Molly Pitcher

'MOLLY PITCHER'
Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley (1760-1843)

Mary “Molly” Hays was the wife of a soldier who operated a cannon in the Pennsylvania State Regiment of Artillery, and she, like many other wives and families, traveled with the army. During the battles women carried water to thirsty soldiers, and they earned the collective nickname "Molly Pitcher," but Molly Hays is remembered today by that nickname alone. During the Battle of Monmouth in Freehold, New Jersey, in 1778, she is said to have carried a wounded soldier out of harm's way, and when her husband fell wounded Molly took his place operating the cannon. At one point a cannonball passed directly between her legs, shredding her petticoat and burning her leg. She is said to have remarked it was a good thing it hadn’t gone any higher.

Molly's first husband John Hays died soon after the war, and she married George McCauley, who turned out to be a shiftless husband. She left him, and worked to support herself. After her second husband’s death the Pennsylvania Assembly finally honored her, by offering her a job scrubbing the courthouse(!). She also worked as a washerwomen and a nurse, living in Carlisle, Pennsylvania until her death at age 79. She was known, in her later years, as a pipe-smoking, tobacco-chewing, whiskey-swilling "old soldier," who could swear with the best of them. She is buried in the Old Graveyard.

Her grave says that George Washington thanked Molly personally after the battle for her bravery, and made her an honorary Sergeant of Artillery. It's doubtful that this is true, and though her actions were certainly heroic, she didn't, as some would romantically believe, win it single-handedly for the American side. But she is certainly a symbol of the determination of women during the Revolutionary war.

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