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The American Revolution was not made only by generals and soldiers. Women carried out dangerous work in military camps, fought under unusual circumstances, printed arguments, raised money, managed households and businesses, and preserved evidence of how the war changed ordinary life. The twelve women below are an editorial selection, not a definitive ranking or a complete list.
“Badass” here means historically consequential: taking a risk, doing work that others depended on, or claiming public authority in a society that sharply limited women’s choices. Their politics and circumstances differed. Some were Patriots, some had Loyalist connections, and some lived with constraints of race, class, enslavement, or family obligations that cannot be folded into one heroic story.
What did women do during the American Revolution?
Women’s wartime labor ranged from the visible to the easily overlooked. Camp followers sewed, washed clothing, prepared or sold food, nursed the sick, and helped armies function. The Museum of the American Revolution describes these workers as part of military life rather than incidental spectators: an army could not remain in the field without the services they supplied. Other women entered combat, an exceptional choice that brought physical danger and the risk of punishment or exposure.
The political revolution also depended on women’s work. Printers produced the texts through which arguments circulated; poets and essayists shaped political language; organizers collected money and supplies; and women who kept letters, diaries, or household records left evidence of wartime choices. The National Women’s History Museum’s overview places military participants, camp workers, business owners, and political actors within the same larger story: women were present in many arenas, but not all had the same freedom to act or to leave records.
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The table below uses consistent questions rather than ranking courage. “Evidence” identifies the kind of record attached to each woman in the sources available for this article; it does not mean that every episode in later popular biographies is equally established.
| Woman | Primary role | Evidence and memory | Political setting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deborah Sampson | Military service | National Archives record description, later biography, and later-identified documentary material | Continental service under an assumed male identity |
| Margaret Cochran Corbin | Combatant | Named in institutional accounts of women who fought | Patriot military setting |
| Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley | Combatant and camp presence | Kept distinct from the composite “Molly Pitcher” legend | Patriot military setting |
| Phillis Wheatley | Poet and published author | Original 1773 poetry volume held in a museum collection | Black woman writing within enslavement |
| Mary Katherine Goddard | Printer and publisher | Printing context documented in federal and institutional resources | Public information and Patriot politics |
| Martha Washington | Camp and household support | Included in institutional accounts of women’s wartime presence | Patriot leadership circle |
| Abigail Adams | Political correspondent and thinker | Letters and manuscript collections provide the documentary frame | Patriot family and political network |
| Mercy Otis Warren | Political writer and playwright | Included among women who argued the Revolution in print | Patriot political culture |
| Esther De Berdt Reed | Organizer and fundraiser | Institutional accounts connect her to wartime mobilization | Patriot relief and supply efforts |
| Rebecca Motte | Organizer and wartime decision-maker | Remembered through accounts of women’s wartime choices | Patriot setting, with local circumstances determining risk |
| Nancy Hart | Local resistance figure | Stories require separation of contemporary evidence from later tradition | Patriot memory and regional tradition |
| Elizabeth Drinker | Civilian witness | Represents household and community records of wartime life | Quaker and civilian experience amid conflict |
12 Revolutionary War women whose roles went far beyond the battlefield
1. Deborah Sampson: the soldier who enlisted as Robert Shurtleff
Deborah Sampson is the clearest example of a woman who deliberately entered the Continental Army under a male identity. A National Archives record description states that she disguised herself as a man and enlisted as Robert Shurtleff. That archival description supports the narrow fact of enlistment and assumed identity; it should not be treated as proof of every dramatic anecdote later attached to her name.
The evidence has several layers. The Library of Congress catalogs The Female Review, a later biography, while the Museum of the American Revolution discusses an Abner Weston diary and an eighteenth-century church record as additional material relevant to Sampson’s enlistment and service. Reading those sources together shows both the power and the limits of the record: a later biography can preserve valuable testimony, but it is not the same thing as a contemporaneous military file.
Sampson’s significance is therefore twofold. She made a risky personal decision to serve, and her story exposes how much historians must distinguish between an archival description, a later biography, and newly identified documentary evidence.
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Margaret Cochran Corbin appears in the National Women’s History Museum’s account of women known to have fought on the front lines. Her inclusion matters because it prevents “women in camp” from becoming a euphemism for women who never faced combat. Corbin’s experience was unusual, not representative of every woman associated with an army, and it should remain distinct from the later, generalized “Molly Pitcher” legend.
Her story belongs in a history of military labor because the boundary between support and combat could collapse during an engagement. A woman might arrive in a camp as a helper and confront battlefield danger directly. Corbin’s name is one of the strongest reminders that female participation in the fighting was real, even though it was exceptional.
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3. Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley: keep “Molly Pitcher” from erasing a person
Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley is another woman identified by the National Women’s History Museum among those who fought. Popular retellings often merge her with Margaret Corbin under the nickname “Molly Pitcher,” as if the name described one universally documented individual. It does not. McCauley and Corbin are separate women, and accounts about one should not be silently transferred to the other.
The useful lesson is methodological as much as biographical: a familiar nickname can preserve a memory of women carrying water or working near guns while obscuring which person a particular record describes. Treat McCauley’s story as her own, and treat “Molly Pitcher” as a piece of popular memory that needs identification before it can serve as evidence.
4. Phillis Wheatley: a published poet confronting the politics of liberty
Phillis Wheatley expanded the Revolution’s argument through poetry. The Museum of the American Revolution identifies an original copy of her 1773 poetry book in its collection. That physical book is important evidence of publication, authorship, and readership—not merely a later recollection that she wrote.
Wheatley was a Black woman living within enslavement, so the era’s language of liberty cannot be applied to her without acknowledging coercion and unequal access to rights. Her achievement was not simply that she produced verse during wartime. She entered a public literary culture that often denied Black people intellectual authority, while the political order invoking freedom continued to permit slavery. Her published work makes the Revolution a debate over who could speak, whose intellect was recognized, and whose freedom was postponed.
5. Mary Katherine Goddard: the printer behind public political communication
Mary Katherine Goddard represents the infrastructure of the Revolution. Printers turned arguments, proclamations, news, and political appeals into objects that could circulate. Federal resources collected by the South Carolina State Library identify Goddard’s place in women’s Revolutionary-era publication history.
Her importance is easy to miss because printing can look like background administration beside battlefield stories. In practice, a printer had to manage equipment, text, schedules, workers, and commercial risk. Goddard’s example shows that women influenced the Revolution not only by writing famous arguments but also by making it materially possible for arguments to reach readers.
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6. Martha Washington: sustaining military and political households
Martha Washington appears in institutional accounts of women’s wartime presence and support. Her role illustrates how military leadership rested on households and encampments as well as headquarters. Women associated with senior officers helped maintain the social and practical systems around an army, while their presence could also signal morale, status, and continuity.
It is misleading to describe that work as merely private. The same camp environment that required sewing, laundry, food, and care also created networks through which information, supplies, and influence moved. Martha Washington’s place in the story helps connect celebrated leadership households to the larger, mostly unrecognized labor performed by women around them.
7. Abigail Adams: political thought carried by correspondence
Abigail Adams used correspondence to participate in political debate while formal office and voting remained closed to women. Manuscript collections and guides to women’s Revolutionary-era papers make letters central evidence for understanding how families discussed war, government, scarcity, and the meaning of independence.
Her importance is not that a letter can substitute for a public speech. It is that correspondence created a political space in which women interpreted events, challenged assumptions, and influenced people who did hold office. Reading Adams alongside printers and published writers widens the definition of political communication: a household letter could shape decisions even when it was not intended for a mass audience.
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Mercy Otis Warren was a political writer whose work demonstrates that revolutionary persuasion did not begin and end with male pamphleteers. Institutional overviews place her among women who used writing to debate authority, resistance, and republican ideals.
Warren’s example also complicates the phrase “women’s role.” Writing political criticism required education, connections, time, and access to publication or influential readers—resources distributed unevenly. Her work records one form of female agency, but it should not be used to imply that every woman could enter public argument on comparable terms.
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9. Esther De Berdt Reed: organizing money and supplies
Esther De Berdt Reed shows how political commitment could become organized material aid. Accounts of women’s Revolutionary activity connect her with fundraising and mobilization for the Patriot cause. Such work required persuasion, bookkeeping, communication, and the ability to coordinate contributors across households and communities.
Fundraising is often treated as charitable footwork beneath “real” politics. During a war, however, collecting money or supplies addressed immediate military shortages and tested who could claim public authority. Reed’s organizing makes visible a form of leadership that operated through committees, subscriptions, and social networks rather than a battlefield command.
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Rebecca Motte belongs to the group of women whose wartime decisions were shaped by local danger, property, family, and competing demands for loyalty. Institutional accounts include her among women whose choices and organizing illuminate how the conflict reached homes and communities.
Her story is useful precisely because it resists a simple national script. A woman did not need to publish a pamphlet or enlist to face political consequences. Deciding what to protect, whom to assist, or how to respond to military pressure could carry serious risks, especially when armies moved through civilian neighborhoods.
11. Nancy Hart: local action and the problem of heroic tradition
Nancy Hart is remembered as a figure of local Patriot resistance, but stories about her require careful separation between contemporary evidence and later tradition. The American Revolution Institute includes her in an educational overview of women and the Revolution; that inclusion establishes her place in public historical memory, not every detail of the episodes later told about her.
Hart belongs in this list because contested memory is itself historically revealing. Communities preserved women’s resistance through stories that made courage legible to later generations. The responsible approach is neither to repeat an unverified anecdote as settled fact nor to dismiss the entire tradition without examining which parts are documented.
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12. Elizabeth Drinker: seeing the war from civilian life
Elizabeth Drinker represents women who recorded wartime life from within households and communities rather than from a military command. Her inclusion shifts attention to shortages, uncertainty, family obligations, religious convictions, and the daily choices civilians made while armies and governments claimed their allegiance.
That perspective matters because the Revolution’s political language could sound different in a home than in a public declaration. A civilian witness might notice displacement, interrupted trade, fear, or divided loyalties—experiences that disappear when history is told only through battles and famous speeches.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to read evidence about Revolutionary War women
Separate a record from a later biography
Deborah Sampson demonstrates why source labels matter. The National Archives record description supports her enlistment under the name Robert Shurtleff. The Library of Congress catalog identifies The Female Review as a later biography, and the Museum of the American Revolution points to an Abner Weston diary and an eighteenth-century church record as additional evidence. Each source answers a different question. None should automatically be treated as a complete service file.
Do not combine women because a legend is convenient
“Molly Pitcher” is a popular label, not a license to merge Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley and Margaret Cochran Corbin. Identify the woman attached to a specific record before repeating an episode. The same caution applies to any story transmitted mainly through later retellings.
Leave disputed episodes qualified
The educational source that names Sybil Ludington does not, by itself, establish the details or evidentiary status of the famous ride associated with her. Unless a source directly evaluates that evidence, the safest historical statement is that she appears in educational discussions, not that every detail of the ride is settled fact.
Keep politics, race, and freedom visible
Patriot women were not the only women affected by the war. Loyalist families, free and enslaved Black women, Indigenous communities, Quaker civilians, and women with limited legal or economic power encountered the conflict differently. The Library of Congress guide to women’s manuscript collections points readers toward records involving figures such as Mary Russell Foster and Loyalist Christian Barnes, showing how manuscript evidence can broaden the story beyond famous Patriot households.
Where to continue reading
For a sustained collection of essays, the Museum of the American Revolution highlights Holly A. Mayer’s edited volume Women Waging War in the American Revolution, with contributions from thirteen historians and publication through the University of Virginia Press: read the museum’s overview of the book. The museum’s collection and context page, Revolutionary Women, is useful for locating objects connected to women, camp followers, and Phillis Wheatley. The National Women’s History Museum’s “Mythbusting the Founding Mothers” provides a concise orientation to combatants, workers, and business owners.
Primary-source pathways include the National Archives’ Deborah Sampson record description, the Museum of the American Revolution’s discussion of newly identified Sampson evidence at its diary and church-record page, and the Library of Congress guide to women’s Revolutionary War manuscript collections. For Goddard and federal resources, consult the South Carolina State Library’s guide to federal publications on women in the Revolution. The American Revolution Institute’s 2025 educational overview is available at Year in Revolution—1778: Women in the American Revolution.
Together, these women show a revolution sustained by more than combat. Some took up weapons; others made armies work, put arguments into print, organized resources, or preserved civilian experience. Their differences are the point: there was no single way to be a revolutionary woman.
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