Marie
Brose Tepe, also known as French Mary or Mary Tepe was born
August 24, 1834 in Brest, France and immigrated to the US
with her mother, shortly after her Turkish father's death
in 1844. At twenty, she married Bernardo Tepe, a Philadelphia
tailor. Seven years later when he enlisted in Company I of
the 27th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Marie joined his regiment
as a vivandiere.
Marie
left her husband and the 27th Pennsylvania Volunteers under
unfortunate circumstances. A veteran's account has it that,
"One night some soldiers, among whom was her husband,
broke into the vivandiere's tent and stole $1,600. The men
were afterwards punished, but the vivandiere decided to quit
the regiment. She refused to have anything to do with her
husband. [She was] requested to continue with the regiment,
but her indignation was so great that she left."
The
following year French Mary joined the 114th Pennsylvania,
Collis' Zouaves, and with this regiment she adopted her famous
uniform of blue Zouave jacket, red trimmed skirt, and red
trousers over a pair of boots. On her head she wore a man's
sailor hat with the brim turned down and she armed herself
with a pistol. (See photograph above.)
Mary
traded in contraband whiskey; which she also carried in a
large keg onto the battlefield to assist the 
wounded,
and tobacco, cigars, hams and items not issued by the government.
When the regiment was inactive she would cook, wash, mend,
and write letters for the soldiers drawing a payment of a
soldier and allowed 25 cents extra per day for hospital and
headquarters work. Her pay came to $21.45/month for over two
years.
An
enterprising woman, Mary was noted by a member of the 114th
on October 27, 1862 at a difficult fording of the Potomac
River. He wrote, "All were in the same predicament, excepting
the staff officers, who were on horseback and Marie, the vivandiere,
who had the forethought to pick up an old mule, on which she
safely crossed the river."
On
December 13, 1862 at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Mary took
a bullet in her left ankle and after the battle was said to
have received a silver cup presented to her by Lt. Col. Cavada
inscribed with the words, " To Marie, for noble conduct
on the field of battle."
She
received the Kearny Cross after the Battle of Chancellorsville
on May 3, 1863 for her help in organizing the field hospitals.
"She was a courageous woman and often got within range
of the enemy's fire whilst parting with the contents of her
canteen among our wounded men. Her skirts were riddled by
bullets during the Battle of Chancellorsville." (Mary
Tepe, seen above in an 1893 photograph, wears her Kearney
Cross and whiskey keg for an event honoring the Battle of
Fredericksburg.)
Spotted
again on march with her regiment in the campaign up to Gettysburg,
one soldier wrote, "One June 12th [1863] the entire 3rd
Corps passed us and a good opportunity was had for watching
this command pass in review. 
On
foot and marching with the 114th Pennsylvania we saw 'French
Mary.'" For weeks after the battle, Mary volunteered
her services as a nurse in the field hospital located on Taneytown
Road, behind the Round Tops. (During this time the famous
photograph, left, on East Cemetery Hill was taken of her.)
In
the Spring of 1864, Mary was seen at the Bloody Angle during
Spotsylvania by a soldier who wrote, "I looked around,
[and] sure enough there was a woman! She was about 25 years
of age, square featured and sunburnt, and dressed in Zouave
uniform in the vivandiere style. She was with two men and
they seemed to be looking for their regiment, the 114th Pennsylvania
Infantry."
After
the War, on April 9, 1872, Mary moved to the Pittsburgh area
and married Richard Leonard, a veteran of Company K, 1st Maryland
Cavalry. Twenty-five years later she filed for divorce but
never followed through and nine years later, in 1901, she
wrote out a will leaving all of her possessions valued at
$31.35 to her husband.
In
May of 1901, Mary took her own life, drinking "paris
green" a pesticide and paint pigment. It was said that
"for many years the aged woman had been an invalid and
was lately a great sufferer from rheumatism and a rebel bullet
which she still carried in her left ankle."
This
tireless and courageous vivandiere's grave lay unmarked for
eighty-seven years, until in 1988 a stone was erected and
then dedicated in a ceremony at St. Paul's Cemetery on Lafferty
Hill in Carrick, Pennsylvania.
