Women also fought in the Revolutionary War to express their love for their nation.
Women also fought in the Revolutionary War to express their love for their nation. Anna Maria Lane and Margaret Corbin are well-known names for patriotic women who fought in the war. Anna Maria Lane was the first recognized female soldier from Virginia to participate in the American Revolutionary War with the Continental Army. She disguised herself as a man and accompanied her husband on the battlefield, and she was eventually awarded a pension for her bravery during the Battle of Germantown. Margaret Cochran Corbin (November 12, 1751 – January 16, 1800) was an American Revolutionary War soldier. She was too afraid to allow her husband to go into a fight alone, so she decided to accompany him. When her husband was killed in battle, Margaret Corbin took his position and continued to operate the cannon until she was gravely injured as well. When she was unable to work due to injuries and was enlisted in the Corps of Invalids, she became the first woman in U.S. history to earn a pension from Congress for military service.
Some women fought the British without leaving their homes; for example, in Georgia, Nancy Hart allegedly shot two loyalist soldiers in her kitchen and held several others at gunpoint until relief arrived. Martha Bratton blew up her husband's stash of gunpowder before loyalists could steal it. When British troops seized Rebecca Brewton Motte's home, she allowed patriot forces to destroy it.
Other Patriot women rode through enemy territory with army dispatches and letters containing critical military intelligence hidden beneath their petticoats. On the night of April 26, 1777, Sybil Ludington, then sixteen, is reported to have ridden 40 miles through the towns of Putnam County, New York, knocking on farmhouse doors to warn militiamen that British forces were on their way to Danbury, Connecticut.
