Bearing Arms, Bearing Burdens: Women Warriors, Camp Followers and Home-Front Heroines of the American Revolution

This book chapter examines crossdressed female soldiers, camp followers and women at the homefront  of the American War for Independence (1775-83). It asks if this conflict was a revolutionary war and what  the position of women in this conflict tells us about its revolutionary character? In addressing this question, some historians say that the War for Independence does not qualify as revolutionary simply because women participated in it, for women have always been a part of warfare, if not as soldiers then as military retainers, home-front supporters, resisters or victims. Others argue, however, that their participation had revolutionary effects, given the crucial influence women’s actions during the rebellion and the later representations of their varied wartime services had on American perceptions of women and their place in society.