Mary Hays McCauley became formally linked with the Revolutionary War heroine in , when residents of Carlisle decided to mark her grave as that of Molly Pitcher. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. National Women's History Museum, Date accessed.
Chicago - Alexander, Kerri Lee. Mary Ludwig Hays Works Cited. American Battlefield Trust. Teipe, Emily J. Summer New Jersey Historical Commission. Independence Hall Association. Photograph : Molly Pitcher at the Battle of Monmouth. Women in War. Related Biographies. Civil War Biography. View All Related Resources. Joseph Plumb Martin. Anticipating that her identity might be questioned, she also held a certificate signed in Dedham, Massachusetts dated December 10, , by Capt.
Eliphalet Thorp, who vouched that it was Mrs. Deborah Gannett who had enlisted as a soldier. Her petition was approved by the legislature and signed by Governor John Hancock that same year. She is also very likely the first American woman to appear on the theatrical stage.
In an effort to augment her income, Deborah Gannett performed in Boston and New York theaters, charging seven dollars an appearance. Gannett equipt in complete uniform will go through the Manual Exercise. Deborah Gannett's influential advocate, the famous silversmith and engraver Paul Revere, wrote several times on her behalf for a pension.
A letter to Congressman William Eustis of Massachusetts confirms that twenty-one years after the war, Deborah was still stigmatized as the woman who had dressed as a male soldier. Revere appealed to the congressman on her behalf, claiming that she had mended her ways:. He explained that Deborah's impaired health was due to the wound she had received in combat.
While Benjamin, her husband, was a good man, he was unsuccessful in business; even though the Gannetts had a few acres of farm land, they were very poor. In concluding his petition, Revere appealed to his congressman by reiterating that Mrs. Gannett was indeed feminine:. It is significant that Deborah felt it necessary to apologize on stage for having swerved from the path of femininity, and it was also critical for Revere to convince Congressman Eustis that Mrs.
Gannett had recovered and maintained her femininity after the war. By disguising herself as a man, running away from home alone, and joining the army, Deborah had broken all the rules of social convention. Until the twentieth century, a young lady had only two legitimate reasons for leaving home—her marriage or the death of her parents. It was unthinkable for a single woman to be on her own without risking damage to her reputation.
Popular literature abounded with horror tales of female deviants who had suffered the consequences of leaving home and living on their own. They met with the resulting moral deterioration of illegitimate childbirth, prostitution, or even death. Her biographer Herman Mann emphasized repeatedly that throughout all of Deborah's wartime escapades, she had maintained her chastity.
Obviously, Deborah needed a man with the prestige of Paul Revere to speak for her and defend her femininity. In , after twenty years of petitioning the federal government, Deborah received a disability pension of four dollars a month. Male veterans claiming disability received five dollars a month. In large part due to Revere's intervention, the pension amount was made retroactive to With this money, the Gannetts were able to build a clapboard home on their acreage and plant a few trees.
However, the pensions Deborah received never relieved their poverty or debt. Shortly after receiving the pension, Deborah wrote to thank Paul Revere and asked to borrow ten dollars. The pension, designed specifically to help indigent veterans, promised government relief to those still struggling thirty-five years after the war. It required applicants to submit a personal inventory of their assets and net worth including real estate and household goods. The government did not require that the value of clothing and bedding be estimated in the inventory.
In the application, Deborah Gannett, fifty-eight years old and mother of three children, claimed total assets of twenty dollars, which included her clothing. In order to qualify for the new pension, she had to relinquish the former disability pension of forty-eight dollars per annum as well as a state pension of four dollars a month. Deborah received the seventy-six-dollar stipend for about seven years.
After her death in , her husband believed to be the only widower to file for a pension could not qualify for benefits since they had not been married until l He depended upon local charity for survival and decided to petition the government for a pension. Gannett's pension affidavit describes Deborah's life after the war. He stated that she had been honorably discharged and rendered an accurate account of her military service. He also believed that her discharge papers were lost.
According to Mr. Gannett, her war wound, a musket ball lodged in her thigh for forty-six years, "followed her through life and hastened her death. Parsons, testified that Deborah had been unable to perform any labor due to her wound.
Consequently, Benjamin had been subjected to heavy medical expenses for more than twenty years before Deborah started receiving a pension. In Gannett still owed physicians six hundred dollars for her treatment.
On March 4, , a special act of Congress awarded Benjamin Gannett a more generous pension than Deborah had ever received. This stipend of eighty dollars a year was to continue "for and during his natural life. The historical record presents other candidates too numerous to mention here. But the evidence available begs the question—who is the real Molly Pitcher?
The answer is quite simple—all of them and none of them. Molly Pitcher is, as Linda Grant De Pauw has suggested, a legendary personality constructed from the tales of bravery and daring of Revolutionary women. The name Molly Pitcher is a collective generic term inasmuch as "G.
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