| Birth Name: | Maria Lewis |
| Other Name: | George Harris |
| Birth Place: | Albemarle County, Virginia |
| Death Date: | Unknown |
| Allegiance: | Union Army |
| Serviceyears: | 1863-1865 |
| Rank: | Private |
| Unit: | Company C of the 8th New York Cavalry |
| Battles: | Battle of Waynesboro, Virginia, Battle of Gettysburg |
Maria Lewis, also known by the alias George Harris, was a Union Civil War soldier, and former slave, who gained distinction in the Eighth New York Cavalry.[1]
Lewis was born around 1846, in Albemarle County, Virginia, where she and her family were kept as slaves.[2] At the age of seventeen, she emancipated herself from slavery by disguising herself as a "darkly tanned" white man, and joining company C of the 8th New York Cavalry.[3] She adopted the name George Harris, after the character from Uncle Tom's Cabin, who similarly escaped by passing himself for a Spanish man.[4] She originally planned to use the identity to travel North, she decided to stay with the army, after finding she enjoyed the freedom life as a white man brought her. Lewis remained with General Philip Sheridan's cavalry unit in the Shenandoah Valley for an additional eighteen months.[4] While serving, she fought at the Battle of Waynesboro on the second of March.[2] Lewis distinguished herself amongst her fellow soldiers, and became a member of the honor guard assigned to present seventeen captured rebel flags to the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton.[4] She became friends with an abolitionist family from New York, the Wilburs, and after her service, she came to them and confessed to being a woman. The family gave her skirts, and found her a place to work. Lewis later received "lessons" from Julia's sister, Frances, presumably learning to read and write, of which was barred to enslaved people prior to the civil war.[5] Little is known about her life after the war.