SGT Molly, a Sister-in-Arms
I
t was a sweltering afternoon in New Jersey: jungle-hot, time. Like many young wives, Mary Ludwig Hays, the 24tropically humid, dripping, draining, the kind of day year-old spouse of an artilleryman, had been with the battery
that wrings you out and leaves you lying there gasping since the grim winter at Valley Forge. Hays and the other
in the shade. Few who pass through bustling, indus- wives washed laundry, cooked, and helped tend the sick and
trial modern-day Newark think the Garden State lives up wounded. Most of the women stayed at Valley Forge when
to its nickname, let alone merits rain forest status. But on the Continentals marched east to fight at Monmouth, but
the long, oppressive afternoon of June 28, 1778, it did.
Hays went with the Army. With British musket balls sighing
It was definitely the wrong day for a battle, especially for overhead and hostile cannon shots sizzling through the hot
groups of cursing, sweating men wearing wool uniforms grass, Hays carried two sloshing water buckets up to her
and packed shoulder to shoulder into firing lines three rows husband and the rest of the embattled artillerymen. The men
deep. The red-coated British Regulars and blue-coated drank some but used most of the precious liquid to swab and
American Continentals fought each
cool the scorching metal gun barrels.
other in a sprawling, bloody clash well
When the British regiments surged forbeyond the cooling tree groves and out
ward again, the cannons needed to be
in the sun-drenched farm fields of
ready to reply.
Monmouth, N.J., on the hottest day of
That British attack began sooner than
the year. To keep going on a day like
any of the Pennsylvania gunners exthat, soldiers need water—lots of it.
pected. The experienced British comRudyard Kipling summarized it sumanders massed a grand battery of 16
perbly in his well-known poem,
pieces. Determined to break the Ameri“Gunga Din”: “But when it comes to
can line, the British artillery opened fire
slaughter/You will do your work on
in unison. Like the other American batwater/An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’
teries, the 4th Pennsylvania Artillery
boots of ‘im that’s got it.” It is unreplied. A furious artillery duel ensued.
known if any boots got licked at MonWater resupply stopped as every solmouth, but those with water found no
dier turned to serve the guns.
shortage of takers. The trick involved
Choking clouds of dark gray smoke
finding the givers.
billowed in the still air. In the fetid
American supply arrangements
gloom, the crews executed the wellBy LTG Daniel P. Bolger
were sketchy in 1778. The Continental
known drill. After each shot, a rammer
U.S. Army retired
Army included a Quartermaster Corps.
pushed a long pole with a sponge into
Indeed, that vital group had existed since June 16, 1775, the barrel, extinguishing powder sparks. Sponging the bartwo days after the formation of the Army itself. Under- rel; lugging heavy cannon balls; poking, prodding and
manned, underfunded and decidedly overworked, the shoving the next powder bag and iron shot down the
quartermasters depended on civilian contractors. These throat; and shifting the heavy carriage to align with a target
hired helpers tended to depart quickly at the first shot. On glimpsed through stifling smoke—it could wear down
the broiling Monmouth battlefield, resupply came thanks even stout artillerists on a cool day. On a scorcher like this
to soldiers detailed from the fighting regiments.
one, men wobbled and collapsed. Hays’ husband was
The 4th Pennsylvania Artillery’s guns anchored an essen- among them. The relentless British fire accounted for some,
tial ridge at the north end of the Continental line. Enemy but the merciless sun certainly got more.
cannon balls bounded up the slope, bowling over some
Hays stepped into the gap. She had evidently learned the
Americans unable to scramble out of the way. A half-mile loading and firing drill taught at Valley Forge. Without
away, British Regulars, led by the famed 42nd Regiment of missing a beat, she kept swabbing out the shimmering-hot
Foot (The Black Watch), formed for another assault. Debili- barrel, twisting the long sponge rod with cool skill. Another
tated by the blazing sun and fierce fighting, both sides were artilleryman watched a British cannonball skip up the low
nearing the end of their strength. In this heat, one more ridge and cross between the woman’s legs, shredding her
good push by either opponent might finish the day. The cry lower skirt and petticoat. “Well,” she remarked, “that could
arose from the Continental ranks: “Water! Bring us water!”
have been worse.” Thanks to Hays’ work and that of hunBy ones and twos, soldiers left the busy cannon crews and dreds of other Continental Artillery and Infantry troops, the
headed to nearby McGellaird’s Brook to fetch water. Among British never mounted that final push. Rather, as the sun fithose hefting wood buckets was at least one woman, not in nally sank into the west, they pulled back. The Continental
uniform but very much “on the strength,” as they said at the Army held the field.
The Outpost
March 2014 ■ ARMY 49
National Archives
Right: Mary Ludwig
Hays helped the
Continental Army
repel the British
during the 1778
Battle of Monmouth,
N.J. Below right:
Mary Edwards
Walker, assistant
surgeon of the
52nd Ohio Infantry
Regiment during
the Civil War, was
awarded the
Medal of Honor.
I
LTG Daniel P. Bolger, USA Ret., was the commander of Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan and NATO
Training Mission-Afghanistan. Previously, he served as the
deputy chief of staff, G-3/5/7, and as the commanding general,
1st Cavalry Division/commanding general, Multinational Division-Baghdad, Operation Iraqi Freedom. He holds a doctorate
in Russian history from the University of Chicago and has published a number of books on military subjects. He recently was
named a senior fellow of the AUSA Institute of Land Warfare.
50
ARMY ■ March 2014
Library of Congress
n the aftermath of the Battle of Monmouth, several
American participants remarked on the brave performance of the female water bearer who became a gunner at the height of the engagement. Few knew her
name, though. Stories circulated among the soldiers about a
woman they called Molly Pitcher and SGT Molly. When
word reached GEN George Washington, he determined
Hays’ real name and then issued her a formal warrant as a
noncommissioned officer. She became SGT Mary Hays.
After the war, like so many veterans then and now, Hays
rejoined the civilian community. She had a son, and after
her husband died in 1786, she married a fellow Revolutionary War veteran, John McCauley. The state of Pennsylvania
eventually granted her a military pension, acknowledging
“services rendered.” After her death in 1832, she was buried
in the cemetery in Carlisle, Pa., not far from the present
home of the U.S. Army War College. In 1916, a statue was
placed near her grave, depicting Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley wielding a ramrod. The carving includes her nickname: “Molly Pitcher.”
At the time, and ever since, many have made much of the
novelty of a female artillerist. Soldiers know better. The
other American gunners at the Battle
of Monmouth cared about only two
things, the same two points on which
they judged every soldier: Did Hays
know what to do? Would she fight?
When she answered yes to both, and
did so bravely, her gender ceased to
be an issue for her side and became a
problem for the enemy. That, in the
end, is the purpose of every soldier.
U.S. Army/SPC Jeremy D. Crisp
U.S. Army
T
hose fond of raising the debate about the role of women
in combat would do well to
look to our country’s history.
American women have participated
in every one of this country’s wars,
great and small. There have been political arguments and legal wrangling
as to when, where and in what capacAbove: MAJ Maude C. Davison of the Army Nurse Corps (left), who commanded the
ity women could serve, but they have
nurses imprisoned in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in the Philippines during
served every time, always pushing
World War II, speaks with 1LT Eunice F. Young, a prisoner of war liberated from the
the envelope, consistently doing more
brutal Japanese camp. Below: SGT Leigh Ann Hester was awarded the Silver Star
than asked. It has not been easy. Out
for her role in a 2005 firefight with insurgents in Iraq.
where people are shooting at each
other, there is seldom a surplus of volunteers. In combat,
soldiers are grateful for those who are willing to pull their
own weight.
Hays made her name in the Revolutionary War, as did
Margaret Corbin, who also served in another battle. In the
Civil War, Mary Edwards Walker was appointed an assistant surgeon of the 52nd Ohio Infantry Regiment. She
earned the Medal of Honor at the urging of GEN William
Tecumseh Sherman, a hard-bitten commander notoriously
stingy with praise. The Army and Navy nurses captured
on Bataan and Corregidor in 1942 all earned the Bronze
Star for their heroic service in combat and in brutal Japanese prison camps; the senior Army nurse, MAJ Maude C.
Davison, received the Distinguished Service Medal for her
extraordinary leadership. In the recent Iraq campaign, SGT
Leigh Ann Hester was awarded the Silver Star for her role
in a firefight with insurgents southeast of Baghdad in 2005.
Many women have received other valor awards, Purple
Hearts and Combat Action Badges in the fighting since
September 11, 2001. Unshackled by recent regulatory
changes, female soldiers have contributed plenty in this
hard war. There will be more to come.
Wiser heads predicted as much, some since the days of
Molly Pitcher herself. In 1982, U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen.
Jeanne M. Holm wrote a prescient book titled Women in the
Military: An Unfinished Revolution. Holm began her service
in World War II and rose to be the first American woman
promoted to two-star rank. She believed that females
could—and should—serve in every role in the U.S. military.
We are nearly there. It took a while, but the revolution
that began one hot afternoon in 1778 is nearing its end.
Somewhere out there, SGT Molly is smiling.
✭
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ARMY ■ March 2014