Other women whose husbands or fathers went off to war

Other women whose husbands or fathers went off to war
did not have even a farm or shop to fall back on. Many cit-
ies and towns developed significant populations of impov-
erished women, who on occasion led popular protests
against price increases. On a few occasions, hungry
women rioted and looted for food. Elsewhere (in New
Jersey and Staten Island), women launched attacks on
occupying British troops, whom they were required to
house and feed at considerable expense.
Among the Indians
Growing Divisions
Not all women, however, stayed behind when the
men went off to war. Sometimes by choice, but more
often out of economic necessity or because they had
been driven from their homes by the enemy (and by the
smallpox and dysentery the British army carried with
it), women fl ocked in increasing
numbers to the camps of the
Patriot armies to join their male relatives. George Wash-
ington looked askance at these female “camp followers,”
convinced that they were disruptive and distracting
(even though his own wife, Martha, spent the winter of
1778–1779 with him at Valley Forge). Other offi cers
were even more hostile, voicing complaints that
refl ected a high level of anxiety over this seeming viola-
tion of traditional gender roles (and also, perhaps, over
the generally lower-class backgrounds of the camp
women). One described them in decidedly hostile
terms: “their hair falling, their brows beady with the
heat, their belongings slung over one shoulder, chatter-
ing and yelling in sluttish shrills as they went.” In fact,
however, the women were of signifi cant value to the
new army. It had not yet developed an adequate system
of supply and auxiliary services, and it profi ted greatly
from the presence of women, who increased army
morale and performed such necessary tasks as cooking,
laundry, and nursing.
But female activity did not always remain restricted to
“women’s” tasks. In the rough environment of the camps,
traditional gender distinctions proved difficult to main-
tain. Considerable numbers of women became involved,
at least intermittently, in combat—including the legend-
ary Molly Pitcher (so named because she carried pitchers
of water to soldiers on the battlefield). She watched her
husband fall during one encounter and immediately took
his place at a fi eld gun. A few women even disguised
themselves as men so as to be able to fight.
After the war, of course, the soldiers and the female
camp followers returned home. The experience of com-
bat had little visible impact on how society (or on how
women themselves) defined female roles in peacetime.
The Revolution did, however, call certain assumptions
about women into question in other ways. The emphasis
on liberty and the “rights of man” led some women to
begin to question their position in society as well.“By the
way,” Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John Adams, in
1776,“in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be
necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember
the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them
than your ancestors.”