Ms. Blanton is Senior Archivist at the National Archives specializing in the nineteenth century American armues,   She is co-authored They Fought Like Demons, published in 2002,  a book on women soldiers in the Civil War, which contains new research and important analysis on Velazquez in relation to hundreds of other documented American  women who fought as soldiers in the American Civil War.  Her article on Civil War women soldiers published in the spring 1993 issue of Proloque earned her the 1993 Sara Jackson Award for original scholarship.