Women Waging War in the American Revolution

Some of most famous women of the American Revolution were the wives of well-known men, like Abigail Adams or Eliza Hamilton, or women who actively took part in the war, like Deborah Sampson. But these women, whose names we know, are not the only ones who affected the outcome of the war. There are countless others who took part in the Revolution in myriad ways: as business owners and farmers; as authors; as the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters of soldiers; as camp followers; and sometimes becoming combatants themselves.   

In Women Waging War in the American Revolution, edited by Holly A. Mayer, thirteen historians specializing in early American history reveal the hidden histories of women in the Revolutionary era. Within the book’s essays, a diverse selection of women are highlighted, from British officers’ wives to a Black Loyalist and a revolutionary writer, revealing not just their own stories but more about the world and society in which they lived. In this excerpt, historian Benjamin L. Carp discusses the unknown woman who took part in the New York City Fire in 1776.   

Excerpt

The British Army captured New York City on 15 September 1776. Six days later, a group of rebels spoiled the king’s prize: they set fires that laid waste to hundreds of buildings. Soldiers on the scene caught and summarily executed several unnamed incendiaries. The St. James’s Chronicle of London, printing a “private Letter” from New York, reported “that the first Incendiary who fell into the Hands of the Troops was a Woman, provided with Matches and Combustibles.” The news was meant to shock readers who were conditioned to believe that women belonged at home, tending the hearth fires, not in the center of a warzone, starting house fires. To a British newspaper audience, this female incendiary became vivid proof that the American rebellion was a crime against the natural order.  

The laws of war were clear about what ought to happen next. Normally it was “a maxim of justice and humanity” not to mistreat women and other noncombatants, but according to Emer de Vattel, “If the women wish to be spared altogether, they must confine themselves to the occupations peculiar to their own sex, and not meddle with those of men by taking up arms.” Furthermore, “incendiaries . . . may be exterminated wherever they are seized.”2 And so in the case of the “first Incendiary,” the Chronicle continued, “her Sex availed her little, for without Ceremony, she was tossed into the Flames” by the soldiers. It was the ancient punishment for witches, traitors, heretics, and arsonists—a way to destroy the deep evil that lingered in the bodies of serious criminals. Indeed, British authorities still punished some women for petty treason (usually murdering their husbands) by burning them at the stake as “home-rebels” and “house-traitors.” Histories, too, try to suppress women who defy the strictures of marriage and domesticity.  

Because of that suppression, we do not expect to encounter women committing acts of irregular warfare; most people regard such an image as a nightmare or ignore the idea entirely. This essay considers the story of the “first Incendiary” and argues for an honest reckoning with her frightful identity. 

People of the eighteenth-century British Empire relied on a small handful of stereotypes to fasten restrictive gender roles on women. The first type was the proper (usually White) woman, tender and subservient, except for when she ran a household in the absence of a father or husband. The second type was the “disorderly woman,” apt to be mercurial, deceptive, oversexed, and unruly. More rarely, literature and history made room for a third role: that of a righteous warrior who defended the community and kept her family fed and intact at all costs. This type of woman—like Jeanne d’Arc (who also met a fiery death)—might be strong, politicized, and out on the frontlines of civil and military conflict. British society also tolerated—even grudgingly admired—the occasional hardy plebeian woman who dressed as a man and fought for her country, who displayed her own kind of masculinity and heroism. But for the most part, such women were not celebrated until they were neutralized or deceased. 

Prior to the outbreak of the Revolution, American women had become politically active, signing on to boycotts of British goods and producing homespun cloth. Then they supported the war effort with their money and labor. Female soldiers like Deborah Sampson Gannett, the Massachusetts woman who surreptitiously served in uniform, were rare. Women more often acted in informal or auxiliary military capacities. They encouraged beaux and relatives to fight, joined army communities, and entertained troops in garrison. Most of these activities were uncontroversial (at least among their own partisans), since they accorded with traditional notions of women’s labor, nurturing, and subordination. In such cases, their male allies welcomed their presence.  

[…]  

The London newspaper story of the “first Incendiary” is partly corroborated by two unprinted accounts. The first comes from Henry Strachey, a member of Parliament who served as secretary to Admiral Richard, Lord Howe, in his capacity as peace commissioner. Strachey wrote to his wife in England that he had seen the fire from aboard the Eagle flagship (about two miles from the city) and called it “the most shocking Scene” and “the most melancholly Catastrophe that ever came within my View.” At Lord Howe’s side, Strachey was well-positioned to receive the best intelligence from Manhattan. Strachey wrote that British soldiers and sailors had killed five or six “Incendiaries” and seized other “Contrivers.” He added, “One Woman was caught with a Match, and her hands all over Gunpowder which she had been kneading into balls.” But he said nothing further about her fate.  

The second account was the 1783 testimony of Private George Kerr of the 43rd Regiment of Foot. Kerr recalled entering a house behind St. Paul’s Chapel, where he found “five men & a woman.” The room had a cupboard with “a Kegg holding about 5 Gall[on]s with the [rest] out full of open powder & a bundle of matches near it.” Kerr “seized the men, when the woman cried & offered me money to let them go.” She hoped that Private Kerr would be swayed by sympathy—or, failing that, greed—and look the other way, but as the newspapers said, “her Sex availed her little.” Instead, Kerr recalled, “I took the money & carried the 5 Men the Powder & Matches to the Provost.” The soldiers took the men to jail and probably saved St. Paul’s from destruction.  

Her tears may well have been genuine—she had just been cornered by armed men (“fell into the Hands of the Troops”). But Kerr apparently decided that her cries were a feminine ruse or an unfeminine outburst, especially since they preceded a bribe. The woman, having crossed the boundaries of gendered propriety, may well have tried to cross back by using her presumed weakness and irresponsibility as leverage to escape punishment. Kerr said nothing more about the woman’s fate in his recorded testimony. If this was the “first Incendiary” from the newspaper, then either he or Ward Chipman (the scribe) omitted what happened next: the Redcoats responded to this fallen woman’s crime by immolating her “without Ceremony.” Kerr pocketed the cash.  

Who was she, and why had she done it? Given the nature of the evidence, we can only speculate. Perhaps the woman had taken an active part in the rebellious city’s political culture or was connected to a patriot soldier. If so, then perhaps she and her companions were enacting their animus against wealthy local loyalists, the Church of England, the British Army. If she owned no property in the city, then she may have cared little for its fate. If she was a New Yorker, then she would have known many women who acted alongside men in commerce, sociability, and other endeavors, even in transgressive activities like keeping disorderly houses, theft, and criminal violence.  

During the city’s famous 1741 conspiracy trials, women had participated in the thefts and multiracial cabals that made up the city’s counterculture. Because the “first Incendiary” was discovered in the “holy ground” neighborhood notorious for prostitution, she might have been a sex worker. If she had been part of the city’s informal, marginal economy, then she may have felt that much more comfortable defying gender norms by confronting a soldier. Again, if she was a resident New Yorker, perhaps she perceived herself as defending her hometown; for centuries, women had defended besieged cities, protected their homes from pillage, and withheld their property from conquest. Possibly she made the affirmative choice to burn houses rather than let them fall into enemy hands.  

Still, her participation as a woman was distinctive and indicates something broader about the radical elements of the revolutionary movement. Although Continental Army officers wanted an orderly army, they also confronted soldiers who sowed chaos, disobeyed orders, and used nontraditional methods of war. As radical actors, patriots were willing to consider radical methods, including the deployment of women as spies and saboteurs. Such women could manipulate prevailing gender assumptions; as Judith L. Van Buskirk writes, “Considered weak and childlike, females could go where few males dared because they were considered no threat.” The “first Incendiary” had a particular ability to act behind enemy lines. Her ability to exploit her presumed incapacity was exactly what made her dangerous.

Mayer, Holly A., ed., Women Waging War in the American Revolution (University of Virginia Press, 2022). pp. 23-27