The Women of the British Army in America:
Part 1 - Who & How Many

The following excerpt is companion piece to an article entitled "Women of the British Army" by Don N. Hagist, 22nd Regiment of Foot. It appeared originally in the Brigade Dispatch (XXIV, No. 3, Summer 1993), a publication of the Brigade of the American Revolution and is reprinted here with his permission.

The Women of the British Army in America
Part 1 - Who & How Many

The role of women in the armies of the American Revolution, although not unknown, is certainly understated. Of all that has been written on this period of history, only a small portion addresses the women who followed the armies; still less is dedicated to the topic. Here is yet another area where a great deal of information is available, but very little has been compiled or assimilated. It is with a view toward compilation that this article is written.

Published information about women and children in the British army during the American Revolution is available, but tends to be general and sometimes heavily stereotyped. A few high quality works exist(1), but provide only an overview of the subject. This gives the impression that there is not much information to be had, but that is not the case. Primary sources offer a wealth of material. Unfortunately, it can only be found by surveying vast quantities of documents in disparate collections. This article will string together an assortment of material from a large number of sources, which taken together begin to give a picture of women in British regiments as individuals, with daily lives, responsibilities, and experiences. It is hoped that others will continue to bring forth such information, so that this significant portion of the military population will be appropriately documented and understood.

A Look at the Numbers

It is not difficult to determine the number of women affiliated with a given British regiment; one must only look at some of the numerous returns, which were kept regularly throughout the war. It does take some time to compile these returns from various sources to get a fairly complete picture of a given regiment during its service in America. This information is, nonetheless, available.

Because a large number of returns are available, we will not attempt to present all of the raw data here. We will also avoid the temptation to perform extensive statistical analyses on these data, computing means and medians and such. Statistics of this type remove the individuality of each corps; knowing the average number of women in a typical regiment does not tell us anything about a specific regiment in a particular time and place. Instead, data is given for a selection of regiments that are well-known by present-day researchers of the British army.

A good sample of data comes from returns for the army in the New York area during 1779 and 1780. The numbers presented in Figure 1 illustrate the variation in numbers of women and children that could exist; we use only a few regiments as examples, but these give a picture which is typical enough for regiments throughout the war. The variation in the numbers is great enough to show that we cannot draw conclusions about all regiments by looking at the situation of a few. Every situation was unique, and if we want to know about a particular situation, then we must find data for the specific regiments concerned.

21 November 1779
	Men	Women	Children
17th LD	257
22nd	401	57	68
23rd	469	61	60
33rd	488	56	16
37th	499	57	38
38th	429	60	53
43rd	405	46	45
71st	195	30	16

22 - 28 November 1779
	Men	Women	Children
17th LD	156
22nd	403	60	70
23rd	468	63	62
33rd	493	58	28
37th	480	58	40
38th	436	63	59
71st	110	30	17

29 November - 5 December 1779
	Men	Women	Children
17th LD	159	46	34
22nd	399	56	68
23rd	473	63	62
33rd	483	62	28
37th	481	58	40
38th	432	61	59
71st	204	32	19

12 - 19 December 1779
	Men	Women	Children
17th LD	391	66	46
22nd	386	56	64
23rd	463	62	62
33rd	475	62	28
37th	474	54	36
38th	422	63	60
71st	201	35	22

20 - 26 December 1779
	Men	Women	Children
17th LD	403	66	42
22nd	416	57	62
37th	483	32	36
38th	431	65	62

27 December 1779 - 2 January 1780
	Men	Women	Children
17th LD	334	70	44
22nd	407	60	77
38th	430	65	62

6 - 12 March 1780
	Men	Women	Children
17th LD	384	72	52
22nd	407	67	74
38th	422	80	77

27 March - 2 April 1780
	Men	Women	Children
17th LD	384	72	52
22nd	402	73	85
38th	438	79	74

3 - 9 April 1780
	Men	Women	Children
17th LD	373	78	52
38th	447	79	74

10 - 16 April 1780
	Men	Women	Children
17th LD	377	77	52
38th	450	80	76

25th September 1780
	Men	Women	Children
Guards	639	149	123
17th LD	88	37	42
22nd	392	66	74
37th	436	58	40
38th	427	67	65
42d	694	89	51
43d	337	76	59

Data from eleven British Army victualling returns for army personnel in Long Island, in the Frederick MacKenzie papers, William L. Clements Library. Only a few of the regiments and corps on each return are presented, and those only when the majority of the regiment was represented on the return. In cases where a regiment was divided among several posts represented in the returns, the figures given are totals of all contingents. These victualling returns do not necessarily represent the total strength in America of each of the regiments. Regiments which appear on only some returns were not posted on Long Island for the entire period represented.

Figure 1

The numbers in Figure 1 are from victualling returns, and so include only women and children who were being fed by the army. Ratios of women to men ranged from 1 to 6 through 1 to 10, with 1 to 8 being more or less typical. There are usually about the same number of children as women, although, again, there is a great deal of variation.

British regiments at this time were composed of ten companies. In some cases, these companies functioned independently of the remainder of their regiment. For this reason, there is some value in determining numbers per company. This is more difficult, since most returns are by regiment, but the regimental numbers do not necessarily include companies which were detached from the regiment. For the regiments given in Figure 1, two of the companies usually were serving separately in composite battalions during this time period, and their people were returned with those battalions. Therefore, most of these returns are for eight companies; typically we see about 7 women per company.

The returns used to obtain the data in Figure 1 include some characteristics which may be typical for an army in a long-term garrison. The returns were for Long Island, and were subdivided according to towns or localities on the island. In many cases, elements of a regiment were posted in several different places; for the regiments listed in Figure 1, we have added up all of the men, women and children given for each regiment, regardless of how they were distributed (since our purpose here is only to examine numbers, not dispositions). There are also cases where a few women and children of a regiment were in a place where there were no men of that regiment, and vice versa. This is probably an effect of regiments being moved about within a relatively small area; if women and children found good quarters in a town, they may have preferred to stay rather than move, since the rest of their regiment was only moving a few miles away.

Numbers of women in each company could vary as much as those in each regiment. The data presented in Figure 2 is from a set of returns for the First Battalion of Grenadiers. This battalion was composed of the Grenadier companies of several regiments; at the time of these returns, early 1778, the battalion was with the army in Philadelphia, and was composed of fifteen companies. The ratios of women to men ranged from 1 to 3 through 1 to 9. There were usually about half the number of children as women, but these ratios varied considerably also. Once again, we find that there is such variation that statistical reduction of the data would not produce useful information, but instead would tend to disguise the great range of situations in the different companies.

"A Return of Bread baked by Mr. Powel for the first Battalion of Grenadiers..." (Four weekly returns kept in Philadelphia, 27 February to 26 March inclusive. A.O. 13/87 p. 72-74, PRO).

Regiment	Officers	Serjeants	Drummers	Rank & File	Total Men	Women	Children
4th	4	3	4	49	60	11	12
5th	4	3	3	48	58	17	12
7th	2	2	3	39	46	9	3
10th	-	-	-	52	52	6	6
17th	3	3	3	41	50	10	4
22nd	3	3	3	27	36	6	3
23rd	3	3	2	51	59	10	6
27th	3	3	4	44	54	6	2
28th	3	2	3	40	48	12	5
33rd	4	2	1	43	50	8	5
35th	2	2	3	39	46	9	3
37th	3	3	2	39	47	8	2

The 15th and 40th have no data given for women and children; the 38th appears on the returns with no data.

Figure 2

It appears that the data in Figure 2 includes women and children of officers as well as rank and file. It is not clear that this is true of the data in Table 1. This may account for the typically greater proportion of women and children in the Grenadier companies (Figure 2) than in the whole regiments (Figure 1).

These numbers show us that, typically, between one eighth and one quarter of the people who were considered a part of a regiment were women and children. This may strike us as a large proportion, but for the time period it was normal. A document prepared for the planning of campaigns in America indicates that an army of 30,000 men could expect to have the "number of attendants, women and children generally equal to the number of troops."(2)

The returns that we have examined represent only women and children who were being provided for by the regiments. There may well have been others who were truly "following the camp," but not affiliated with the army in any official capacity. We can do little more than speculate about the numbers of such women and children.

When a regiment left England for America, the embarkation orders that it was given included the number of women allowed to accompany it on the transports. The following is a typical example, from February of 1776:

"The 42d Regiment of Highlanders consists of 1168 Men, Officers included, 80 Women & 16 Servants allowed..."(3)

This regiment consisted of two battalions, or twenty companies, and so the above orders provide for 4 women for each company, or about one for every thirteen men.

A related case was that of the 6th Regiment of Foot, which was on service in St. Vincents in the Caribbean in early 1776 when ordered to America:

"The Sixth Regiment will consist of 677 Men, Officers included; 60 Women & 12 Servants are to be allowed..."(4)

This regiment, having a more typical 10 companies, was allowed six women to each company for this embarkation, or about one woman for every ten men.

The above examples show that there was not a hard and fast number of women allowed to accompany a regiment on foreign serve; the number could vary, and can only be determined for certain by finding the orders given to each specific regiment. More importantly, it is not necessarily true that the orders were followed. In at least one case, it is clear that they were not. The following extracts are from a War Office letter dated March 22, 1776, and refers to a regiment leaving England for Canada:

By the Embarkation Return dated the 6th. instant, it appears that the 31st Regiment has embarked 92 Private short of the Allowance... The regiment is now weaker than when it was ordered to be in readiness for foreign Service, tho' there has been time to recruit since that notice.

One hundred & five Women have been allowed to embark, tho' only Sixty are permitted by His Majesty's Order. There are also 47 Children; The great number of Soldiers Wives & Children already in America are very inconvenient to the Regiments there, and more than the Number permitted by the Regulation must be a burthen on every Corps that goes thither.(5)

In this case, no only did more women and children embark than were allowed, but also fewer than the prescribed number of soldiers, changing the expected proportionality considerably.

A related type of embarkation occurred when new recruits embarked to join a regiment already in America. Such recruits were usually sent to America in groups of about a company, or 50 to 60 men, for each regiment.(6) When such a parcel of German recruits embarked to join the 60th Regiment of Foot in early 1777, four soldiers' wives accompanied 53 noncommissioned officers and private men, for a ratio of about one woman for every twelve men.(7)

The above examples indicate that the number of women allowed to accompany a regiment when it embarked on foreign service was governed by specific orders, but that these orders could vary, and may not always have been enforced. We see from the data presented in Figures 1 and 2 that the number of women and children with the regiments generally exceeded that allowed in the embarkation orders. In explaining the discrepancies (assuming that the orders were at least sometimes enforced), we must remember that the orders concern transportation, and do not address the number of women allowed to be with regiments after arrival at their destination.

In some cases, women secured their own passage to America. Evidence of this exists in a letter to General Washington in October of 1775, describing the situation of two women who were on board a captured British ship:

Watertown [MA] October 4th 1775
In the Brigantine Dolphin Lately carried into Gloucester, the two Women accompanying this were Passengers. There names are Margaret Roberts & Mary Knap - They say they have Husbands belonging to the 59th Regt of Genl Gage's Army - And are desirous of seeing them - I am therefore directed by the Board, to recommend to your Exy to permit them and 2 Children, to pass your Lines, in order to their proceeding into Boston.(8)

Also, some soldiers certainly married during their time on service. Town and church records provide some examples. An extreme case is described by a German officer in New York; he encountered a Serjeant of the 38th Regiment of Foot who boasted about having married seventeen times since his arrival in America.(9) Without further information, we cannot assert the accuracy of the Serjeant's claims, nor can we say whether such deviant behavior was common. Later in this article we will see advice given to officers to prevent this kind of occurrence.

Thomas Sullivan, soldier in the 49th Regiment, wrote a history of the American war in which he recounted many of his personal experiences. He writes of December 15, 1777, while the army occupied Philadelphia:

This day I was married to Sarah Stoneman, then an Inhabitant of the City of Philadelphia. She was born in Buck's County, in the Province of Pennsylvania, and in the 20th Year of her age; she was bred to the Book-binding business. Her father (who was a man of great learning) was born in Wales; and her mother in the North of Ireland.(10)

When Philadelphia was evacuated the following June, Sullivan deserted; although he had considered desertion earlier in the war, it is noteworthy that his second attempt came at a time when he was faced with either separation from his spouse, or her with separation from her family.

It is important to note that not all soldiers' wives chose to accompany their husbands to America. We have no information telling how many soldiers were married but not accompanied by their wives, but there is clear evidence that some wives remained in England, never attempting to journey to America. At least one letter exists from a private soldier, Thomas Plumb of the 22nd Regiment of Foot, refering to his wife and family in England.(11) Captain William Dansey of the 33rd Regiment, and Lieutenant Loftus Cliffe of the 46th, each mention soldiers in their companies in letters home, offering news to be passed on to the soldiers' wives and families.(12) Major Frederick MacKenzie of the 23rd Regiment, serving as a staff officer in Rhode Island, described the drowning suicide of a soldier of the 43rd Regiment, and noted that he left a wife and child destitute in England.(13)

In other cases, wives were in America, but not with the army:

In Committee of Safety, Cambridge, June 21, 1775. Resolved, that Joseph Adams Driver of the Stage from Newbury be and he is hereby Directed to transfer back to Newbury Elizh Rogers (who as she says) is the wife to Willm Rogers First Sergeant in the 63 Regiment of Foot now in Boston and deliver her to the care of the Selectmen of sd Newbury who are Hereby Directed to Provide for her and her child at the expense of the Colony.(14)

We have no additional information to explain Elizabeth Rogers' plight; it is unlikely that she was an American who married a soldier before the war began, since the 63rd had only that month arrived in America. Perhaps she travelled from England on a separate vessel from her husband, and landed somewhere other than Boston; perhaps she managed to leave the besieged city for an unknown reason.

Once a regiment arrived in America, it spent time either in quarters in towns, or in encampments; the encampments were either adjacent towns, if the regiment was in garrison, or wherever the lay of the land was most suitable, if the regiment was on campaign. When a regiment went into an encampment or on campaign, orders were given regulating the number of women that could accompany it. The numbers given in orders for campaigning are usually lower than the total number of women belonging to a given regiment. We can assume, then, that only a portion of the women went into the field with the regiments, while the rest remained in the garrisons.

The number of women allowed on campaign was decided by the local army commander. When British troops occupied Charlestown Neck after the battle of Bunker Hill, for example, four women per company were allowed in the camps; an additional two women per regiment were ordered to the general hospital.(15) Shortly after that, more specific orders were given that four women per company, but no children, were allowed in the camps.(16) When the army evacuated Boston in May of 1776, six women per company were allowed to embark with each regiment; it is not clear how additional women were expected to make their way out of the city.(17) When General John Burgoyne's ill-fated army left Canada in the summer of 1777, Burgoyne allowed only three women per company on the campaign.(18)

The numbers of women allowed to accompany a regiment on campaign are usually found in orderly books, and are sometimes mistaken for the total number of women that were members of a regiment. In fact, it is clear that regimental women and children continued to be provided for on the regimental accounts even if they did not accompany their regiments into the field. The Long Island victualling returns cited in Figure 1 provide two excellent examples in the cases of the 23rd and 33rd Regiments. Both regiments departed Long Island in late December of 1779 as part of General Sir Henry Clinton's expedition to Charlestown, South Carolina. On the return for December 12th through 19th, we find that the 23rd Regiment victualled 463 men, 62 women, and 62 children; the 33rd victualled 475 men, 62 women, and 28 children. At the time of the following return, December 20th through 26th, these regiments had embarked for Charlestown, but the 23rd still victualled 5 women and 8 children, and the 33rd victualled 10 men, 8 women, and no children. These numbers decrease in subsequent returns; in all likelihood some of the women and children left Long Island for the city of New York. It is possible that some eventually found their own passage to Charlestown, but this is unlikely to have occurred until after the city was taken by the British several months later.

The number of women on campaign may of course have varied from the orders, just as the number of women embarked varied from orders. Whether or not regimental women accompanied the army without orders probably depended on the specific nature of the campaign, and we have no data from which to attempt to deduce numbers beyond the actual orders. A wide assortment of people followed armies of the period, and information about them is fragmentary at best. We can only draw conclusions about the regimental women allowed in orders or given in returns; later on, we will look at conditions that women faced on campaign with the army.

The above information gives a fairly orderly picture and leads us to believe that, although there were no set numbers, a general proportionality of women and children to men could be expected. We find, however, that some trained military men were surprised at what they encountered. When General Richard Montgomery wrote about capturing the 7th Regiment of Foot at St. John's in September of 1775, he noted that, "their number of women and quantity of baggage is astonishing."(19) It is possible that General Montgomery included in his observation other civilians, both men and women, who followed the army, in addition to regimental women.

Notes

1. A few details are given in Frey, Sylvia R., The British Soldier in America, Austin, TX, 1981; this work is extremely well referenced, but gives only minor treatment to the subject of soldiers' wives.
   The most extensive single work that we have found is Kopperman, Paul E., "The British High Command and Soldiers' Wives in America, 1755 - 1783," Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, V60 (1982), p. 14-34.
2. "Estimate of Horses, Waggons, and Wheel Carriages, Artillery, &c. necessary for an Army of 30,000 men to take the field and act with vigor." Almon, J., The Remembrancer or Impartial Repository of Public Events, Vol. 2, London, 1775, p. 310.
3. Letter, Germain to the Admiralty, February 21, 1776. W. B. Clark and W. J. Morgan, eds., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Vol. 4. Washington, D.C., 1964 -, p. 295 (hereafter cited as Naval Documents).
4. Letter, George Jackson to Vice Admiral Shuldham, dated Boston, March 16, 1776, transcribed in Naval Documents, Vol. 4, p. 977.
5. W. O. 4/96, Public Record Office, London (hereafter cited as PRO), p. 364-365.
6. See for example, pay lists of the 22nd Regiment of Foot, which present the dates when recruits joined the regiment. It bears noting that when recruits joined the regiment, they were typically distributed evenly among the eight battalion companies, and experienced men were transferred among companies so that all eight were at about the same strength. W. O. 12/3872, PRO.
7. Letter, William Knox to Philip Stephens, March 26, 1777. Naval Documents, Vol. 8.
8. Letter, Massachusetts Council to George Washington. Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 164 p. 122, reprinted in Naval Documents, Vol. 2.
9. "Journal of Lieutenant John Charles Philip von Krafft, of the Regiment von Bose, 1776 - 1784." New York Historical Society Collections, Vol. 15, 1882, p. 139.
10. Journal of Thomas Sullivan, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 973.3 SW5. Entry for December 15, 1777, Philadelphia.
11. Letter, Private Thomas Plumb to his brother, February 2, 1777. HCA 30,272, PRO.
12. Letters of William Dansey, Delaware Historical Society, Dover, DE; Letters of Loftus Cliffe, William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor, MI.
13. Mackenzie, Frederick. Diary of Frederick MacKenzie, Cambridge, MA 1930. Entry for July 5, 1777, Rhode Island.
14. Massachusetts Archives, V. 138 p. 166, reprinted in Essex Institute Historical Collections, V. 46 (1910).
15. Benjamin Franklin Stevens, ed., General Sir William Howe's Orderly Book at Charleson, Boston and Halifax... London, 1890. Orders for June 20, 1775.
16. Ibid. Orders for June 22, 1775.
17. Ibid. Orders for May 2, 1775.
18. Journal of Captain G. Pausch, Chief of the Hanau Artillery During the Burgoyne Campaign. William L. Stone, trans., Albany, 1886.
19. Almon, J., The Remembrancer or Impartial Repository of Public Events, Vol. 1. London, 1775, p. 122.

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