Irene Morales Infante

Irene Morales Infante was a Chilean soldier who served in the War of the Pacific. She was born in a barrio of Santiago, and lived in poverty throughout her life, working as a seamstress from an early age. At the time the War of the Pacific began she was onlyyears old, and had been orphaned and twice widowed. Her second husband was executed by the Bolivian military for killing a soldier. She tried to pass herself as a man and enlist as a soldier in the Chilean Army. This failed, but she was given a position as an unofficial cantinire and military nurse, marching alongside the infantrymen to sell food and drink, and caring for the wounded after battles.

Morales was born onApril 1865 in La Chimba, a barrio on the Mapocho River in Santiago de Chile, the daughter of carpenter Ventura Morales and Marta Infante. Her father died when she was young, and she moved with her mother to Valparaiso. There she started to learn her mothers trade as a seamstress until her mother married her to an older man in 1877, at age 11. Her husband died during the first year of their marriage, and her mother died about the same time.

Source: Wikipedia