Women Waging War in the American Revolution

Holly A. Mayer

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9780813948287
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early American History
• Index: History

America's War for Independence dramatically affected the speed and nature of broader social, cultural, and political changes including those shaping the place and roles of women in society. Women fought the American Revolution in many ways, in a literal no less than a figurative sense. Whether Loyalist or Patriot, Indigenous or immigrant enslaved or slave-owning, going willingly into battle or responding when war came to their doorsteps, women participated in the conflict in complex and varied ways that reveal the critical distinctions and intersections of race, class, and allegiance that defined the era.

This collection examines the impact of Revolutionary-era women on the outcomes of the war and its subsequent narrative tradition, from popular perception to academic treatment. The contributors show how women navigated a country at war, directly affected the war's result, and influenced the foundational historical record left in its wake. Engaging directly with that record, this volume's authors demonstrate the ways that the Revolution transformed women's place in America as it offered new opportunities but also imposed new limitations in the brave new world they helped create.

Contributors:Jacqueline Beatty, York College * Carin Bloom, Historic Charleston Foundation * Todd W. Braisted, independent scholar * Benjamin L. Carp, Brooklyn College * Lauren Duval, University of Oklahoma * Steven Elliott, U.S. Army Center of Military History * Lorri Glover, Saint Louis University * Don N. Hagist, Journal of the American Revolution * Sean M. Heuvel, Christopher Newport University * Martha J. King, Papers of Thomas Jefferson * Barbara Alice Mann, University of Toledo * J. Patrick Mullins, Marquette University * Alisa Wade, California State University at Chico

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Women’s Wars of the Revolution
• “The First Incendiary”: A Female Firebrand and the New York City Fire of 1776
• “I Bare My Bosom, and Pour My Choicest Blood”: Republican Sisterhood and Political Violence in Mercy Otis Warren’s Adulateur
• War Women of the Eastern Woodlands
• “A Shocking Thing to Tell Of”: Female Civilians, Violence, and Rape under British Military Rule
• Neighbors, Land Ladies, and Consorts: New Jersey Women in the Midst of the Continental Army
• Betsey Loring: Investigating a Woman’s Infamy in the American Revolution
• Killed, Imprisoned, Struck by Lightning: Soldiers’ Wives on Campaign with the British Army
• Catharine Greene’s War for Independence
• Eliza Lucas Pinckney: Female Fortitude and the Revolutionary War
• A Black Loyalist’s Liberty: How Lucy Banbury Took Back Her Freedom
• In Reduced Circumstances: Loyalist Women and British Government Assistance, 1779–1783
• Complicated Allegiances: Women, Politics, and Property in Post-Occupation Charleston
• The “Widowed State”: Women’s Labor, Sacrifice, and Self-Sufficiency in the American Revolution
• Notes on Contributors
• Index