What Every Woman Should Know About The American Revolution
July 4, 2010
by Anna Belle Pfau
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Today we celebrate our nation’s 234th birthday. Like many countries, our collective past serves to bind us together through thick and thin, and some of the stories are as familiar to us as that Grimm fairy tales or Mother Goose. Some other stories, however, are not so familiar to us. We all know of George Washington’s victories, Thomas Jefferson’s gorgeous articulation of our common values, and John Adam’s prudence in defiance and in governance. The list of names we know from our founding is long–consider Patrick Henry, Ben Franklin, James Madison, Paul Revere, Benedict Arnold, and a host of others–and they are largely male, with the exception of Betsy Ross and Martha Washington, or the occasional mention of Abigail Adams.
Women played a role in our founding, but that history is seldom told to our children. As with early colonial women, we are left to educate our children in the whole history of our nation. That includes the tales of many brave women who actually fought in the American Revolution, or who served in a military capacity. You won’t often hear it in history class, but our nation has had female veterans from the very beginning. Here then, in celebration of our founding, is a sampler of women who served in the America Revolution.
Deborah Sampson was 21 years old when she enlisted in the Continental Army-as a man. At 5’7″ tall, few suspected that the soft-faced boy was actually a woman. She served from 1782 to 1783, a year and a half during which she saw battle and was wounded. She actually hid in the woods and tried to heal herself in order to escape being discovered. She was eventually discovered a year later by a Philadelphia physician who treated her for ailments related to her wounds. At that time, she had been assigned as a waiter to General John Patterson. The doctor eventually did tell the General about Deborah Sampson, on the day the soldiers were ordered home after the war had ended. According to legend, General Patterson never said a word, and honorably discharged Sampson that day. She later went on speaking tours where she told crowds about her experience, and was eventually awarded a soldier’s pension. He husband, Benjamin Gannett, was the only man to receive a widower’s pension as a result of his wife’s service during the American Revolution.
Margaret Corbin, or Captain Molly as she was later called, was the first woman to man a cannon in the American Revolution. She is often confused with Molly Pitcher, who will be discussed next. Captain Molly Corbin was wounded defending Fort Washington in 1776. Like many colonial wives, Corbin accompanied her husband on his tour, assisting as she could, running food and water to exhausted soldiers, or tending the wounded. She was with her husband when the “matross,” or gun-loader, was killed. She took over his duties without hesitation, and continued to man one of two guns that were defending Fort Washington and 600 Continental troops from 4,000 Hessian mercenaries sent by the British. Later in the battle, she saw her husband killed and took over the cannon completely. She was then wounded herself and left for dead, but was rescued when the Continental soldiers had to surrender. She was severely injured, having been hit by musket fire in her arm, chest, and face. Corbin was eventually the first woman granted a pension by the U.S. government for service in the American Revolution.
Mary Hays, better known as Molly Pitcher, was a camp follower like Margaret Corbin. She married William Hays at the tender age of 13, and was just 22 when she joined her husband on the battlefield. According to one eye-witness account of the Battle of Monmouth, Mary Hays was running a cartridge to her husband when a cannonball passed between her legs, blowing her petticoat off, but doing no other damage to her person. As bawdy as she was bold, the witness reported: “she observed that it was lucky it did not pass a little higher, for in that case it might have carried away something else, and continued her occupation.” Her husband was wounded during that same battle, and what happened next assured that Mary Hays’ name would live in history. She took the cannon rammer from her wounded husband’s hands and began to load the gun. She was the second American female to man a cannon during the American Revolution. She was later awarded a pension from the state of Pennsylvania for her service.
There are many more women who played an active role in the founding of our great nation. This sampler serves as a reminder that American women have a unique military history. Few other nations can count women among the troops that helped secure their founding and their safety. More little girls and boys need to hear the stories of these women and how they contributed to our country. Perhaps it could inspire more than one of those little girls to break with convention and tradition, as these women did, and achieve something that will go down in history too.
Additional links on women and the American Revolution:
Women in the American Revolution
Women of the American Revolution
Women in the Military (global)
Wonderful Anna Belle!!! It just goes to show that women rarely fit the mold and find success by doing the unexpected (think Sarah Palin….)
Just think of how we have regressed.
Had Mary Hays (Molly Pitcher) had the likes of a David Letterman or Maureen Dowd to contend with when she married at 13, we could all be sending our taxes to The Crown.
Nice article Anna Belle. Thank you.
Great piece Anna Belle.
It’s truly amazing that this educational content doesn’t seem to reach our schools. Something for us to work on together!
Thanks Anna Belle. I read this post with my daughter and she loved it.
Wanted to share this coloring book we have called “Heroines of the American Revolution”. It has pictures to color but each heroine also a full page of text detailing her contributions to the cause. it covers these women as well as many others. It is great b/c the child gets to read history while coloring. My daughter loves it and we’ve both learned a lot from this coloring book! I recommend it as a gift for all girls and boys.
http://www.amazon.com/Coloring.....088388173X
http://www.bellerophonbooks.co.....am_rev.jpg
Marvelous, Anna Belle. I’m going to pass it on to my granddaughter and my great granddaughter (she’s only one, but it’s never too early). Thank you.
Wonderful, Anna Belle!
I love it when we discover women’s history because many of really do grow up thinking that women were always victims, trapped either by slavery, drudgery, or corsets and embroidery.
When you realize that women were not always sitting down quietly accepting their role in society, your whole perspective and view of women changes.
I first learned of Deborah Sampson in junior high school many years ago by reading Patricia Clapp’s book I Am Deborah Sampson. It’s a good book, and Sampson is a fascination woman. She was ahead of her time.
Following up my own comment because I forgot to click the follow-up box.
A good read: Ladies of Liberty by Cokie Roberts. Get it for the beach or pool this summer. She also drops this cute little hand grenade: In N.J. at independence women who were property owners could vote! It was later rescinded, get this, because the question of free black men voting came up since men did not HAVE to be property owners to vote! She mentions a prominent female property owner in Englewood who, of course, could vote, making THIS entry in the Bergen County History archives particularly ironic.
<blockquote cite = "Among the contemporary social changes was the challenge
to the traditional position of women. In the fight for woman
suffrage Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who moved to Tenafly from
New York in 1869, played a leading part. The wife of Henry
B. Stanton, antislavery crusader, she was a proponent of
"Women's Rights" along with Lucretia Mott, Mrs. Horace Gree-
ley, the famous sisters Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin,
and Miss Susan B. Anthony. World renowned because of her
activities, Mrs. Stanton at the age of 65 appeared at the Tenafly
election polls in 1875, acompanied by her friend Susan B.
Anthony. Officials who refused them admittance suffered a
tongue lashing which ended at least in a moral victory for the
suffragette."
(I hope my code works!)
Welcome Still4Hill…glad to see you here!
Hi Amy!
Keep up the great work! Biden did one heck of a job in Iraq this weekend, huh…only 2 gaffes…leave international relations to the pro~!
We’ve added you to our blogroll.
Poor 9000 votes Joe! And I LOVE him! Good for him, visiting the troops. He’s one of the good guys.
Glen Beck, on Fridays has been running a series called founding fathers, he continues to include both minorities and women in the series…people never mentioned in the history books
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