Famous Spies, Women in the American Revolution

Ann Bates

• Maggie

Spy for the British during the Revolutionary War Ann Bates, a schoolteacher in Philadelphia, was married to Joseph Bates, a British soldier and artillery repairman in General Henry Clinton’s army. In 1778, her husband joined the British troops who evacuated Philadelphia and marched to New York City. Claiming to be a patriot, Bates passed through the American lines and followed the army to New York. Bates felt it was her duty to seek out information on illegal colonial activity and report back to her husband’s superiors. From her husband she learned to identify the weaponry and report on important military information such as the numbers of cannons, men and supplies. In New York, Major John Andre was appointed an aide…

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Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Lovina McCarthy Streight

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Wife of Union General Abel Streight Lovina McCarthy Streight (1830-1910) accompanied her husband, Union Brigadier General Abel Streight in the Western Theater throughout the Civil War. Streight is best known for Streight’s Raid through Tennessee and northern Alabama. His mission was foiled when CSA General Nathan Bedford Forrest surrounded the Union cavalry and took Streight and the majority of his brigade to Libby Prison, from which Streight later escaped. He was restored to his command and continued to serve for the balance of the war. Image: This portrait of Lovina McCarthy Streight hangs in the Indiana Statehouse Lovina McCarthy was born 1830 in Steuben County, New York. Abel Streight was also born on June 17, 1828, in Steuben County, New…

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Civil War Women, Famous Wives

Fanny Holmes

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Wife of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Fanny Holmes was the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Fanny suffered a severe attack of rheumatic fever in July 1872, just a month after their wedding. She eventually recovered, but another bout of that illness in the mid-1890s caused her hair to turn gray almost overnight. They had no children, and except for her relationship with her husband, she was virtually a recluse. Image: Fanny Holmes, c. 1890-1900 Fanny Bowditch Dixwell was born in December 1840. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 8, 1841, to prominent writer and physician, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and noted abolitionist Amelia Jackson Holmes. During the…

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Women in the American Revolution

Bathsheba Spooner

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First Woman Executed in the New United States Bathseba Ruggles was born February 13, 1745, to Timothy Ruggles, a very wealthy man who had held some of the most prominent positions in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Bathsheba was said to be her father’s favorite child, was educated well and had everything money could buy. Joshua Spooner was born in 1741. Ruggles, a lawyer and chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas in Worcester, Massachusetts, was a strong-willed and determined man and an avowed Loyalist (British supporter). Under public censure for his refusal to sign the Stamp Act protest as a Massachusetts delegate to the 1765 Stamp Act Congress, Ruggles may have arranged the marriage of his daughter Bathsheba to…

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Civil War Women, Diaries and Letters

Mary Loughborough

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Women Lived in Caves During the Siege of Vicksburg During the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi in the summer of 1863, many residents of the city cut caves into the hillsides and lived in them. In these dark quarters, they lived in constant fear of the 220-pound mortar shells fired by the Union fleet on the Mississippi River. In 1864 Mary Loughborough published her experiences in My Cave Life in Vicksburg, and the account she wrote is the most vivid picture we have of cave life in the besieged city. Image: The Shirley House in Vicksburg, 1863 During the siege this house was located directly in front of the Confederate fortifications and would have been burned by the Rebels if not…

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Famous Wives

Sarah Morris Mifflin

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Wife of Founding Father Thomas Mifflin Portrait of Sarah and Thomas Mifflin By John Singleton Copley, 1773 The Mifflins were the only Philadelphians painted by John Singleton Copley, the greatest artist in the American colonies prior to the Revolution. Copley depicts not only the features and costumes of his sitters, but creates an image of marriage as an equal partnership – an innovative concept in American portraiture at the time. Sarah recalled that Copley required twenty sittings for the hands alone. In the portrait, Sarah is weaving a decorative fringe on a portable loom, which symbolizes their endorsement of the colonists’ boycott of highly taxed imported English goods. Sarah Morris was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 5, 1747. Thomas…

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Civil War Women, Famous Wives

Angela Mallory

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Wife of Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory Angela Mallory (1815-1901) was best known as a devoted civic leader in the pioneer days of Florida before it was admitted to the Union (1904). The University of Florida at Gainesville officially admitted 500 women in 1947, and Angela Mallory Hall, one of the first dormitories for female students, was named in her honor. It was dedicated on February 17, 1950 and was the last remaining women-only hall until Fall 2004 when it became coed by floor. Angela Sylvania Moreno, daughter of a Spanish patriarch, was born in Pensacola, Florida, on June 20, 1815. Her father was a prominate leader in Pensacola and the surrounding area. Stephen Russell Mallory was born…

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Women in the American Revolution

Sarah Pollard Pendleton

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Wife of Virginia Statesman Edmund Pendleton Sarah Pollard was born on May 4, 1725, daughter of Joseph and Priscilla Pollard. Edmund Pendleton was was born into the Virginia colony’s elite on September 9, 1721, in Caroline County, Virginia. However, his father’s early death and the subsequent loss of the family’s property left Pendleton to shift for himself. His upper-class origins eventually served him well, but his early years were ones of struggle.
Civil War Women, Gettysburg

Nicholas Codori Farm

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Site on the Gettysburg Battlefield Image: Nicholas Codori Farm Emmitsburg Road Gettysburg, Pennsylvania The heaviest fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg took place around the buildings and in the fields and orchards of the area’s farms owned by people whose lives were forever changed in July 1863. The Nicholas Codori Farm is on the east side of Emmitsburg Road just south of Gettysburg. The farmhouse is the same, except for the two story brick addition added in 1877. The current barn is a replacement for the original which was torn down in 1882. Before the Battle Nicholas Codori came to Gettysburg from Alsace, France, in 1828 at the age of 19, and apprenticed himself to Anthony B. Kuntz to learn…

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Famous Mothers

Nelly Conway Madison

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Mother of Fourth U.S. President James Madison Image: Nelly and James Madison, Sr. By Charles Peale Polke, 1799 Nelly Conway was born on January 9, 1731, at Belle Grove plantation in Port Conway, Virginia, the daughter of prominent planter and tobacco merchant Francis Conway, for whom Port Conway was named. James Madison, Sr. was born on March 27, 1723, the son of Ambrose Madison and his wife Frances Taylor at Mount Pleasant, a large tobacco plantation in Orange County, Virginia. Like many others who first came to the Piedmont, the Madison family hailed from the Tidewater on the coast of Virginia. In 1723 Ambrose Madison and brother-in-law Thomas Chew patented 4675 acres in the newly opened Piedmont of Virginia.