Addressing the
Daughters of the American Revolution, April 19, 1926,
President Calvin Coolidge stated:
"The importance of
women in the working out the destiny of mankind ...
As there were fathers in our Republic so there were
mothers ...
By their abiding faith they inspired and encouraged the men; by their sacrifice they performed their part in the struggle out of which came our country.
... We read of the flaming plea of
Hanna Arnett, which she made on a dreary day in December, 1776, when Lord Cornwallis, victorious at Fort Lee, held a strategic position in New Jersey.
A group of Revolutionists, weary and discouraged, were discussing the advisability of giving up the struggle.
... Casting aside the proprieties which forbade a woman to interfere in the counsels of men,
Hannah Arnett proclaimed her faith.
In eloquent words, which at once shamed and stung to action, she convinced her husband and his companions that righteousness must win ..."
Coolidge continued:
"Who has not heard of
Molly Pitcher, whose heroic services at the Battle of Monmouth helped the sorely tried army of George Washington!
We have been told of
the unselfish devotion of the women who gave their own warm garments to fashion clothing for the suffering Continental Army during that bitter winter at Valley Forge.
The burdens of the war were not all borne by the men."
Molly Pitcher is generally believed to be
Mary Ludwig Hays.
When her husband enlisted, she followed the American army to Valley Forge, enduring the freezing 1777.
She was with a group of women known as "camp followers," organized by
Martha Washington,
Lucy Knox, wife of Colonel Henry Knox, and
Caty Greene, wife of General Nathanael Greene.
These
women scavenged for supplies, cooked food, washed clothes, formed sewing circles to knit and mended ragged uniforms and blankets, and cared for sick and dying soldiers.
One of the ladies, Mrs. Westlake, described
Martha Washington:
"I never in my life knew
a woman so busy from early morning until late at night as was
Lady Washington, providing comforts for the sick soldiers."
At Valley Forge, over 2,500 soldiers perished from hunger, typhoid, jaundice, dysentery, and pneumonia, but also
an estimated 500 women died there!
At the Battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778,
Mary Hays- "Molly Pitcher" and women "camp followers," carried water in pitchers to troops on the battlefield in the 100 degree temperature.
Water was also needed to cool and clean the hot cannon barrels between shots, using a soaked end of a long ramrod.
When
Mary's husband collapsed from heat stroke,
Mary took his place for the rest of the battle, swabbing and loading the cannon.
A British cannonball flew between her legs, tearing off part of her skirt. She uttered, "Well, that could have been worse," and resumed loading the cannon.
Soldier Joseph Plumb Martin described:
"A woman whose husband belonged to the artillery and who was then attached to a piece in the engagement, attended with her husband at the piece the whole time.
While in the act of reaching a cartridge and having one of her feet as far before the other as she could step, a cannon shot from the enemy passed directly between her legs without doing any other damage than carrying away all the lower part of her petticoat.
Looking at it with apparent unconcern, 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."
Hearing of her courage, General George Washington commended
Mary Ludwig Hays, issuing her a warrant as a non commissioned officer. She was known as "Sergeant Molly."
A similar story is that of
Margaret Cochran Corbin, wife of artilleryman John Corbin.
On November 16, 1776, John Corbin, along with 2,800 Continental soldiers, defended Manhattan's Fort Washington, which was being attacked by 9,000 Hessian mercenary troops.
Margaret Corbin was bringing water to swab the cannon, when her husband was killed.
She immediately took his place at the cannon, and helped return fire.
Seriously wounded in her arm,
Margaret Corbin, or "Captain Molly," was the first woman in U.S. history to be awarded a military pension.
During the Revolution,
women managed homesteads while their husbands fought.
They worked the farms, raised families, and dealt with Indians the British were stirring up to attack.
Women raised money for suffering soldiers, organized resistance protests, boycotted British-made products, which meant going back to using their old spinning wheels.
Women engaged in the riskier roles as messengers, scouts, saboteurs, or spies.
Many, like
Lucy Knox, left their Loyalist British families who sailed for England, never to see them again, in order to join their patriotic American husbands on military assignments in shifting encampments.
Lucy and
Colonel Henry Knox did not have a permanent home till they were married 20 years.
Esther DeBerdt Reed, wife of officer Joseph Reed, and
Sarah Franklin Bache, daughter of Benjamin Franklin, organized "The Ladies of Philadelphia" and raised $300,000 for General Washington, who used the money to buy warm clothes for American troops.
In addition to well known names, such as Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Dolley Madison, and Deborah Read Franklin, there were:
Catherine "Kate" Moore Barry, the "Heroine of the Battle of Cowpens," rode through the back trails of South Carolina to warn of approaching British troops and round up militia, including her husband, to join General Daniel Morgan for the Battle of Cowpens, January 17, 1781.
16-year-old
Sybil Ludington, on night of April 26, 1777, rode 40 miles through Putnam and Dutchess Counties waking up patriots to join the militia, led by her father, Colonel Henry Ludington, delivering the urgent warning that the British had burned Danbury, Connecticut, and were fast approaching.
Lydia Darragh, a Quaker, had her home commandeered by British officers for weeks. During their meetings,
Lydia would hide in a closet under the stairs and listened through the walls.
Hearing their plans,
Lydia made notes on small pieces of paper and sewed them into button covers on her son's coat, instructing him to go to General Washington's camp at Whitemarsh.
Her intelligence saved the Americans from a surprise British attack.
Hot tempered
Nancy Hart had her cabin searched by six British soldiers. They shot her prized turkey and ordered her to cook it.
While serving the soldiers wine, she discreetly passed their stacked muskets through a crack in the wall to her daughter outside.
When the soldiers finally noticed what she was doing, she pointed one of the guns at them saying that she would shoot the first one who moved, which she promptly did.
Nancy held the rest at gun point till her husband arrived. She insisted they be hung. In 1912, railroad construction worker grading land near the old
Hart cabin found a neat row of six skeletons.
22-year-old Deborah Champion, in September 1775, disguised as an old woman wearing a silk hood and an oversized bonnet, and rode from New London, Connecticut, to Boston, passing several British checkpoints.
She was delivering an urgent message from her father, Henry Champion - the Continental Army's commissary general, to General George Washington, hiding the important papers under the bodice of her linsey-woolsey dress.
Deborah Samson (or Sampson) Gannett, after being freed from being an indentured servant on a farm, bound her chest, dressed as a man, and enlisted in the Continental Army under the name Robert Shurtliff.
She served three years, being injured several times, but refused medical attention for fear of being found out. It was not until she became deathly ill of fever that the doctor discovered her identity. She was honorably discharged.
In 1792,
Deborah received back pay, and in 1805, Congress granted her a pension as a war veteran.
Martha Bratton, wife of Colonel William Bratton, blew up a cache of gunpowder to keep it from the British. When questioned, she proclaimed, "It was I who did it!"
A British officer held a reaping hook to her throat, demanding she confess where her husband was
, but
Martha refused to tell.
Nancy "Nanyehi" Ward was a Cherokee in eastern Tennessee.
Cherokee had sided with the British during the French and Indian War, and again during the Revolution.
Nanye'hi learned that the British had incited her tribe to attack a nearby American settlement.
She took the risk of freeing American prisoners so they could warn their village, one of whom, Lydia Bean, was expecting to be burned to death the next day.
While a captive, Lydia Bean and
Nanye'hi reportedly traded cooking advice, such as making butter.
When the men of Pepperell, Massachusetts, went off to war,
Prudence Cummings Wright and
Sarah Shattuck formed their own militia of women to protect the remaining townspeople "Mrs. David Wright's Guard." Their weapons were everything from muskets to farm tools.
On JANUARY 2, 1952, the U.S. Postal Service issued a
3-cent stamp in Philadelphia to commemorate the
200th anniversary of the birth of
Betsy Ross.
Born a day earlier, January 1, 1752, to a
Quaker family in Philadelphia,
Betsy was the 8th of 17 children.
Betsy apprenticed as a seamstress and fell in love with upholsterer
John Ross, son of an Episcopal rector at Christ Church and
nephew of Declaration signer, George Ross.
George Ross, the son of an Anglican clergyman, was a delegate from Pennsylvania to the
Constitutional Convention, being elected its first vice-president.
George Ross was a
colonel in the Continental Army and later an admiralty judge in Pennsylvania where
he refused to acknowledge the
authority of the Federal court over State decisions.
George Ross' sister married
George Read,
another signer of the Declaration.
As
Quakers forbade interdenominational marriage,
John and Betsy eloped, being married by
the last colonial Governor of New Jersey William Franklin, the son of Ben Franklin.
John and Betsy Ross attended
Christ's Church with:
-George Washington,
-Robert Morris,
-Francis Hopkins,
-Alexander Hamilton,
-Thomas Jefferson and
-Benjamin Franklin.
The Ross' pew, number
12, was next to a column adjoining
George Washington's pew number
56 and not far from
Ben Franklin's pew number
70
.
During the Revolution,
John Ross died when a munitions depot he was guarding blew up.
Shortly after, in June 1776,
General Washington reportedly asked
Betsy Ross to sew an American Flag.
Another woman who made the
Grand Union Flag of 1775 was Rebecca Flower Young, whose daughter
Mary Young Pickersgill made the famous "Star Spangled Banner" which flew over Fort McHenry during the War of 1812
DVD Miracles in American History (Vol. 1: Episodes 1-10)
A widow,
Betsy married sea captain
Joseph Ashburn at the
Old Swedes Church in 1777.
That winter the British forcibly quartered in the home of
Betsy and Joseph Ashburn.
Joseph Ashburn later sailed to the
West Indies for war supplies, but was captured and sent to
Old Mill Prison, where he died in 1782.
Fellow prisoner
John Claypoole later brought the news of Joseph's death to
Betsy, only to fall in love with her himself.
Betsy married
John Claypoole at
Christ Church, May 8, 1783, and together they had 5 children.
The Betsy Ross Bridge across the Delaware River connecting Philadelphia with Pennsauken, New Jersey, is named in her honor.
The Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890, and incorporated by an Act of Congress in 1896, with the motto:
"God, Home, and Country."
|
