ABSTRACT
Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries thousands of American women accompanied their husbands to war, following them from camp to camp and serving with and without compensation as cooks, laundresses and nurses. While many nurses worked in military hospitals for pay, many more nursed unoffi cially in volunteer capacities. Women also provided skilled services as seamstresses and ammunition makers and served unoffi cially as volunteer message carriers and spies. A small number of women, Deborah Sampson being the most famous, served on the battlefi eld disguised as men; others such as Margaret Corbin served on the battlefi eld beside their husbands as helpmeets. One of the most common ways women could aid the American cause was to nurse sick and wounded soldiers. During the American Revolution, nurses were civilian employees of the Army and were paid a standard wage. War orders issued from Washington’s Headquarters at Valley Forge during the winter of 1778-1779 stated, “The Commanding Offi cers of the Regiments will assist the Regimental Surgeons in procuring as many Women of the Army as can be prevailed on to serve as nurses . . . who will be paid the usual price.” While the regulations remain and can be studied to this day, most of the lists of women who served as nurses and information about their specifi c duties have been lost to time. Only small tantalizing references remain. For example, in 1776, nurse Alice Redman petitioned the Maryland Council of Safety. She stated that she was paid $2.00 a month and had 16 men for whom to cook and care for. Her rations did not include tea or coffee, which she longed for, and, out of her two-dollar salary, she was obliged to buy brooms and to keep her ward clean. It was also possible to directly aid the war effort without actually going out onto the fi eld of battle. Seamstress Rebecca Flower Young made the fl ag General Washington raised over his headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1776. Women also crossed enemy lines to carry messages to American military forces involving battle plans and troop movements. For example, when British offi cers requisitioned one of the rooms in her house for a strategy session, Lydia Darragh
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listened and learned of a plan to attack Washington’s Army at Whitemarsh. She obtained a pass allowing her to leave Philadelphia and travel to a fl ourmill, left her fl our at the mill, continued down the road to Whitemarsh and told the fi rst American offi cer she met what she had heard. She then went home, and when General William Howe led 12,000 soldiers to Whitemarsh several days later, the American Army was expecting them and the British were unable to dislodge them from their entrenched position.
