser who served in the Great Northern War. She was put on trial for having served in the military posing as a man and for marrying a woman. She has been the object of plays, literature, research and exhibitions. Background Ulrika Eleonora Stålhammar was born to lieutenant-colonel Johan Stålhammar (1653-1711) and Anna Brita Lood (d. 1699). Her exact year of birth is not confirmed, as the church documents are missing for the 1680s. The year 1683 is traditionally given because her age at the time of her death in 1733 is given as 50 years old. In any event, she was born after her elder sister Elisabet Catharina, who was born in 1680, and before the eldest of her younger sisters, Brita Christina, who was born in 1689, and 1683 or 1688 are often given as her year of birth. She had five sisters: Elisabet Catharina (1680-1730), Brita Christina (1689-1749), Maria Sofia (1690-1766), Gustaviana Margareta (1691-?) and Anna Brita (1696-1756). Her father Johan Stålhammar was himself a veteran of the war, but became almost ruined after his retirement in 1702. She was raised at Stensjö manor. Ulrika later stated she had always enjoyed the tasks usually given to men, that she had hardly learned any of the tasks normally performed by females at all. She said that people who had seen her hunt and ride had told her that it was a shame that she was not a man, so her talents would have "been put to better use in the world". After the death of her heavily indebted father in 1711, she and her five sisters were left without money, and the family estate was mortgaged. They relied on the charity of relatives and entered into arranged marriages with people whom they considered to be below their standards in order to support themselves: within four years of her father's death, all her sisters were married. Ulrika, who had watched her sisters enter unpleasant marriages, did not wish to marry, and in March 1713, she dressed herself in her father's clothes, stole a horse from the stable and ran away from home. Reportedly she "escaped a proposed marriage which was for her unpleasant". She took on the name of Vilhelm Edstedt. She had the plan to enlist in the army from the beginning, and "long searched for an opportunity to enlist, working until then as taffeltäckare for Governor Mannerborg in Åbo, and as a servant to guard lieutenant Casper Johan Berch". Military career and marriage Ulrika Eleonora Stålhammar finally enlisted in the army as an artillerist in Kalmar on 15 October 1715 under the name of Vilhelm Edstedt. She did not participate in active warfare, as she was posted in the garrison of Kalmar, which did not see any action during the Great Northern War. Nevertheless, she was successful in her professional conduct and was eventually promoted to the rank of