Molly Pitcher

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Molly Pitcher depicted in 1859 engraving

"Molly Pitcher" was a nickname given to a woman who may have fought in the American Revolutionary War. Historians differ on who the "real" Molly Pitcher was, or even if she existed at all. Since the various Molly Pitcher tales grew in the telling, historians now often regard Molly Pitcher as folklore rather than history. However, "Molly Pitcher" may be a composite image inspired by the actions of a number of real women. The name itself may have originated as a nickname given to women who carried water to men on the battlefield during the war. This water was not for drinking, as is popularly believed, but for swabbing out the cannons.

Molly Pitcher is generally identified as the Irish immigrant woman Mary Hayes McCauley (who supposedly married John Casper Hays before she married William Hayes^[1]), or Mary Ludwig^[1]. Biographical information about her, including her actual name and year of birth (1753 is suggested as an approximate birth year^[1]), is sparse - her original surname is unknown. According to one version of the story, she was born to a German family in New Jersey. Regardless, solid records first appear in 1778; she attended her husband William Hays, an artilleryman who had enlisted in a Pennsylvanian artillery unit in 1777 to the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey on June 28, 1778^[1]. When William fell wounded, possibly from heat stroke, Mary took her husband's post at his cannon.

According to the legend, after the battle, General George Washington issued her a warrant as a noncommissioned officer, and she was thereafter known by the nickname "Sergeant Molly". However, some of these details may have been borrowed from the actions of another leading candidate for the "real" Molly Pitcher, a woman named Margaret Corbin, although there is no evidence that Margaret was commissioned as Mary was.

Her husband John Hayes died in 1788. Pitcher married again, a one John McCauly; he died in 1813^[1]. Afterwards, Mary became a nurse; on 21 February 1822, the state of Pennsylvania awarded her an annual pension of $40 for her heroism^[1]. She died 22 January of 1832, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania^[1].

In 1928, "Molly Pitcher" was honored with an overprint reading "MOLLY / PITCHER" on a U.S. postage stamp. "Molly" was further honored in World War II with the naming of the Liberty ship SS Molly Pitcher, launched, and subsequently torpedoed, in 1943.

There is a hotel in Red Bank, New Jersey, not far from the site of the Battle of Monmouth called the Molly Pitcher Inn. There is also a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike named for Molly Pitcher at southbound mile 71.7. The stretch of US Route 11 between Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania-Maryland state line is known as the Molly Pitcher Highway.

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^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g "Pitcher, Molly." Encyclopædia Britannica. 13 February 2007.

Bohrer, Melissa Lukeman. Glory, Passion, and Principle: The Story of Eight Remarkable Women at the Core of the American Revolution. New York: Atria Books, 2003. ISBN 0-7434-5330-1.
Raphael, Ray. Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past. New York: New Press, 2004. ISBN 1-56584-921-3. Raphael regards "Molly Pitcher" as a myth which serves to obscure the actual (though less dramatic) contributions of women to the war effort.
Teipe, Emily J. Will the Real Molly Pitcher Please Stand Up!