When you think of the major figures in the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers
are probably the first ones that come to mind. But plenty of women also played significant
parts in the war effort. Here are several lesser-known heroines of the American Revolution.
Esther DeBert Reed was an activist and civic leader who worked to support the war effort.
Though English by birth, she married a lawyer from the colonies and
eventually came to understand things from the revolutionaries' point of view. To that end,
she authored and published a broadside advocating for patriotism and female support for the war.
Reed recruited 39 other women and formed the Ladies of Philadelphia organization to help
raise money for the Continental soldiers. After raising an incredible $300,000,
the women bought linen to make shirts for the men on the suggestion of General Washington,
as he feared that giving the money to the soldiers would only lead to them spending it on alcohol.
The women then sewed over 2,200 shirts. Unfortunately, Reed didn't live to see the end of
the war, as she died in 1780, after which her work was taken up by Ben Franklin's daughter Sarah.
Mercy Otis Warren was the leading female academic of the Revolutionary War period.
She also wrote poetry and was a political playwright. Born the third child of 13 to
prosperous lawyer James Otis Sr., she had no formal education of her own, though she
sat in on her brother's lessons and used her family members' libraries to educate herself.
In 1754, she married James Warren, who was quite political himself and encouraged her to write.
She also kept up a lively correspondence with John Adams,
often commenting on politics. And she even wrote political plays, mainly dramas and satires.
During the Revolution, Warren kept a written history of the war as it was happening,
in addition to writing poetry. With her account of the revolution, she was one of the first American
women to publish a nonfiction book, and she was the third to publish a book of poems. She
continued to actively write about her political friends until her death at age 86 in 1814.
Deborah Sampson disguised herself as a man to fight in the American Revolution
from May 1782 to October 1783. She was eventually found out and discharged,
though she was granted a federal pension for her service. Sampson was born into poverty.
Her father abandoned the family when she was five, and she was sent to stay with relatives.
But at the age of 10, they could no longer care for her, so she became an indentured servant for
the Thomas family in Massachusetts. When she turned 18, she supported herself as a teacher.
In May 1782, a disguised Sampson enlisted in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment,
who marched to West Point, New York, where Sampson was selected to be part
of the Light Infantry Troops. She spent most of her military career in the Lower
Hudson River Valley participating in small but dangerous missions.
During one mission, she was shot in the shoulder. Unable to receive medical attention without giving
herself away, she continued to work without removing the bullet. After getting a fever
in the summer of 1783, Sampson was honorably discharged that fall. After petitioning Congress
twice, she was placed on the pension list for disabled veterans due to her shoulder injury.
Born in 1725, Patience Wright was a Quaker, sculptor, and spy. When her husband Joseph died
while she was pregnant with their fourth child, she and her sister put their heads together and
started a sculpting business. She sculpted the heads and hands of her clients in wax,
attached them to a metal frame, and dressed them in real clothes.
Wright moved to England after a fire claimed many of her sculptures, but she supported the
revolutionaries' cause and used her wax business to smuggle secret information out to the colonies.
She conducted herself like an American while among London society, greeting people of
different classes as equals. One of her work techniques scandalized many people in London,
as she would mold the wax under her dress, using her body heat.
Wright also organized a group of activists in London who were
in favor of the revolutionary cause to raise money and uncover information from
the British military. She inserted that information into her wax figures, which
were then transported to the colonies. Wright herself planned to return to America in 1785,
but she had a bad fall and broke her leg. She passed away a week later on March 23, 1786.
Lydia Barrington was born in Ireland in 1729. When she was 24, she married a family friend,
William Darragh. Shortly afterward, they moved to Philadelphia to be with the city's
large Quaker community. In 1777, Lydia spied on the British on behalf of George Washington.
The British started to occupy Philadelphia that September,
while Washington and his army moved back to White Marsh in October.
Though most Quakers were neutral, the Darraghs quietly supported the revolutionary cause.
After British troops moved into her house, Darragh spied on meetings and was able to
warn General Washington about a sudden December attack on his army. Her 14-year-old son, John,
took her coded messages to his older brother, Charles, who was with the Second Pennsylvania
Regiment. In the case of the December attack, Darragh warned the Patriots herself by walking
to the Rising Sun Tavern on the pretext of filling a flour sack at the mill.
Washington's troops were sufficiently prepared, thanks to Lydia's courage.
The attack led to four days of fighting that ended with a stalemate, after which the British
returned to Philadelphia. After the Revolution, Lydia managed a store until her death in 1789.
Nancy Hart was a frontierswoman who spied on the British during the Revolution.
She married Benjamin Hart when she was in her 30s, and the family moved to the Broad River
area of Georgia in the 1770s. At around 6 feet tall, Nancy Hart cut an imposing figure. She
was so fearsome that local Cherokees called her "Wahatche", meaning "war woman." She frequently
disguised herself as a man and wandered through British camps in search of information that she
could pass onto the revolutionaries, especially as the war moved south.
On one occasion, Hart even managed to hold several British soldiers captive at her cabin.
They had killed one of her turkeys and expected her to cook it for them. Meanwhile, she devised a
plan to get them drunk, take their weapons, and hold them captive. Her plan mostly succeeded,
though when she was caught holding the last gun, she killed one soldier and injured another. The
rest backed off, and when Benjamin Hart returned, he found his wife and daughter
with several British captives. Neighbors helped the family hang the men from surrounding trees.
On April 26, 1777 in New York, Sybil Ludington,
daughter of Colonel Henry Ludington, embarked on a ride that was similar to Paul Revere's.
She was only 16 years old at the time. She rode 40 miles in the rain to warn the community of Putnam
County that the British were planning to raid the Patriot provisions held in Danbury, Connecticut.
Unlike Paul Revere, Ludington managed to avoid being captured during her ride.
Nevertheless, the British were ultimately successful in their Danbury raid. Still,
notified by Ludington in advance, the Patriots were in place to engage the British close by
in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and their militias pushed the British back to Long Island Sound.
"The British are coming! You have to follow me! Come back to the Ludingtons’!"
In 1784, after the Revolution had ended, Ludington married a lawyer named Edward Ogden.
She lived until the age of 77 but died in poverty on February 26, 1839, her petition
for a Revolutionary War pension having been denied, due to insufficient proof of marriage.
Almost a hundred years after her death, New York State placed markers along her route in 1935.
Born in 1756, Lucy Flucker Knox was one of many wives who followed the army when possible.
She was the daughter of a British official, and her family expected her to marry someone in the
gentry. But instead, she married bookseller Henry Knox for love when she was 17. A year later, Lucy
and Henry snuck away from their Boston home in the dead of night. Their destination was the patriot
headquarters in Cambridge. Henry Knox was thought to be a rebel and therefore wasn't permitted to
leave Boston. Lucy carried her husband's sword, which had been secretly sewn into her cloak.
Over the next two years, the Knoxes were apart more than they were together. Henry was first
working on artillery in Roxbury and left Lucy in Worcester with other army wives, believing
that it would be safer. Lucy and Henry's letters from this time provide an invaluable portrait of
the Revolutionary War for married couples who were forced to separate. In 1778, Lucy finally joined
her husband, by then a chief artillery officer, at Valley Forge. She proved to be very helpful to the
soldiers simply by providing good hospitality. Her determination to join Henry at Valley Forge
demonstrated her spirit and determination to be more and do more than what was asked of her.
Margaret Corbin took her fallen husband's place loading and firing a cannon in the
Battle of Fort Washington, and she was the first woman to receive a military pension
from the American government. She may also have been known as Molly Pitcher, though that
nickname was used for several women who brought water for the cannons during the Revolution.
Corbin was orphaned at the age of five when Native Americans attacked her family in Pennsylvania.
She and her brother were then raised by an uncle. In 1772, she married John Corbin at the age of 21.
John joined the Pennsylvania military three years later,
and Margaret went with him, doing laundry and helping to care for ill and wounded soldiers.
Toward the end of 1776, the war was raging in Manhattan. At the Battle of Fort Washington,
Margaret donned men's clothing and participated alongside her husband.
When he was killed, she took over his station, firing the cannon with skill.
She took a hit to her left side, leaving her arm unusable for the rest of her life.
In 1779, the Continental Congress awarded her a pension for life and a set of clothes to replace
those that were damaged by her injuries. She was discharged from the army in 1783,
and in 1926, her remains were reburied at West Point with full military honors.
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