Women played a large role in the Revolutionary War-not as nurses-but as soldiers, fund-raisers and keepers of the family. After the battles of Lexington and Concord in April, 1775, one British soldier wrote, "One woman was seen between her father and husband firing a blunderbuss."

It should be remembered that as pioneer women, ladies stood shoulder to shoulder with their men, learning to ride and shoot and do the sort of heavy work that would have shocked their European sisters. It is for this reason that frontier women could step into the battle arena with confidence.

One such woman was Nancy Hart, who lived in eastern Georgia and had eight children. When the Tories invaded her cabin in her husband's absence, they ordered Nancy to cook them a meal. Some say that these very same Tories were responsible for the death of Colonel John Dooly. After whispering to her daughter to find her husband and raise a band of men and while the Tories ate and drank the last that the Harts had, Nancy's outrage grew until she picked up a gun and warned that she'd kill the first man who moved. She shot one man who reached for his musket and another who rose from his chair.

When Ben Hart and his friends arrived, they found Nancy standing in the doorway of the cabin, keeping her gun trained upon the remaining Tories. When she insisted to the men that shooting was too good for the Tories, they were instead hanged in the Harts' backyard. For her bravery, Nancy later had a Georgia county named for her.

The first woman to be awarded a pension by Congress for her bravery in battle was Margaret Cochran Corbin, also known as Captain Molly. When her husband, John, died while manning a cannon, Molly continued to fire at the Redcoats and Hessians, even after being wounded herself by grapeshot. Thereafter, she never recovered full use of her arm. In 1779, Molly was awarded an amount equal to the half-pay of a soldier and a yearly allowance for a new dress. She is the only woman to fight in the Revolutionary War who was later buried in the cemetery at West Point.

Deborah Sampson Gannett, of Middleboro, MA, disguised herself as a man and called herself Robert Shurtleff. She fought with the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment as a private and was wounded by a musket ball in the Battle of Tarrytown. She recovered and went on to serve as an aide-de-camp to General Patterson. When she became felled by fever, she was moved to the infirmary, where it was discovered that she was a woman. She was awarded an honorable discharge from the army and much later, in 1818, applied for a war pension after becoming feeble. She received eight dollars a month and, after her death in 1827, her husband applied for her pension. He had not served during the war, but, after much debate, Congress decided that a woman such as Mrs. Gannett would not have married someone who was not as patriotic as herself. Gannett became the first man to receive a war pension due to his wife's bravery in battle.

In some cases, cunning was called for and the Revolutionary ladies rose to the occasion. Emily Geiger, of South Carolina, served as courier during the war. While carrying a message from General Nathaniel Greene, she was caught by the British and had the presence of mind to read the general's message before swallowing it. Upon her release, Emily delivered the message and so helped with the general's plans for an upcoming battle.

Virginian Susanna Bolling was present when British General Cornwallis dined at her family's home in 1781. The General was foolish enough to talk about his plan for capturing Lafayette. As her parents slept later that evening, Susanna slipped out of the house and crossed the Appomattox River in order to war Lafayette.

Even those ladies who did not take some sort of active part in the war found ways in which to help. Esther de Berdt Reed of Pennsylvania founded The Association. The lady members raised money for the army and also sewed over two thousand shirts of fine linen for the soldiers. A group of fifty-one ladies in Edenton, NC., refused to drink British tea or wear British garments for the duration of the war and during the attack upon Fort Henry by the British and Indians in 1782, Betty Zane dodged bullets in order to get to the gunpowder stores. She filled an apron which was tied round her waist with powder and returned to the fort, enabling the Continental army to hold their ground.

Whoever said that a woman's place is in the kitchen should have brushed up on their history!