By Rosemary Johnson, B.A. in History and Museum Studies, Christopher Newport University (’26), and Sheri Shuck-Hall, PhD, Professor of History, Christopher Newport University
In June 1775, the Continental Congress created the Continental Army by bringing together local militias and volunteer soldiers. Commander-in-Chief George Washington faced the massive challenge of turning these everyday citizens into a disciplined fighting force. To succeed, the army required more than just weapons and strategies; it needed a daily support system. Thousands of women, known historically as “camp followers,” stepped up to fill this role.[1]
While they held no official military rank, these women kept the army running. They cooked meals, washed uniforms, and nursed sick and wounded soldiers. Meanwhile, the wives of wealthy officers visited winter camps to boost morale, and a few exceptionally brave women even disguised themselves to fight on the front lines. This exhibit will explore the essential roles, daily hardships, and extraordinary bravery of the camp followers and hidden female soldiers who sustained the American fight for independence.
Behind the Front Lines: The Daily Lives of Camp Followers
Most women who marched alongside the troops came from poor or working-class backgrounds. For them, joining the army was a mix of patriotism and survival. In the 1700s, society expected women to manage the household, raise children, cook, clean, and provide medical care. When the war disrupted the colonial economy and forced families from their homes, many women brought these exact skills to the military camps. While official records rarely counted these women, surviving letters and food logs show that camp followers made up about three percent of the Continental Army’s total numbers.[2]
Life on the road was incredibly harsh, and women received no special treatment. Regulations often banned camp followers from riding in baggage wagons, forcing them to march on foot behind the soldiers while carrying heavy gear, tools, and young children. Despite their hard work, many officers viewed camp followers as a nuisance that slowed down military movements. General George Washington addressed this issue in his General Orders on August 4, 1777, complaining that the women were a “clog upon every movement” and urging officers to remove anyone “not absolutely necessary.” Yet, Washington knew he could not get rid of them completely. Camp followers performed essential work that kept the camps clean, and forcing the women to leave would encourage soldiers to desert to protect their families.[3]
What historians know about these women comes from documents written by male officers, who often overlooked women’s contributions. Because education was a privilege reserved for the wealthy, lower-class women rarely knew how to write diaries or letters about their experiences. For a long time, early historians focused exclusively on upper-class figures like Martha Washington, whose stories were easily preserved. Today, public history sites and museums, such as the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, are actively working to bring the stories of ordinary working-class camp followers back into the spotlight.
A Tale of Two Worlds: Martha Washington and the Officer Corps Encampments
As the wife of the Commander-in-Chief, Martha Washington experienced quite a different side of the war. She and the wives of other high-ranking officers traveled to the winter camps specifically to boost morale and bring a sense of home comfort to the troops. During the brutal winter at Valley Forge in 1777–1778, Martha stayed in the general’s headquarters, mending uniforms, hosting dinners, and welcoming political visitors.
This comfortable lifestyle stood in sharp contrast to the reality faced by working-class camp followers. While officers’ wives hosted guests, hundreds of ordinary women worked in the cold to keep the camp running, often without warm clothing. As food supplies ran dangerously low that winter, military officials cut off or halved the rations normally given to the women to save food for the combat troops, forcing camp followers to endure terrible hunger while continuing their grueling daily labor.[4]
Labor on Campaign: The Mechanics of Colonial Maintenance
Keeping an eighteenth-century army camp clean and fed required immense physical strength. Without modern appliances like stoves or washing machines, everyday chores took hours of heavy manual labor. While single soldiers cooked their own basic rations over open fires, married men relied on their wives to prepare meals. Women carried heavy iron pots over miles of marching and cooked whatever provisions were available—usually salted meat and flour bread, with fresh vegetables or dairy items as a rare luxury.[5]
In addition to working for their husbands, many camp followers held official jobs authorized by the army, serving as cooks, laundresses, or nurses. Congress paid nurses regular wages, but medical care in the 1700s was primitive. Operating a century before scientists understood how germs spread, nurses focused entirely on basic cleanliness and comfort. They emptied chamber pots, bathed patients, and scrubbed hospital surfaces with vinegar to fight filth and odor. Working under male surgeons for very low pay, nurses faced constant exposure to deadly diseases, making it a job few women wanted.[6]
Washing clothes, however, was much more popular. Though it was exhausting, it allowed women to function as their own bosses and socialize with one another. Laundresses made their own soap by boiling animal fat with lye from wood ashes. They heated massive copper kettles over open fires, scrubbing and stirring heavy wool and linen uniforms entirely by hand. Because laundresses charged a set price for every item they washed, industrious women could earn a steady income directly from the soldiers.[7]
Revolutionary Resilience: Sarah Osborn Benjamin
A remarkably detailed first-hand account of this grueling life survives in the national archives. In 1837, Sarah Osborn Benjamin applied for a federal veteran’s pension. Because the government did not grant service pensions directly to women for camp duties, she applied for a widow’s pension based on her deceased husband’s military service. Uniquely, her exhaustive, multi-page deposition describing her own vital work as an army cook and laundress became the ultimate proof required to validate the claim.[8]
Born in New York in 1743, Sarah married her second husband, Aaron Osborn, in 1780. Aaron, a blacksmith by trade, enlisted in the Continental Army as a member of the commissary guard without telling her. Sarah initially refused to follow him to the southern battlefield, but she relented when her husband’s captain assured her she would have a means of conveyance. On the march, traveling alternately on horseback and in supply wagons, Sarah earned money by cooking and washing clothes for the troops. Her pension records show that the camp support force was diverse, made up of poor wives, servants, and both free and enslaved African Americans working side-by-side.[9]
Sarah was present during the historic Siege of Yorktown in the fall of 1781. As American and French forces surrounded British General Charles Cornwallis, Sarah worked on the front lines, carrying food and coffee to the artillery crews and nursing wounded soldiers under active fire. Her pension application describes a direct encounter with General George Washington during the heavy bombardment. When Washington asked why she was not afraid of the flying cannonballs, Sarah famously replied, “It would not do for the men to fight and starve too.” She remained on the field to witness the final British surrender on October 19, 1781.[10]
The Legend of the Battlefield: Mary Ludwig Hays and “Molly Pitcher”
Operating heavy cannons was the most dangerous and physically exhausting job on the revolutionary battlefield. Cannon crews had to work quickly to load, aim, and fire. After each shot, the inside of the barrel became covered in hot, burning gunpowder residue. To keep the cannons from overheating or accidentally exploding during reloading, teams needed a constant supply of water to sponge out the barrels.
Camp followers took on the dangerous job of carrying water directly onto active battlefields in heavy wooden or ceramic pitchers. This vital task gave rise to the famous legend of “Molly Pitcher.” The real-life inspiration for this icon was Mary Ludwig Hays. During the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778, Hays was carrying water to her husband’s artillery crew when he collapsed from heat exhaustion. Without hesitating, Hays stepped into his place, loading and sponging the cannon through the rest of the British assault. Over the years, her bravery and the stories of other battlefield women merged into the legendary figure of Molly Pitcher.[11]
Defying the Gender Barrier: Anna Maria Lane
While most women supported the army openly as camp followers, a few chose to break the law and social rules by disguising themselves as men to enlist as regular soldiers. This was an incredibly risky choice; if discovered, these women faced immediate discharge, public humiliation, or physical punishment. Because of the secret nature of their service, few records exist. Still, a letter written by Virginia Governor William H. Cabell in 1808 provides absolute proof of one woman’s hidden combat career.
Anna Maria Lane initially began her journey in 1776 following the drum openly alongside her husband, John, as a traditional camp follower. However, as the hardships of the conflict intensified, Lane crossed the gender barrier. Putting on a soldier’s uniform to fight in the light infantry, she actively participated in the Pennsylvania campaign. During the fierce Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777, she suffered a severe leg wound during close-quarters combat. She successfully hid her identity through years of fighting and medical care, eventually moving to Richmond, Virginia, where she worked as a nurse. When Governor Cabell discovered her secret combat history years later, he urged the state legislature to award her a soldier’s pension. Impressed by her extraordinary bravery at Germantown, Virginia, Lane was granted an annual pension of one hundred dollars—double the standard amount given to male veterans at the time.[12]
The Grit Behind the Glory
The success of the American Revolution depended heavily on the hard work and fierce endurance of its female participants. Far from being passive bystanders, these camp followers, cooks, laundresses, and hidden soldiers formed the backbone of the Continental Army’s daily operations. The essential work of thousands of ordinary women kept the troops fed, clothed, and protected from deadly camp diseases. At the same time, individuals like Sarah Osborn Benjamin and Anna Maria Lane directly influenced the outcomes of major battles. By stepping into critical roles in a society that denied them basic legal rights, these women redefined what it meant to be a patriot. The story of American independence is incomplete without them; it proves that the war was won not just by the grand strategies of generals but also by the daily, gritty survival of women who followed the fight through mud and fire.
Notes
[1] Holly A. Meyer, Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community during the American Revolution, (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1996), 3-16.
[2] John Rees. “‘The Multitude of Women’ an Examination of the Numbers of Female Camp Followers with the Continental Army.” Minerva XIV, no. 2 (1996): 36-40.
[3] George Washington General Orders “General Orders, 4 August 1777,” available from https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-10-02-0508 accessed 13 April 2025.
[4] Ellet E. F. and Lincoln Diamant, Revolutionary Women in the War for American Independence: A One-Volume Revised Edition of Elizabeth Ellet’s 1848 Landmark Series, (Westpoint: Praeger, 1998), 142-145; Nancy K. Loane, Following the Drum: Women at the Valley Forge Encampment, (Potomac Books Incorporated, 2009), 117-119.
[5] Meyer, Belonging to the Army, 136-140.
[6] Nancy K. Loane, Following the Drum: Women at the Valley Forge Encampment (Potomac, MD: Potomac Books, 2009), 105-110.
[7] Loane, Following the Drum, 105-110.
[8] Sarah Osborn Benjamin, Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications, Record Group 15, National Archives, Washington, D.C., accessed April 12, 2025, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/1636083.
[9] Jerri Bell and Tracy Crow, eds., It’s My Country Too : Women’s Military Stories from the American Revolution to Afghanistan, Potomac Books, (Potomac Books Incorporated, 2017), 2-7.
[10] Sarah Osborn Benjamin, Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications; Sudie Doggett Wike, Women in the American Revolution, (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2018), 230-238.
[11] Elizabeth F. Ellet and Lincoln Diamant, Revolutionary Women in the War for American Independence, 119-120.
[12] Loane, Following the Drum, 124; Letter, William H. Cabell to Speaker of the House of Delegates, 28 January 1808, Governor’s Office, Executive Letter Books, Record Group 3, Library of Virginia, Richmond, VA.