Revolutionary Women

It’s hard to believe, especially in today’s social environment, how stringent women’s lives were as recently as 200 years ago in America. This is an especially difficult road to navigate when writing historical romances. In light of recent events in the romance publishing industry, and its long-overdue push to be inclusive, some books featuring the struggles of women to serve equally with men, or to live their own best lives, are shoved aside as being too controversial for today’s climate. 

I’ve written before about women’s participation behind the scenes during the Revolutionary War in America, and how not every woman stayed behind closed doors knitting socks and rolling bandages but acted as spies or secret double agents, passing along overheard information. Some women became camp followers, and helped feed the troops who marched into battle, but never before have I written about the women who actually fought alongside the men in these battles. But there were a handful of these brave souls. Allow me to introduce you to Deborah Sampson, the only woman to earn a full military pension for participation in the Revolutionary War. 

Deborah Sampson was born in 1760 in Plymouth, MA, one of seven children of Pilgrim stock, and related to both Myles Standish and Governor William Bradford. Upon the death of her father, Deborah was placed as an indentured servant at age ten. When her indenture was completed, at age 18, she became a teacher, but in 1782, when the Revolutionary War dragged on, the patriotic Sampson had enough of sitting on the sidelines. She donned men’s clothing, named herself Robert Shurtleff and joined the Massachusetts regiment. Standing at five feet, nine inches, and stocky of build, she bound her small breasts with a linen cloth in order to pass as a man. Her features were ordinary, and, according to her friend, Herman Mann “not what a physiognomist would term the most beautiful.” Her appearance–tall, broad, strong, and not delicately feminine–contributed to her success at pretending to be a man. 

She was given the dangerous mission of scouting neutral territory to gauge the British troops buildup and supplies. As Shurtleff, she led expeditions and raids on British troops, often fighting in one-on-one encounters with the enemy. She dug trenches alongside her fellow countrymen and endured cannon fire. 

For nearly two years, she fought alongside men in the Continental Army without detection as to her true identity, but she did have a couple close calls. During a battle, she received a gash on her head from a sword and was shot in the thigh. She allowed the medical staff to care for her head wound but left the medical tent before they could undress her to care for the leg wound. She extracted the bullet herself with a penknife and sewed her wound closed. Her gender was ultimately discovered when she became ill during an epidemic, and lost consciousness. 

Following her honorable discharge in October 1783, she returned to Massachusetts and two years later, married Benjamin Gannet, a farmer from Sharon, MA and had three children. Her life story was written by Herman Mann in 1797, entitled Memoirs of an American Young Lady. She became an ordinary farmer’s wife, and raised their children, except in 1802, when she spent a year touring the country and talking about her experiences on the battlefield, becoming one of the earliest female lecturers in the country. 

State of Deborah Sampson outside the Sharon, MA library

 Following her death, her husband petitioned the government for spousal pay, given to any spouse of a soldier. The committee concluded that the history of the Revolution “furnished no other similar example of female heroism, fidelity and courage” and awarded Mr. Gannet the payment he requested.  

Several books have been written about Deborah Sampson’s experiences and are available on Amazon. 

 

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/deborah-sampson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Sampson

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Deborah-Sampson

The first book in Becky Lower’s new Revolutionary Women series, was released in June. It features Pippa Worthington, a British heiress who, in order to avoid a loveless arranged marriage, dons a boy’s clothes and heads for America at the start of the Revolutionary War in search of her own freedom. Find out what happens next here: https://www.amazon.com/British-Heiress-America-Revolutionary-Women-ebook/dp/B089RNSY3P

Evacuation Day

British ships leaving Boston Harbor

Unless you live in or near Boston, MA, you’ve probably never heard of Evacuation Day. But Bostonians celebrate it every March 17, since it marks the day in 1776 that the British forces finally left Boston, after being encamped there for eleven months. What prompted this final evacuation is a feat of human endurance, the likes of which we haven’t seen in years. There were cannons in Fort Ticonderoga, NY, over 300 miles away from Boston. General George Washington placed the transfer of these heavy cannon to the then 25-year-old Colonel Henry Knox. 

Henry Knox

They had to wait until the ground was frozen, otherwise the heavy equipment would become lodged in the soft dirt while in transit. The first part of the journey involved floating the fifty-nine cannons and mortars down Lake George, hoping to get them on land at the southern border of the lake before the water completely froze over. It took three days to traverse the lake. Then, the hard part began. The cannon parts were loaded onto forty-two sleds tugged by eighty oxen, over mountainous terrain. The journey took fifty-six days to accomplish. At the end of it, more than 1000 Bostonians gathered at Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston Harbor and reassembled the cannons. 

What the British didn’t realize was while the cannons may look dangerous to their troops in the harbor, the Americans had only enough gunpowder and cannon balls to issue warning shots. The fifty-nine cannons only looked impressive. Even more impressive was the fact some of the cannons facing the harbor were not cannons at all, but were logs painted black to resemble cannons, at least from a distance. 

The cleverness of the Americans was enough to do the trick, and the British forces left the harbor, finally. George Washington stood on the Heights above the city of Boston and watched as the ships evacuated the city and moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia. 

I write about Evacuation Day in A British Heiress in America, the first book in my new Revolutionary Women series. The heroine, Pippa, has to don a boy’s clothing to move about the city by herself, and in her disguise, she is recruited to help assemble the cannons and paint the fake cannons. Here’s an excerpt: 

Shots rang out from the direction of Cambridge.

“The distraction’s begun, men,” Henry Knox called out. “Let’s get these cannons to Dorchester.”

Daniel glanced up as the snow swirled around the line of sleds and oxen. Several thousand men, by his rough estimate, had come together to help and were lending a hand at each sled. “Thank God. We have reinforcements.”

Ben chuckled. “The Brits won’t know what hit ‘em.”

With little fanfare, the men started reassembling the cannons and rolling them into place. The gunshots continued to ring out from Cambridge. With any luck, the cannons would be in position before the fighting stopped.

They unloaded one sled after another, and the oxen were led away to the closest farm with a corral large enough to hold them. The oxen’s hard work was finished, but the waiting men, and the cannons still had work to do. The gun battle whimpered to a close and the cannons were all in place. The fake guns, made from painted logs, had been placed in the farthest spots, but they appeared real enough, at least from a distance. Daniel ran his hand down one of the logs, admiring the ingenuity.

“I painted that one myself.”

He’d recognize that voice anywhere. Daniel wheeled and Pippa stood next to him, dressed in her cabin boy clothing and with a smirk on her face.

He grabbed her elbow. “What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m doing my part for the Revolution.” She wrenched her elbow away from his grasp. “I’ve decided to side with America instead of England.”

Daniel’s drooping body was like a plant which had just been given a healthy dose of water. He straightened and stared at her. Even in her boy’s clothing, with her hair tied back in a queue, she was exquisite. “So, you’re not running back across the Atlantic at your first opportunity?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ll need to take care of my business from afar and hope for the best. But no, I can’t side with the British anymore.”

A British Heiress in America is available for pre-order now here: https://www.amazon.com/British-Heiress-America-Revolutionary-Women-ebook/dp/B089RNSY3P

Where Do You Find Inspiration?

Most authors get asked this question quite a bit. And I’m sure most of us have as many different answers as there are books out there. When I began my writing journey, I drew on my own family dynamics for my stories. One of my early published works was about three sisters who had a troubled past with each other. My three sisters spent months trying to guess which of the characters was molded after them. It was a great deal of fun hearing them give their reasons why they thought Anne, or Charlotte, or Emily was molded after them. I never told them who was correct. 

https://www.amazon.com/Blame-Brontes-Becky-Lower-ebook/dp/B07TJ2PVT5/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=becky+lower&qid=1581891734&sr=8-9

As I progressed through my career, my inspiration grew from observing people in public places, overhearing little snippets of conversation and wondering what the story was before those words were spoken and what would come after. Often, a few lines from a song or something I’d read stayed with me for months or years. 

When I was living in a crowded suburb of DC, I needed an escape from civilization as much as possible, so I bought some land in the West Virginia mountains and had a one room log cabin built on it. It was only about a two-hour drive from my home during the week, so I’d head out there every weekend I could. My dog and cat took the trip with me and my cat never failed to get car sick as we wove our way through the mountain roads. 

Out in the sticks of West Virginia, there was only one radio station I could pick up, and it was country. My dad liked country music, so the tunes that were played reminded me of my childhood, and even though I hadn’t been paying much attention (after all, it was the dawn of rock and roll), some of the music I was now forced to listen to had sunk in, since what I was now hearing was very familiar. I grew my list of favorite singers, and Reba McIntire

headed my list, along with some country hunks like Rodney Crowell and Marty Stuart. Reba had just released an album containing the song “Fancy,” a tragic tale of a young girl whose mother was out of options and sent her daughter into a life of prostitution. Her advice to her daughter was “Just be nice to the gentlemen and they’ll be nice to you.”

That song stuck with me over the years, and every time I’d hear it on a Flashback Friday, I’d sing along at the top of my voice. When I began writing a story about a British courtesan who traveled to America during the Revolutionary War period to escape her past, that song floated to the surface of my mind, and my heroine, Fancy Booker, was born. I hope Reba will approve of the way I tell my heroine’s tale in the second book in my Revolutionary War Trilogy. Take a listen to the song here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zplc4Ienkws&feature=emb_logo

Becky Lower's new Revolutionary War series begins in 1777, not even a year after the Declaration of Independence was signed. The battle for our country's freedom had been simmering for years and was about to boil over. It was not a good time for young British ladies to be making their way to the country unescorted, but our country needed their grit and fortitude. And it's made for three wonderful heroines. Can't wait to share them with you.