More Revolutionary Women

• Martha Bratton and her husband were entrusted with a large store of gunpowder. When her husband was away, she found out that the British were planning to steal the gunpowder, so Martha blew the storehouse up, even taking out a full Redcoats for good measure. She was captured and interrogated, but a kindly British officer spared her life and let her go, even though she freely admitted that she was responsible for the explosion. She was able to return the favor when the officer was captured and going to be hanged. After this happened, she came to the conclusion that war sucks, so she took up nursing soldiers on both sides and was generally a good Samaritan.
• Lydia Darragh was a Quaker, which prohibited her from being involved with the war in any way. The British took full advantage of this and used her house to plan a surprise attack on General Washington's army. Even though it went against her religion, she felt that her silence would cost lives. She personally delivered the warning to General Washington and thus foiled the plot to ambush the Americans.
• Sybil Ludington is known as the female Paul Revere. The British had already ransacked the supply town of Danbury, Connecticut and were headed to her town, Fredericksburg, New York, next. Sybil rode twice as far as Paul Revere in order to gather troops to defend the town. I will add one caveat to this story; some historians think this is just a folk tale.
• Prudence Wright was sick of waiting for the menfolk to come and defend her New Hampshire town from the British, so she gathered up some of her friends, they donned their husbands' clothes and grabbed whatever weapons they could find. They hid in the reeds near the bridge and waited for British spies to cross. They surprised the men, and stopped them. They searched them and secretly stole the battle plans the Loyalists were carrying. One of the men raised his gun, but Prudence's brother was one of the riders. He recognized her voice and bade his friend put the gun down because he knew his sister was willing to kill for the Patriot cause.
• Elizabeth Burgin did her bit for the war effort by bringing food to Patriot POWs housed on prison ships in New York Harbor. She wanted to do more than that, however. So she thought outside the box and planned a ridiculously successful escape attempt. Over two hundred prisoners escaped with her help. Obviously, the British were not thrilled and put a price on her head, forcing her into hiding. But Congress didn't forget her: she was awarded a pension for her bravery.
• Emily Geiger was a spy carrying a message from General Greene to his superiors. Emily was captured while crossing British lines, but the officer who caught her was a gentleman and went to find a woman to search her. While he was gone, Emily memorized the message verbatim and ate it. When the officer returned with a woman, Emily was given the all clear and sent on her merry way.
• Grace and Rachel Martin were sisters from South Carolina who were fed up with the way the Redcoats were treating them. So they decided to do whatever they could to get them out of their country as soon as possible. They got word of a British courier who was expected to arrive that night. So they donned their father's clothes and borrowed his guns. They waylaid the courier and he gave up his papers without the girls ever firing a single shot. They took the intelligence to the American troops and returned home. They were pretty surprised when they saw their victim eating supper in their dining room.
• Mary Lindley Murray was a Patriot, but her husband was loyal to the crown. The couple lived outside New York City which was in British hands for much of the war. She knew the Patriots would be trying to take back the city, so she decided to help them out as best she could. She invited the British commanders who were stationed in New York to tea. They took her up on the invitation, and while they were drinking tea and toasting the king, the Patriots were quietly marching into the city and retaking it.
• Deborah Sampson wanted to do her part for the American cause during the war, so she did the most sensible thing she could. She cut her hair, bound her chest, and joined the Army as Private Robert Shurtleff (the spelling differs widely between sources). She fought honorably and bathed early in the morning. She was wounded in the thigh, but she just stole a needle and thread, pried the musket ball out, and sewed it up herself. She kept up this act for awhile, until she got so sick that people thought she was dead. Fortunately for her, a doctor noticed she had a heartbeat. He also noticed she had certain anatomical differences too. But he was nice; he took her to his house to recover and kept her secret until the end of the war, when she was given an honorable discharge. Her husband was the one man to be given a widower's pension.
• Patience Wright was a wax sculptor who moved to England after a fire destroyed her American studio. She used her wealthy clients to glean information about British activities and sent the intelligence back to the States inside her sculptures.