On a day when we remember the Founding Fathers of America, let’s try to remember the Founding Mothers, too.
Abigail Adams, our second First Lady, wife of John Adams. Abigail famously wrote her husband, as he served as Massachusetts’ representative to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, to ‘remember the ladies.’ Abigail was an enormous proponent of women’s property rights, among other things, long before it was cool.
Deborah Sampson is believed to be the first woman to impersonate a man to serve in combat for the United States. She is likely this nation’s first female combat veteran. At the age of twenty-one, Deborah enlisted with the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment as a guy named Robert Shurtleff. Robert was teased because he appeared to be too young to shave. Here’s how badass Deborah was: when she was shot, in battle, she ripped out the bullet and dressed her own wounds so her gender would not be discovered. Her gender was eventually discovered by a military doctor, who appears to have been discreet in making arrangements to end her military career. She was honorably discharged. When rumors of her military activities made the rounds at home, she was excommunicated from her church.
Deborah married, had three kids, and became a teacher. She was originally denied a military pension, until Paul Revere stepped in, and she got four bucks a month.
After she died at the age of 66, Deborah Sampson’s children were awarded compensation by a special
Act of Congress: “for the relief of the heirs of Deborah (Sampson) Gannett, a soldier of the Revolution, deceased.”
Hannah White Arnett: In what is now Elizabeth, New Jersey, she stormed into a meeting being held by the menfolk in her home when she heard them considering pledging loyalty to the crown in exchange for promises of protection of property. She called them all bunch of idiots and said she would leave her husband if they dared do something so stupid. She saved the Revolutionary cause in that area.
Who are your favorite women of the Revolution?
