She has been interpreted as a military heroine, as a symbol for the war against sexism, as a tool of Imperial recruitment propaganda, and as an archetypal warrior-maiden.

Disguised as a man, with a military-style haircut, her breasts wrapped up, and wearing military headgear, she walked more than 250 miles[4] to the provincial capital to enlist.

Though an offer was made to her to become an auxiliary nurse, she declined, stating she wanted to avenge the "humiliation passed by his countrymen at the hands of heartless Paraguayans."

After her case was brought to the attention of Franklin Dória, Baron of Loreto, then president (the equivalent to the current post of governor) of the Province of Piauí, she was allowed to join the National Army as a second sergeant.

She set out from Teresina on a steamship which eventually carried 1302 Piauíenses who comprised the 2nd Grouping of Volunteers, under the command of Major John Fernandes de Moraes.

In November, the Minister of War, Visconde de Cairú, issued a letter denying permission for Feitosa to join the battlefront.

Here was a country girl from a remote part of the Empire who had disguised herself as a man in order to enlist: an example to encourage timorous male volunteers[7]: 196  and shame draft-dodgers.

That was why she was fêted and accompanied by newspaper reporters everywhere she went - her tour through the northern provinces has been described as a "veritable circus" - and granted an audience by the Emperor Pedro II himself.

The author and soldier Alfredo D'Escragnolle Taunay wrote that "she should have remembered that for a woman it is more noble to heal wounds than to open them".