A military unit must have all cogs of the wheel in place. All participants have important roles to play; soldiers safeguard home and liberty, quartermasters search for supplies, gunsmiths repair weapons, and doctors and their assistants take care of the wounded and diseased.
Although seldom mentioned, women played a vital role in the success of colonial military units involved in revolutionary conflicts. "These women risked their lives to protect a suspected spy, destroyed their crops to prevent the enemy from harvesting them, and sacrificed their homes to their chosen cause" (Berkin, xiii). With the war at their doorstep, some women chose to remain home and protect the home and hearth, while others chose to endure the harshness of military life because they felt a patriotic duty or that they had few other choices.
Although seldom mentioned, women played a vital role in the success of colonial military units involved in revolutionary conflicts. "These women risked their lives to protect a suspected spy, destroyed their crops to prevent the enemy from harvesting them, and sacrificed their homes to their chosen cause" (Berkin, xiii). With the war at their doorstep, some women chose to remain home and protect the home and hearth, while others chose to endure the harshness of military life because they felt a patriotic duty or that they had few other choices.
The long home-front war for American independence disrupted the normal life of every man and woman. It required them to adapt to a series of novel circumstances and pressing crises. They found themselves stepping out of familiar prescribed roles or engaging in traditional activities in unusual settings. While men went off to fight the war, either on the battlefield or in the statehouses, women accepted the need to step in and direct household affairs, run the farm or shop, arm themselves against the enemy, and protect their families from danger . . . [which] allowed most free white women to breach the walls dividing the feminine from the masculine without shattering their identities" (Berkin, xvi).
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One such incredible example of courageous women on the home front was Martha Bratton. She desperately tried to protect her home and family as well as serve the Patriot cause while her husband served in the American militia. When the British Regulars came looking for gunpowder and supplies the Patriots had hidden in her home, Martha did her best to dissuade them. However, when the time had come that she knew she could no longer delay their discovery of the cache, she chose to blow up her home with the supplies inside so the Loyalist soldiers would not gain the extra supplies. When she was questioned as to whom had done such a thing, she declared "It was I who did it!" (Berkin, 144). After which the soldier held a reaping knife to her throat to force her to tell where her husband, the Patriot Colonel Bratton was, but she stood her ground and refused to tell.
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Martha Bratton
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