[Libloather]

Check out today's program schedule on the History Channel. All Revolutionary War - all day.

Molly Pitcher

An Artillery wife, Mary Hays McCauly (better known as Molly Pitcher) shared the rigors of Valley Forge with her husband, William Hays. Her actions during the battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778 became legendary. That day at Monmouth was as hot as Valley Forge was cold. Someone had to cool the hot guns and bathe parched throats with water.

Across that bullet-swept ground, a striped skirt fluttered. Mary Hays McCauly was earning her nickname "Molly Pitcher" by bringing pitcher after pitcher of cool spring water to the exhausted and thirsty men. She also tended to the wounded and once, heaving a crippled Continental soldier up on her strong young back, carried him out of reach of hard-charging Britishers. On her next trip with water, she found her artilleryman husband back with the guns again, replacing a casualty. While she watched, Hays fell wounded. The piece, its crew too depleted to serve it, was about to be withdrawn. Without hesitation, Molly stepped forward and took the rammer staff from her fallen husband’s hands. For the second time on an American battlefield, a woman manned a gun. (The first was Margaret Corbin during the defense of Fort Washington in 1776.) Resolutely, she stayed at her post in the face of heavy enemy fire, ably acting as a matross (gunner).

For her heroic role, General Washington himself issued her a warrant as a noncommissioned officer. Thereafter, she was widely hailed as "Sergeant Molly." A flagstaff and cannon stand at her gravesite at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A sculpture on the battle monument commemorates her courageous deed.

http://sill-www.army.mil/pao/pamolly.htm

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

It was 104 degrees Fahrenheit that day, and they fought in those heavy wool uniforms, without much water, other than what Molly Pitcher brought to them...!!!! Yikes!

[Jemian]

Ping!

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

[Fred Hayek]

A flagstaff and cannon stand at her gravesite at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Would that happen to be at the Army War College in Carlisle?

[Molly Pitcher]

I need to get back there one day. LOL!

Anyone who hasn't read "Angel in the Whirlwind" by Benson Bobrick on the Revolutionary War, should.

[Obie Wan]

Americans fought the strongest military in the world to a stalemate and one of the best was Molly Pitcher.With men and woman like these, America would never be defeated and those of us who have been blessed by their legacy should NEVER retreat from foreign or domestic enemies regardless who they are !!!

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

Something that has always been remarkable to me is that back in that era, everyone served in the military in some capacity. Even the wealthy and the educated, physicians and attorneys of the day were out in the field fighting for America.

Wish I could see that sort of service today.

[Libloather]

...it was fought, as no other major engagement, in stifling heat. None who survived the day would ever forget the heat. With more than fifteen hours of sunshine, 28 June was the fifth day of a heat wave, which on the day of the battle saw temperatures close to 100 deg. Fahrenheit. The sun beat down mercilessly on the men who fought back and forth through sandy fields and around steaming morasses with nothing but scrubby pines for shade. The British and Germans, with woolen uniforms and heavy packs, suffered especially; but on both sides dozens died of heat stroke, and those who survived were half-crazed with thirst and limp with heat exhaustion.

Global warming ping...

[Ancesthntr]

I grew up about 3-4 miles from the Battle of Monmouth site, in Freehold, NJ. I've read up on the battle quite a bit, and it was quite important because it showed that American troops could take on the Brits in a set-piece battle and prevail. It, along with Saratoga, was instrumental in getting the French to help us out.

My father is very good friends with an old Navy buddy of his named Greene, who is directly descended from Nathaniel Greene.

I find it ironic at best that the freedoms fought and died for at Monmouth Courthouse (as Freehold was then known) and hundreds of other large and small battlefields across NJ and the other 12 original states have been gradually eroded or eliminated. I speak particularly (and most sadly) about the lousy or non-existent state of a person's right to keep and bear arms in New Jersey. New York, Maryland, Massachusetts and Rhode Island are about as bad. Ironically enough, citizens being asked to muster today to fight a similar tyrant couldn't do so, mainly because the state has corruptly and tyrannically forbidden its citizens to own the most effective firearms, to make it very expensive to do so and to force so many ranges out of previously uninhabited areas that it is very difficult and time-consuming to train with a firearm. I didn't leave NJ (for Texas, Free America) because of a lack of gun rights, but I can say that I was a potential felon for possessing property after 1991 that I possessed quite legally in 1990, as were tens of thousands of others. It frosts me that innocent, tax-paying and otherwise completely law-abiding citizens can be treated so badly by their servant, government...

...which gives me a far greater appreciation of the motivation of those brave people of our first "Greatest Generation" to revolt against tyranny.

[Coleus]

The FReeper Foxhole Profiles General "Mad Anthony" Wayne - Nov. 15th, 2003

Molly Pitcher (Catholic List)

Molly Pitcher Service Area (What Exit?)