In wartime, heroism can spring up in the least likely of candidates.
Daughter of German immigrants and a stranger to books and schoolrooms, Mary Ludwig (1754–1832) was in her late teens or early 20s when she married William Hays, a barber. When war broke out between Great Britain and the American colonies, Hays joined a Pennsylvania artillery unit. Eventually, Mary accompanied him as a camp follower, then a common practice among wives.
As a camp follower, she probably earned her way by performing tasks like washing laundry. Molly was a popular nickname for Mary, and the buckets of water she would have carried in her work were often called “pitchers,” which may have led the soldiers to call her “Molly Pitcher.” Otherwise, we know almost nothing about her life with the army, though some of the men later remembered her as an “illiterate pregnant woman who smoked and chewed tobacco, and swore as well as any of the male soldiers.”
It was this unremarkable woman of modest means and few social graces who would soon bravely enter into battle, bringing water to parched soldiers and then servicing a cannon when her husband became a casualty.
"Molly Pitcher at the Battle of Monmouth," 1912, after Charles Yardley Turner. Public Domain
Water-Carrier at Monmouth
On June 28, 1778, American forces under George Washington fought and won the field at Monmouth, New Jersey, against the British troops commanded by Gen. Sir Henry Clinton. Soldiers who survived would later remember this battle not only for its confusion and gunfire and for the much needed victory it gave them, but also for its furnace-like heat. The 96-degree temperatures felled men on both sides, with some of them dying from heat stroke.
From what we know, Mary Hays polished up her nickname of Molly Pitcher by carrying buckets of water to the soldiers. During this time, we can presume there were moments when she, too, was under fire.
As the battle unfolded, Mary exchanged her water bucket and dipper for powder and shot. A Connecticut soldier, Joseph Plumb Martin, wrote in his war diary that when he had turned to watch the cannon crews behind his position, he saw “a woman whose husband belonged to the artillery and who was then attached to a piece in the engagement, attend[ing] with her husband at the piece the entire time.”
Cannoneer
Whether William Hays collapsed from heat stroke or was wounded by a British ball is uncertain, but we do know that Mary then came forward to service the artillery piece to which he was assigned. She would have watched her husband practicing gunnery on numerous occasions, preparing and shooting the cannon, a task which required discipline and speed. With no one else available to assume his place on the gun crew, she joined the cannoneers without further ado.
Here we can again turn to Joseph Martin’s written post-war testimony of that afternoon:
“While in the act of reaching a cartridge and having one of her feet as far before the other as she could step, a cannon shot from the enemy passed directly between her legs without doing any other damage than carrying away all the lower part of her petticoat. Looking at it with apparent unconcern, she observed that it was lucky that it did not pass a little higher, for in that case it might have carried away something else, and continued her occupation.”
Molly Pitcher was honored in 1928 with a stamp that reminded Americans of her heroism. Public Domain
Though the records of that time are vague, the story has it that when George Washington learned of this feat, he personally commended Mary Hays for her heroism. Another tradition has him rewarding her bravery by bestowing on her the rank of sergeant. Whether true or not, for the rest of her long life Mary relished being called “Sergeant Molly.”
Aftermath
William Hays died in 1786, leaving Mary a good deal of land, but her second husband, John McCauley, apparently squandered that inheritance before vanishing from the record books. Mary spent most of these postwar years working as a charwoman and a general servant. In 1822, decades after her exploits at Monmouth, the state of Pennsylvania granted her a veteran’s pension of $40 ($1,093 today) per year.
Because a number of other women performed similar courageous acts during the Revolutionary War, some historians have argued that “Molly Pitcher” was a generic term for these female combatants, a composite figure representative of their heroism. Others regard Mary Hays as the real Molly Pitcher, a reputation supported by eyewitness accounts.
A statue of "Molly Pitcher" in Carlisle's Old Public Graveyard. George Sheldon/Shutterstock
Whatever the case, above Mary’s grave in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is a statue in her name, a bold woman standing upright with a cannon rammer in her hands. Nearby is an historical marker which reads in part, “Mary ‘Ludwig’ Hays McCauley, known as ‘Molly Pitcher,’ heroine at Battle of Monmouth, is buried in Old Graveyard just east of here.”
When character counted and circumstance demanded, Mary Hays took her place beside the guns, a heroic act that rightfully made her an American legend.
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Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
