The Daughters of the White Alloe Chapter, NSDSAR, invite you to celebrate with us the incredible women who helped in the efforts to achieve American Independence. Showcased below are six brave women of the American Revolution.

The role women played in the American Revolution has been often overlooked in the study of our history. To learn about the contributions of many more courageous women during the Revolutionary War to go https://www.womenshistory.org

Lydia Durragh – Spy

In the Fall of 1777 British officers were using Lydia’s home in occupied Philadelphia for strategic meetings. Lydia was told to stay in her bedroom upstairs during these meetings, but she would sneak downstairs and listen to their conversations through the keyhole in the door of the meeting room. After hearing of the British plan to attach General Washington’s camp she carried a message to him hidden in her skirt.

Harriet Prudence Hall – Messenger

Prudence, an immigrant from Ireland, lived in upper South Carolina, where she and her husband John Hall raised nine children.  John fought in the Second South Carolina Regiment while Prudence tended their farm and store.  She rode to Charleston multiple times carrying written messages hidden in her petticoat for the American Commander. She outwitted British troops on the way by claiming she was going to Charleston to purchase medicine.

Mary Ludwig Haynes  – Gunner

Mary, later known as “Molly Pitcher,” accompanied her husband William Haynes, who served in the Fourth Pennsylvania Artillery, to cook meals, do laundry and other chores.  During the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey in June 1778, she carried water to his cannon crew. When he was injured, she took his place. Her valor was recognized by General Washington, who urged the Continental Congress to make her a sergeant.  She was awarded half pay for the rest of her life.

Penelope Barker – Resistance Organizer

On October 25, 1774, less than a year after the Boston Tea Party, Penelope Barker led a group of fifty women in Edenton, North Carolina who held a tea to  form the Ladies Patriotic Guild and sign a resolution declaring a boycott on all British-made goods and products, especially tea and cloth.  Their declaration was printed in the Virginia Gazette and a London newspaper. The boycott continued until the end of the Revolutionary War.

Deborah Samson – Continental Soldier

Deborah Samson of Massachusetts enlisted towards the end of the war in May 1782 under the name Robert Shurtleff.  She fought in battles near West Point and Tarrytown, New York. While she was wounded once, her female gender was not discovered.  A short time later she was had a fever but the doctor treating her refused to inform on her.  Deborah was discharged as Robert Shurtleff in October 1783.  After she died her husband was awarded a pension as the widower of a soldier

Sybil Ludington – a female Paul Revere

Sybil lived in Danbury, Connecticut.  Her father, Col. Henry Ludington, was the leader of a militia unit.  In April 1777, at age sixteen, she was sent on horseback to arouse men in the area about an imminent British attack. She rode a distance of forty miles from Danbury, Connecticut to Carmel, New York, twice the distance of Revere’s ride.