Without googling, do you know who Molly Pitcher was?
Currently she’s part of my senior thesis, and I’m finding that not many folks on the left side of the Rockies know anything about her. I didn’t, until I looked into my initial topic. Do me a favor and help me out with some unscientific polling. If you want to add any comments on why you happen to know anything about Molly, feel free. You might get a mention in my paper.
I knew the basic story, in outline, but couldn’t have said what battle, or what year. I had heard the notion that she was (perhaps) a composite of several women, and I had heard that “Molly Pitcher” wasn’t her real name.
It has to have been something I was taught in grade school. My school covered the earliest years of U.S. history pretty well. The Pilgrims, Lewis and Clark, and so on. But they pretty much stopped short of the Civil War. I remember being taught about the pre-war controversies, the various war-postponing compromises, etc., but never any coverage of the war itself. I had to study that all on my own.
(For a lot of us, independent reading in the school library was, in itself, the most meaningful form of “education” we received.)
I recognize the name, but can’t recall her contribution to history just now. But I’ve been drinking, too.
West of the Rockies.
I know the story and I’m from the West Coast but I learned about it on the SDMB a few years ago.
I recognize the name, but can’t recall her contribution to history just now. But I’ve been drinking, too.
West of the Rockies.
East Coast. I couldn’t have told you much about her. I think what kept the name in my memory was the rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike.
East Coast. I knew the story, at least in general terms. Between national history, state history and field-trips to nearby sites, kids on the East Coasts get a lot of Revolutionary War History in school. I’d imagine as you go west kids get more stuff about Gold rushes, spanish colonial history, wagon trains, etc. and would be less likely to have heard of obscure Revolutionary figures.
I didn’t know a thing about her, and I’m from Texas, which is NOT the Midwest, by the way.
Nope. But the name seems familiar. East Coast. I feel like i’ve heard that name though.
Edit: Wikipedia’ed it. Nope. I was nowhere close. And i’m from the area. -_-
Hmm…that was the person who refilled artillery cooling baskets during the Revolutionary War? And manned some sort of helm at some point when a soldier was injured? Is that right?
I knew she was an American woman who helped with the water buckets and later took over the cannon, but couldn’t remember if it was Revolutionary War, War of 1812, or Civil War.
West Coast.
Revolutionary War historian Joseph Ellis has mentioned Pitcher in some of his works and he seems to accept she was a real person (although Molly Pitcher was almost certainly a nickname).
Joseph Plumb Martin, who wrote his autobiography, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, (unusual in being one of the only memoirs of that war written by an enlisted man) apparently mentioned seeing Pitcher fighting at the Battle of Monmouth.
One thing I remember is that Pitcher may have offered soldiers relief beyond just water. Wikipedia quotes her saying “Well, that could have been worse” when a musket ball shot through her dress between her legs. Apparently her full quote was “Well, that could have been worse. A few inches higher and I’d have lost my profession.”
I knew that she was nicknamed Molly Pitcher because she carried pitchers of water onto the battlefield, and that she helped operate a cannon. I wasn’t sure what year it was or which battle it occurred in, or even what war it was in (Revolutionary War? Civil War? War of 1812?). I just read the Wikipedia article and learned a little more.
I’m a 33 year old Canadian (from Alberta). Not sure where I learned about her - probably not in school, more likely from a book I read sometime.
Grew up in New England in the 1990’s. Never heard of her before.
My vague memory is that she was a camp follower of the American rebel army during the war and that she carried water to the injured.
The South!
Why was the US South not in the poll?!?
Damn Yankees!
Camp follower who carried water to the troops on the front lines. IIRC her bravery under enemy fire made her famous. I can’t recall which battle, but I’m pretty sure it was Revolutionary War.
Yes. Canadian here.
i remember her from an article in “Jack and Jill” magazine, which I read as a child. American Revolutionary War, wasn’t it?
Yes, I knew the general outlines - Revolutionary War, camp follower, pitchers of water, may have operated a cannon at one point.
Source was the story in Childcraft supplement to World Book Encyclopedia.
I said in my earlier reply I couldn’t remember where I learned about her - but this is a likely possibility. I had a bunch of Childcraft books that I read repeatedly as a kid.