It's My Country Too

by Jerri Bell, Tracy Crow

  Finally, we copyedited for conformity with the rules of the Chicago Manual of Style, with a few exceptions for standard practice in military writing: “Marine” is always capitalized!

  Had our first meeting ended in a bar fight, we know who would have won.

  Acknowledgments

  “Kam sia!” cried the beggars of the bustling Chinese treaty port of Amoy (now Xiamen). The Hokkien words for “Grateful thanks!” took root in the nautical lexicon as “cumshaw,” meaning something procured outside official channels or without official payment, usually obtained through barter. In writing this book we became “cumshaw artists,” adept at getting the help and information we needed in exchange for nothing more than our gratitude.

  Dozens of curators, librarians, and historians came to our aid. We could not have written this book without the assistance, advice, time, and patience of curator Britta Granrud and oral historian Robbie Fee of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation. If you’re a woman veteran reading this book and you haven’t yet registered there or donated to the Memorial, please do so without delay.

  Beth Ann Koelsch at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro helped us navigate through the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives and resources of the Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project. Chris Ellis and Kara Newcomer at the Archives and Special Collections Branch of the U.S. Marine Corps Library; Nancy Wilt, Women Marines Association Curator of the Women of the Corps Collection; and Coast Guard Historian Scott Price steered us to valuable sources of information that we would never have found on our own.

  Angie Stockwell, Collection Specialist at the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan, Maine; Kate Clifford Larson, author of Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero; Sharon M. Harris, author of Dr. Mary Walker: An American Radical, 1832–1919; Eileen McHugh at the Cayuga Museum of History and Art; Michael Golden of the OSS Society; Anna Chovanec, Reference Assistant at the Syracuse University Libraries Special Collections Research Center; Amanda Vasquez, archivist for the Daughters of the American Revolution; and Marian Moser-Jones at the University of Maryland found no detail of our questions too insignificant, trivial, or unworthy of their attention and professional expertise.

  Joel Thomas Webster in the Special Collections Branch of the James Madison University Library wrote a biographical summary for us, literally overnight, from a collection of one veteran’s personal papers that had not yet been sorted and cataloged. Stephen Rice at the Connecticut State Library in Hartford found a historical newspaper article that we needed and sent it to us in a matter of hours.

  We were awed at the expertise and bloodhound-quality detective skills of the librarians at the Library of Congress; the archivists at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington DC; College Park, Maryland; and St. Louis, Missouri; and the reference librarians at the Southern Maryland Public Library in Prince Frederick, Maryland—especially Carrie Raines and Molly Crumbley.

  The Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) steered us to Captain Lory Manning, USN (Ret.), whose behind-the-scenes knowledge about equal protection lawsuits and the efforts to repeal combat exclusion laws made our later chapters immeasurably better.

  Our research assistant, Noah Beall, saved us hours of work on the bibliography.

  Kayla Williams agreed to write the foreword even before we’d finished the proposal. She made time to read the manuscript while she was moving her family back to Washington DC and starting her new job as the director of the Center for Women Veterans. Kayla, we love you.

  To our team at the University of Nebraska Press and Potomac Books—Bridget Barry, Kristin Elias Rowley, Thomas Swanson, Emily Wendell, Elizabeth Zaleski, and Colleen Romick Clark—we thank you for your earliest belief in this project and for your unwavering support as this project changed and expanded from the original proposal.

  We are grateful to the women veterans who shared their original essays with us, and to the women who graciously contributed oral histories and personal papers to the Women’s Memorial; the Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project at UNC Greensboro; the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress; and university libraries. We salute their courage and candor.

  Finally, Jerri would like to thank the staff of the Veterans Writing Project and the contributors to O-Dark-Thirty for tolerating her distraction in the final months of writing; her husband, David Bury, for taking on more than his fair share of the household chores; her sons, Will and Jon Bury, for eating far too many soup-and-sandwich dinners; her sister, Joan Bell, for “holding space”; the “Desperate Housewives of Calvert County” for dragging her away from the keyboard and down to the gym; and her mother, her first female role model. Mom, you don’t realize how strong and brave you have always been.

  And Tracy would like to thank her husband, Mark Weidemaier, who always has the misfortune, it seems, to return home from his life in Major League Baseball during the final weeks leading up to a book deadline, yet treads softly and offers all means of support. Tracy would also like to thank her daughter, Morgan, and son-in-law, Brian; her parents; her brother; Jeffery Hess; Libby Oberg; CJ Scarlet; Sam and Novella Kennedy; and the immensely supportive friends in her town of Liberty.

  Last, but never least, we would like to dedicate this book to the women who are now serving America on active duty, in the reserve, and in the Guard—and to the generations of women who follow. This is your her-story. We wrote this book for you.

  1

  The American Revolution

  “A Natural Priviledge”

  In April 1775, Prudence Cummings Wright, a thirty-five-year-old mother of six from Pepperell, Massachusetts, recruited a group of thirty to forty local women to guard a bridge over the Nashua River. The women elected Wright unit captain. She chose Sarah Shattuck of Groton as her lieutenant. One night the women dressed in men’s clothing, armed themselves, mustered at the bridge, and captured a suspected British courier mounted on horseback. They ordered him to dismount. Searched him. Found potentially incriminating papers. Placed him under guard overnight. In the morning, they delivered him and his documents to the nearest Committee of Safety.

  Prudence Wright’s Guard—an all-women’s militia unit—exemplifies one of the many ways American women engaged in military activity during the American Revolution. Militia muster rolls and contemporary accounts show that women fought as irregulars in local militias and defended their homes on the frontier. They also served in the Continental Army—most in support and medical positions, some as regular uniformed troops.

  Historians do not know exactly how many women—or men—fought in the American Revolution. One estimates that as many as twenty thousand women served in support roles in the Continental Army between 1775 and 1783. A few hundred may have fought in uniform. The largest number fought sporadically in local defensive combat operations.

  In his general orders, George Washington called women attached to the Continental Army in support roles “Women of the Army.” These women were not camp followers or prostitutes. Most soldiers in the Continental Army, whose pay was frequently in arrears and who often lacked adequate food and clothing, could not afford to hire prostitutes. Some of the women were officers’ and soldiers’ wives; others were refugees who sought food and safety with the Continental Army. These women—usually limited to no more than five per company—competed for available positions. They drew rations and pay for cooking, sewing, and laundry; they could also charge officers and soldiers for personal laundry at rates regulated by the Army. Male sergeants directed the women, expecting them to accompany the baggage train, keep off the wagons, do their assigned jobs, and refrain from unsavory conduct. The women were subject to military discipline. Some were court-martialed for desertion; others were punished or dismissed for disorderly conduct.

  The Army also recruited women nurses. In 1777 the Army medical staff was authorized one matron (supervisor) and ten female
nurses for every hundred wounded soldiers. Matrons received double the salary of a sergeant and drew a daily food ration. The Army never found enough women nurses to fill the available positions.

  Some women disguised themselves and enlisted as regular soldiers. Commanders recorded the (usually nonpunitive) discharge of women who had entered the ranks dressed as men.

  Women also carried water to cool artillery pieces so they did not explode. Sally St. Clare, a woman of color who served in men’s attire as a gunner, became the first woman killed in action during the Battle of Savannah on December 29, 1778. Margaret Corbin replaced her husband at his gun when he was killed at the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776. She continued to fire her cannon with accuracy until British troops overran her position, captured her, and detained her as a prisoner of war. Three musket balls and grapeshot had damaged her jaw and nearly detached her arm. Because of her permanent and severe disability, sustained in the line of fire, Congress awarded her a military disability pension in 1779 and the Army assigned her to the Invalid Regiment at West Point. In 1926 her remains were reinterred with full military honors at West Point.

  Contemporary civilian women such as African American poetess Phyllis Wheatley and playwright Mercy Otis Warren published literary work addressing the war and patriotic themes. Others, mostly elite white women whose husbands fought in the Revolution or helped create the new government, kept journals and wrote letters containing intimate details of their lives and their views of current events. But the stories of women who fought in or supported the Continental Army survived mainly in journal accounts written by men, brief entries in military records, pension depositions and awards, and oral histories collected early in the nineteenth century. Historians did not consider the experiences of common soldiers and women in support jobs important enough to preserve for the historical record. The military experiences of women of color, many of whom were illiterate, appear only as brief references in others’ writing.

  Writers and historians romanticized and distorted some stories of women’s service. They combined accounts of women who served with gun crews into the legend of “Molly Pitcher,” reshaping the story to conform to a socially acceptable women’s role—carrying water to the gun crews to drink. Other stories may have been fabricated altogether. No documentation supports the existence of Lucy Brewer, who supposedly dressed as a man to enlist with the Marines on USS Constitution as “George Baker” to fight during the War of 1812.

  To date, only two accounts written by women who served in or with the Continental Army have surfaced. Susanna Osborn, widow of a veteran, describes in a pension deposition how she followed her husband into the Continental Army in a support role (she received the pension). Deborah Sampson Gannett, who enlisted in the Continental Army dressed as a man, left a memoir, the text of a public address she delivered twenty years after her service, and a few pages of a diary she kept on the lecture circuit.

  Sarah Osborn

  (1745–1854)

  Continental Army

  Sarah Matthews Osborn married blacksmith Aaron Osborn in Albany, New York, in January 1780. He re-enlisted as a commissary guard in the Continental Army, and she agreed to accompany him to war only after his commanding officer assured her that her husband would be “first on the Commissary Guard” and that she could ride in a wagon and on horseback—a privilege usually denied to women who accompanied the soldiers. In 1837 she applied for Osborn’s widow’s pension even though he had abandoned her and she had remarried. She dictated the deposition to a clerk, describing her experiences with the Continental Army at West Point and Yorktown. She noted that the wives of a lieutenant and a sergeant also accompanied their husbands, and that an African American woman named Letta also supported the unit. The excerpt below is taken from her deposition.

  West Point (1780–1781)

  While at West Point, deponent lived at Lieutenant Foot’s, who kept a boarding house. Deponent was employed in washing and serving for the soldiers. Her said husband was employed about the camp. She well recollects the uproar occasioned when word came that a British officer had been taken as a spy. She understood at the time that Maj. André was bro’t up on the opposite side of the river and kept there till he was executed. On the returning of the bargemen who assisted Arnold to escape deponent recollects seeing two of them, one by the name of Montecu, the other by the name of Clarke. That they said Arnold told them to hang up their dinners for he had to be at Stoney Point in so many minutes, and when he got there he hoisted his pocket handkerchief and his sword and said “Row on, boys,” and that they soon arrived in Haverstraw Bay and found the British ship. That Arnold jumped on board and they were all invited and they went aboard and had their choice to go or stay. And some chose to stay and some to go and did accordingly.

  When the army were about to leave West Point and go south they crossed over the river to Robinsons Farms and remained there for a length of time to induce the belief . . . that they were going to take up quarters there, whereas they recrossed the river in the night time into the Jerseys and travelled all night in a direct course for Philadelphia. Deponent was part of the time on horse back and part of the time in a wagon. In their march for Philadelphia they were under command of Generals Washington and [James] Clinton. . . . They continued their march to Philadelphia, deponent on horse back through the streets, and arrived at a place towards the Schuylkill where the British had burnt some houses, where they encamped for the afternoon and night. Being out of bread deponent was employed in baking the afternoon and evening. Deponent recollects no females but Sergeant Lamberson’s and Lt. Forman’s wives, and a colored woman by the name of Letta. The ladies, who came round, urged deponent to stay, but her said husband said “No, he could not leave her behind.” Accordingly next day they continued their march from day to day till they arrived at Baltimore where deponent and her said husband and the forces under command of Gen. Clinton, Capt. Gregg and several other officers . . . embarked on board a vessel and sailed down the Chesapeake. There were several vessels along and deponent was in the foremost. Gen. Washington was not in the vessel with deponent and she does not know where he was till he arrived at Yorktown where she again saw him. He might have embarked at another place, but deponent is confident she embarked at Baltimore and that Gen. Clinton was in the same vessel with her. Some of the troops went down by land. They continued sail until they had got up the St. James River as far as the tide would carry them, about twelve miles from the mouth, and then landed, and the tide being spent, they had a fine time catching sea lobsters which they ate. They however marched immediately for a place called Williamsburg . . . deponent alternately on horse back and on foot. There arrived, they remained two days till the army all came in by land and then marched for Yorktown, or Little York as it was then called.

  The Battle of Yorktown (1781)

  The York troops were posted at the right. The Connecticut troops next and the French to the left. In about one day or less than a day they reached the place of encampments about one mile from Yorktown. Deponent was on foot, and the other females above named. . . . [Her] attention was arrested by the appearance of a large plain between them and Yorktown and an entrenchment thrown up. She also saw a number of dead Negroes lying round their encampment whom she understood the British had driven out of the town and left to starve or were first starved and then thrown out. Deponent took her stand just back of the American tents . . . about a mile from the town and busied herself washing, mending and cooking for the soldiers, in which she was assisted by the other females; some men washed their own clothing. She heard the roar of the artillery for a number of days, and the last night the Americans threw up entrenchments. It was a misty, foggy night, rather wet but not rainy. . . . Deponent’s said husband was there throwing up entrenchments and deponent cooked and carried in beef and bread, and coffee (in a gallon pot) to the soldiers in the entrenchment.

  On one occasion when deponent was thus employed carrying in provisions she met Gen. Wa
shington, who asked her if she “was not afraid of the cannonballs.”

  She replied, “No, the bullets would not cheat the gallows—that it would not do for the men to fight and starve too.”

  They dug entrenchments nearer and nearer to Yorktown every night or two till the last. While digging, the enemy fired very heavy till about nine o clock next morning, then stopped, and the drums from the enemy beat excessively. . . .

  The drums continued beating, and all at once the officers hurra’d and swung their hats, and deponent asked them, “What is the matter now?”

  One of them replied, “Are not you soldier enough to know what it means?”

  Deponent replied, “No.”

  They then replied, “The British have surrendered.”

  Deponent, having provisions ready, carried the same down to the entrenchments that morning and four of the soldiers whom she was in the habit of cooking for ate their breakfasts. Deponent stood on one side of the room and the American officers upon the other side, when the British officers came out of the town and rode up to the American officers. . . . And the British officers rode right on before the army who marched out beating and playing a melancholy tune, their drums covered with black handkerchiefs and their fifes with black ribbands tied around them, into an old field, and there grounded their arms and then returned into town again to await their destiny.

  Deponent recollects seeing a great many American officers some on horse back and some on foot but can not call them all by name—Washington, LaFayette, and Clinton were among the number. The British general at the head of the army was a large portly man, full face, and the tears rolled down his cheeks as he passed along. She does not recollect his name. But it was not Cornwallis. She saw the latter afterwards and noticed his being a man of diminutive appearance and having cross eyes. . . .