Early American history, Military history, Virginia250, Women's History
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.
Early American history, Virginia history, Virginia250, Women's History
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
During the eighteenth century, American women faced severe social and legal restrictions that limited their ability to publicly participate in the resistance against British imperial rule. Discouraged by societal norms from voicing political opinions, women engineered alternative methods to support the revolutionary cause. While traditional military histories often overlook their contributions, female patriots actively sustained the domestic and economic fronts of the conflict.
By leading boycotts on British imports, mobilizing community fundraising campaigns, managing seditious printing presses, and manufacturing essential military supplies, diverse groups of women throughout the Atlantic World converted traditional domestic spaces into battlegrounds for political resistance. This exhibit examines how white, enslaved Black, and Indigenous women in Virginia navigated oppressive legal frameworks to assert political agency and reshape the trajectory of the American Revolution.
Working within an Oppressive System: Eighteenth-Century Womanhood
The legal and social status of women in the early American colonies remained rigidly restrictive. Primarily confined to the domestic sphere, women faced societal expectations to find fulfillment exclusively in marriage, motherhood, and household management. While specific experiences varied significantly across lines of socioeconomic class, age, region, and race, the overarching educational framework for young women focused heavily on preparing them for matrimony. Curricula emphasized domestic crafts such as embroidery, which functioned as a public display of refined education, patience, and skill tailored for potential marriage prospects. Educational norms also discouraged women from engaging in public affairs or discussing political philosophy.[1]
Furthermore, the survival of historical documentation and material artifacts concerning eighteenth-century women remains highly uneven due to long-standing historiographical biases regarding whose records merited preservation. Under the English common law doctrine of coverture, a married woman possessed no legal identity independent of her husband; she could not own property, execute contracts, or initiate divorce proceedings.[2]
For African American women in the American South, the vast majority of whom endured chattel slavery, racial oppression compounded gender barriers, stripping them of virtually all legal and bodily autonomy. Because surviving documentation predominantly reflects the perspectives of elite, literate white women, a comprehensive analysis of the revolutionary era requires historians to interrogate a broader, more diverse spectrum of female experiences.[3]
The Power of the Purse: Consumption as Political Protest
The imposition of British imperial taxation throughout the 1760s and 1770s generated widespread resistance across the American colonies. Parliament passed legislation such as the Sugar Act of 1764, which disrupted the colonial molasses trade, and the Stamp Act of 1765, which levied taxes on legal documents and paper products, igniting broad revolutionary sentiment. The subsequent Townshend Acts placed duties on essential imported goods, including glass, paint, paper, and tea.
While disenfranchised from petitioning Parliament or participating in official legislative assemblies, colonial women leveraged their roles as primary household consumers to launch powerful counter-protests. By organizing consumer boycotts of British imports, women redirected household expenditures toward the domestic economy and altered transatlantic trade patterns.[4]
This capacity for political mobilization manifested clearly in local media reports. On November 3, 1774, the Virginia Gazette, published by Clementina Rind, informed the public of an unprecedented political demonstration in North Carolina. At the Edenton Tea Party, a political assembly of fifty-one women publicly signed a declaration of a total boycott of British tea and manufactured cloth. Rind reprinted the group’s manifesto alongside the names of every female signatory. This public declaration directly defied contemporary gender conventions, representing an overt, organized entry of women into the formal political sphere.[5]
Threads for Freedom: Domestic Production as Economic Warfare
Before the imperial crisis, spinning thread symbolized quiet, domestic femininity in colonial households. However, the non-importation movements transformed this traditional craft into a visible tool of economic resistance. To counter British textile tariffs, women organized “spinning bees,” converting communal social gatherings into productive manufacturing hubs. The domestic production of textiles became so central to female identity that the term “spinster”—originally a job title for unmarried women specializing in yarn production—became deeply embedded in the era’s legal and social vocabulary.[6]
In the Southern colonies, the dynamics of the homespun movement were deeply shaped by the institution of race-based chattel slavery. While wealthy white women in Virginia embraced homespun garments as symbols of political patriotism, elite plantation mistresses generally managed and delegated the physical labor rather than executing it themselves. Instead, enslaved women performed the grueling tasks of carding, spinning, and weaving the raw fiber into utilitarian fabrics. Consequently, textile production in the revolutionary South highlighted the starkly divergent realities of race and class—serving as a political statement for white elites while multiplying the forced labor burdens of enslaved Black women.[7]
Despite these labor disparities, homespun clothing emerged as a potent cultural symbol of public virtue. The Virginia Gazette celebrated this political shift following a formal ball hosted by the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg. Rather than wearing fashionable European imports, nearly one hundred upper-class women attended the gala in locally produced attire. The publication lauded the display, noting:
“…Ladies on this occasion, who, to the number of near one hundred, appeared in homespun gowns; a lively and striking instance of their acquiescence; and concurrence in whatever may be the true and essential interest of their country. It were to be wished that all assemblies of American ladies would exhibit a like example of public virtue and private economy, so amiably united.” — Virginia Gazette, December 14, 1769 [8]
Promoting and Organizing Female Patriots
Eighteenth-century newspapers served as the primary vehicles for information, community organizing, and ideological alignment across the Atlantic World. Following her husband’s death in 1773, Clementina Rind assumed control of the Williamsburg printing press, navigating the challenges of being a widow, a single mother, and the colony’s official public printer. Eighteenth-century newspapers served as the primary vehicles for information, community organizing, and ideological alignment across the Atlantic World. Following her husband’s death in 1773, Clementina Rind assumed control of the Williamsburg printing press, navigating the challenges of being a widow, a single mother, and the colony’s official public printer.[9]
Voted by the Virginia House of Burgesses to retain her position as the colony’s official printer, Rind utilized the Virginia Gazette to cultivate public support for the patriot cause. She frequently criticized British imperial policies and used her front page to rally female readers to action. For instance, on September 15, 1774, Rind published a prominent letter urging Virginian women to completely renounce the consumption of imported tea, leveraging her editorial power to expand female political activism on the eve of independence.
Enslaved Black Women and the Dual Struggle for Liberty
While white colonists campaigned for political independence from Great Britain, enslaved Black women waged a continuous, parallel battle for basic human emancipation from chattel slavery. Operating under a legal code that classified them as property, enslaved women exploited wartime disruptions to secure freedom for themselves and their families through escape, manumission petitions, and freedom suits.
In 1797, an enslaved woman named Ann Williams successfully sued her enslaver, Dr. James Craik, arguing that he had violated Virginia law by failing to take a mandatory statutory oath regarding the origin of persons brought into the commonwealth.[10] Williams won her case, achieving full legal liberation.
Other women leveraged the military conflict by escaping directly to British lines following Dunmore’s Proclamation of 1775, which promised freedom to any enslaved individuals who defected from rebel masters to aid the Crown. Among these freedom seekers was Mary Perth, who escaped to the British military outpost at Mile’s End along with her three daughters. Despite facing subsequent re-enslavement risks and wartime deprivation, Perth survived the conflict and evacuated with British loyalists to Nova Scotia, eventually establishing herself as a prominent landowner and businesswoman in Sierra Leone.[11]
Fundraising for Liberty: The Ladies Association
Women also provided direct material and financial assistance to the Continental Army through organized civic fundraising. Spearheaded by Esther de Berdt Reed in Pennsylvania, the Ladies Association formed to secure emergency funding for a severely depleted and under-resourced American military. Martha Washington actively joined the initiative, contributing $20,000 in Continental currency of her own funds and recruiting prominent Southern women, including Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, to lead regional chapters.[12]
The association raised over $300,000 in paper currency. Although Reed originally intended to distribute the cash donations directly to the soldiers, General George Washington requested that the funds be used to manufacture clothing instead. The women purchased linen and organized large-scale sewing circles, ultimately manufacturing and delivering over 2,200 shirts to the Continental troops by December 1780. This collective mobilization established an organizational model for future female-led charitable and political associations in the United States.[13]
Matrilineal Authority: Nanyehi and Cherokee Diplomacy
In stark contrast to the restrictive legal frameworks governing Euro-American women, Cherokee society operated on a matrilineal system that granted women significant political, economic, and diplomatic authority. Born in the Cherokee capital of Chota, Nanyehi (known to Euro-Americans as Nancy Ward) held the prestigious title of Ghigau, or “Beloved Woman.” This office granted her an influential voice in tribal councils, leadership over the Women’s Council, and the authority to determine the fate of prisoners of war.[14]
During the Revolutionary War, as the Cherokee Nation faced displacement and scorched-earth campaigns executed by colonial militias, Nanyehi advocated for diplomatic peace. She frequently released or protected white captives, which prompted the Virginia militia to spare her home village during retaliatory raids in 1776.[15] Addressing the Virginia treaty commissioners, Nanyehi emphasized the shared humanity of mothers across battle lines, declaring:
“This peace must last forever. Let your women’s sons be ours; your sons be ours. Let your women hear our words.” — Nanyehi (Nancy Ward) to the Virginia Treaty Commissioners, 1777
As the United States pressured the Cherokee Nation to assimilate into Western cultural norms during the early national period, federal officials actively discouraged women’s political leadership. In a 1796 address, George Washington encouraged the Cherokee people to abandon their traditional gender roles and adopt Western customs, urging Cherokee women to restrict themselves to domestic spinning and weaving.[16] Nanyehi remained the last traditional Beloved Woman of the Cherokee, representing a powerful legacy of female governance that stood in direct opposition to the patriarchal norms of the new American Republic.[17]
Redefining Liberty
The historical records of the American Revolution demonstrate that the struggle for freedom was not fought exclusively on conventional battlefields by male soldiers. As the distinct experiences of political organizers, enslaved laborers, widowed printers, and Indigenous leaders demonstrate, eighteenth-century women actively drove the social and economic currents of the war. By reinterpreting these narratives through the lens of material culture and documentary evidence, this exhibit moves beyond traditional military histories to reveal a more complex, transnational revolution—one where diverse women continuously challenged, adapted, and redefined the boundaries of liberty.
Experience the History Firsthand: To explore these artifacts and preserved historic landscapes, visitors are encouraged to experience this history in person. The galleries, living history sites, and educational exhibitions are open to the public at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation museums in Williamsburg and Yorktown, Virginia. By engaging directly with the physical spaces and material culture of the period, modern audiences can better appreciate how these historic women challenged contemporary limitations to forge their own paths toward freedom.
About the Author
Rosemary Johnson received her B.A. in History with minors in Museum Studies and Art History in 2026. She completed this digital exhibition project during her undergraduate internship within the education department at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. Following graduation, she plans to continue her work as a Learning Facilitator at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation while pursuing a career in museum education and public history.
Notes
[1] Lillian Faderman, Woman: The American History of an Idea (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022), 36-61.
[2] Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect & Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 7-15.
[3] Ibid., 22-32.
[4] Sudie Doggett Wike, Women in the American Revolution (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2018), 17-34; Kaylan M. Stevenson, “Until Liberty of Importation is Allowed: Milliners and Mantuamakers in the Chesapeake on the Eve of Revolution,” in Women in the American Revolution: Gender, Politics, and the Domestic World, ed. Barbara B. Oberg (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019), 39-41.
[5] “Edenton, North Carolina, October 25, 1774,” Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, VA), November 3, 1774; Inez Parker Cumming, “The Edenton Ladies’ Tea-Party,” The Georgia Review 8, no. 4 (1954): 389–95.
[6] Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth (New York: Random House, 2001), 116.
[7] Faderman, Woman: The American History of an Idea, 55; Mary Beth Norton, Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980), 162-69. (Year corrected from 1750 to 1980)
[8] Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, VA), December 14, 1769, 2.
[9] Martha J. King, “Widowed Printer of Williamsburg,” in Virginia Women: Their Lives and Times, vol. 1, ed. Cynthia A. Kierner and Sandra Gioia Treadway (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015), 74-84.
[10] Michael L. Nicholls, “Strangers Setting among Us: The Sources and Challenge of the Urban Free Black Population of Early Virginia,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 108, no. 2 (2000): 160-61.
[11] Cassandra Pybus, “’One Militant Saint’: The Much Traveled Life of Mary Perth,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 9, no. 3 (2008).
[12] Mary V. Thompson, “’As if I Had Benn a Very Great Somebody’, Trimmed,” in Women in the American Revolution: Gender, Politics, and the Domestic World, ed. Barbara B. Oberg (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019), 138-40.
[13] Kerber, Women of the Republic, 99-102.
[14] Ben Harris McClary, “Nancy Ward: The Last Beloved Woman of the Cherokees,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 21, no. 4 (1962): 352–64.
[15] General Nathanael Greene Papers, Library of Congress, quoted in Samuel Cole Williams, Tennessee During the Revolutionary War (Nashville: Tennessee Historical Commission, 1944), 201.
[16] George Washington, “To the Cherokee Nation,” September 29, 1796, quoted in Faderman, Woman: The American History of an Idea, 41.
[17] McClary, “Nancy Ward: The Last Beloved Woman of the Cherokees,” 352–64.
