Elizabeth Ellet - The Women of The American Revolution, Vol. 1

When Mrs. Ellet compiled her history of "The Women of the Revolution," she could not have foreseen the deep interest in Colonial and Revolutionary history, that was destined to mark the last decade of the Nineteenth Century, nor could she have realized that the various patriotic societies that were to be organized among women, would lead to as great an interest in the lives of the mothers as in those of the fathers of the Republic. Yet the writer of these sketches of noted women has prepared for just such a phase of American life, which makes her work now appear a prophecy of the future as well as a summary of past events.

"The Women of the Revolution" having been published in the middle of the century, the material for these biographical sketches was collected while some men and women were still living who could recall the faces and figures of the statesmen and soldiers of the Revolutionary struggle. When the sketch of Mrs. Philip Schuyler went to press, the daughter of that heroic lady was still living in Washington, and able to relate for the entertainment of her friends stirring incidents of her mother's life, and of her own life in camp with Mrs. Washington, when as Miss Betsey Schuyler she won the heart of the General's young aide-de-camp, the brilliant, versatile Hamilton. Another interesting character, who was living while Mrs. Ellet's work was in course of preparation, was Mrs. Gerard G. Beekman, whose mind was a storehouse of Revolutionary incidents and adventures, of many of which she was herself the heroine or an eyewitness.

There are in these volumes many proofs that Mrs. Ellet availed herself of the opportunities afforded her to draw from original sources. In some instances, the author acknowledged her indebtedness to the rich fields of reminiscence in which it was her privilege to glean, in other passages the result of such gleaning is evident from the minuteness and vividness with which she portrayed certain characters and depicted the scenes and circumstances in which they moved.

In the opening paragraph of the sketch of Martha Wilson of New Jersey, Mrs. Ellet speaks of the valuable fund of recollection that was opened to her through familiar association with intimate friends of the subject of the biography. Mrs. Wilson, who lived through the first decade of the Nineteenth Century, recollected the stirring days of the Revolution when New Jersey was its principal battle ground, and she, as the daughter of one of General Washington's officers and the wife of another, entertained in her father's house and in her own, the Commander-in-Chief and other prominent Revolutionary heroes. Mrs. Wilson was able to relate many conversations that were held at her table, and numerous personal incidents which threw light upon the characters of Washington, Wayne, Greene and Knox, while the faces and voices of such foreign patriots as Pulaski and the Marquis de Lafayette were familiar to her as household words.

An excellent characteristic of Mrs. Ellet's work is its comprehensiveness and breadth of view. She wrote, not only of women who were prominent in the pivotal centres of action, but also of those whose homes in small inland towns or remote country places rendered them liable to dangers and depredations unknown to their sisters more favorably situated in the larger cities and towns. We are wont to think of the trials and privations of the early settlement of our country as having been confined to the narrow strip along the Atlantic seaboard that once stood for Colonial America, forgetting the dangers and vicissitudes of pioneer life in such border lands as Kentucky, Ohio, and the western part of Virginia. Mrs. Ellet, in her chapters upon the women of the Western States, draws a vivid picture of the heroism and endurance of these border settlers, who were subjected to the successive forays of Tories and Indians. In the intrepid courage and fertility of resource exhibited by the wives and daughters of some of the settlers, especially in the story of young Elizabeth Zane, we are confronted with a record of bravery that rivals that of such well-known heroines as Lydia Darrach, Deborah Samson and the women of the Valley of the Wyoming.

Side by side with the sketches of women who, however patriotic and highly placed in public and social life, were essentially domestic, as Martha Washington, Catherine Greene, Rebecca Biddle and Sarah Bache, we find those of such women of letters as Elizabeth Ferguson of Pennsylvania, Mercy Warren and Abigail Adams of Massachusetts, and of Annis Stockton of New Jersey. Here also are the biographies of women who were chiefly distinguished for beauty, wit and social charm, as Dorothy Hancock, Rebecca Franks and Margaret Shippen, for without them any picture of the life of the time would have been as incomplete as without the record of characters as heroic as those of Rebecca Motte, Catherine Schuyler, Cornelia Beekman, and Mary Slocumb.

In these two volumes of 650 pages, a vast amount of information, of characterization, of incident and anecdote has been preserved for the use of the historian and scholar, as well as for the pleasure and instruction of the casual reader. More than this, if as Mr. Froude says, "history is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong," the reader of to-day may draw from the record of the lives of these women of yesterday, lessons in courage, endurance, fidelity to principle and unselfish devotion to their country, that may well prove an inspiration to higher ideals of citizenship and broader patriotism in the future.

Anne Hollingsworth Wharton.

Philadelphia, June 15th, 1900.

In offering this work to the public, it is due to the reader no less than the writer, to say something of the extreme difficulty which has been found in obtaining materials sufficiently reliable for a record designed to be strictly authentic. Three-quarters of a century have necessarily effaced all recollection of many imposing domestic scenes of the Revolution, and cast over many a veil of obscurity through which it is hard to distinguish their features. Whatever has not been preserved by contemporaneous written testimony, or derived at an early period from immediate actors in the scenes, is liable to the suspicion of being distorted or discolored by the imperfect knowledge, the prejudices, or the fancy of its narrators. It is necessary always to distrust, and very often to reject traditionary information. Much of this character has been received from various sources, but I have refrained from using it in all cases where it was not supported by responsible personal testimony, or where it was found to conflict in any of its details with established historical facts.

Inasmuch as political history says but little – and that vaguely and incidentally – of the Women who bore their part in the Revolution, the materials for a work treating of them and their actions and sufferings, must be derived in great part from private sources. The apparent dearth of information was at first almost disheartening. Except the Letters of Mrs. Adams, no fair exponent of the feelings and trials of the women of the Revolution had been given to the public; for the Letters of Mrs. Wilkinson afford but a limited view of a short period of the war. Of the Southern women, Mrs. Motte was the only one generally remembered in her own State for the act of magnanimity recorded in history; and a few fragmentary anecdotes of female heroism, to be found in Garden's collection, and some historical works – completed the amount of published information on the subject. Letters of friendship and affection – those most faithful transcripts of the heart and mind of individuals, have been earnestly sought, and examined wherever they could be obtained. But letter-writing was far less usual among our ancestors than it is at the present day; and the uncertainty, and sometimes the danger attendant upon the transmission of letters were not only an impediment to frequent correspondence, but excluded from that which did exist, much discussion of the all-absorbing subjects of the time. __Of the little that was written, too, how small a portion remains in this – as it has been truly called – manuscript-destroying generation! But while much that might have illustrated the influence of woman and the domestic character and feeling of those days, had been lost or obscured by time, it appeared yet possible, by persevering effort, to recover something worthy of an enduring record. With the view of eliciting information for this purpose, application was made severally to the surviving relatives of women remarkable for position or influence, or whose zeal, personal sacrifices, or heroic acts, had contributed to promote the establishment of American Independence.