Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation

Women played numerous crucial roles in the Revolutionary War, both on the home front and on the front line. Those related to prominent political or military figures were harassed by enemy troops, who searched, raided, or attacked their homes (in one case, firing on a house from a man-o-war battleship) and sometimes even captured, imprisoned, and abused them. Many other women were displaced when the war arrived in their towns, driving them from their homes. Some of these refugees joined other, usually poor, women and children on the battlefield as “camp followers” who nursed the sick and the injured, gathered and prepared food, or cleaned and repaired uniforms for the soldiers. Some even served more actively, maintaining cannons, acting as spies or messengers, or, in some rare cases, disguising themselves as men and serving as regular soldiers.

It was not only poor women who traveled with the army. Although initially wishing to stay at home (despite what some insisted was a great risk of being taken hostage by enemy forces), Martha Washington eventually accepted the invitation of her husband, George, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, to join him at his military camp. Along with her friends Lucy Knox and Catherine Greene, wives of other officers, she became a favorite of the American troops, winning their trust and respect by enduring hardship and privation throughout the various military encampments and by working hard to provide and care for the soldiers.