Tag: Camp Followers

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This Week on Dispatches: Jim Piecuch on Women and Revolutionary-Era Armies

On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR associate editor, Jim Piecuch who elaborates on his article about the suggestion for a British “Female Corp” and the role of women in the British and Continental armies during the American Revolution. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. […]

by Editors
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A Plan for a British “Female Corps”

The thought of allowing women to serve in combat was considered ridiculous only a few decades ago in most western nations; it was an even more bizarre concept during the American Revolution. Although both the British and Continental armies accepted the presence of female camp followers—usually the wives of soldiers—and issued them rations as compensation […]

by Jim Piecuch
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Tracking Down a Musket-Toting Woman

Ray Raphael just described how an Advanced Placement exam in U.S. History asked students to analyze what this image of a musket-toting woman said about the Revolutionary War. The picture appeared on an undated broadside commenting on the war with a poem titled “A New Touch on the Times” by a “Daughter of Liberty, living […]

by J. L. Bell
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Marblehead Woman

In education circles, document-based learning is all the rage. The idea is to present a historical document, ask students to examine it closely, then pose some questions. These DBQs, as they are affectionately called, are expected to introduce young people to the process of historical inquiry. How sweet it would be, but it’s not that […]

by Ray Raphael
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8 Fast Facts About Camp Followers

They were always there, but are seldom mentioned.  Name any major battle or campaign: New York, Brandywine, Germantown, Saratoga, Yorktown, Camden, Kings Mountain, Guilford Courthouse, Cowpens, Charleston; there are accounts of Camp Followers at each of them.  Who were they?  What did they do?  Does it matter?  Think you know about soldiers’ wives?  Read on […]

by Robert M. Dunkerly
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12 Questions with Holly Mayer

When we asked our Facebook readers who they’d most like to see interviewed, Holly A. Mayer was at the top of that list. Mayer just stepped down as chair of the History Department at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to focus on research and teaching. She concentrates her scholarship on civil-military relations during the Revolutionary […]

by Todd Andrlik