In under a day’s time, a traveler in the mid-Atlantic could get breakfast at the Molly Pitcher Waffle Shop in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, then drive north to see the Molly Pitcher grave and statue in nearby Carlisle and grab a drink at the town’s Molly Pitcher Brewing Company. Drive east for a few hours, and they’d be at the Molly Pitcher memorial at Monmouth Battlefield State Park, the site of her alleged heroic feats. Not far away, before heading back home, the traveler could stop for a snack at the Molly Pitcher Service Area along the New Jersey Turnpike.
At the end of their itinerary, they might have gotten a sense of how Molly Pitcher, the beloved freedom fighter who joined the Battle of Monmouth upon seeing her slain husband, contributed to the American Revolution, but in reality, they were just chasing a figment of the American imagination.
The legend of Molly Pitcher is perhaps best told visually, the way 19th-century Americans captivated by her story would have seen and propagated it. In 1854, artist Dennis Malone Carter created a large canvas with Molly at its center, holding a ramroad beside a cannon that has just been fired, her dead husband lying at her feet. The popular lithographers Currier & Ives likewise sold a print showing a fiercely determined but richly dressed Molly jamming the ramroad into a cannon, similarly accompanied by the fallen husband as well as a pail of water she had dropped.
Any number of books and popular websites will tell you today that while “Molly Pitcher” never existed, the real woman behind the nickname was likely Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley. The National Women’s History Museum, the American Battlefield Trust, the National Archives , the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, and New York’s Fraunces Tavern Museum all have stories about McCauley, the real-life heroine of the Battle of Monmouth. On June 28, 1778, the popular history goes, McCauley was delivering water to men on the field (hence the “pitcher” nickname) and took over manning her husband’s cannon after he was killed. McCauley was then recognized by George Washington himself as a non-commissioned officer.
This course traces the stories of women of all backgrounds who exercised power and influence during the American Revolution and the early decades of the nation.
The problem is, McCauley’s story itself is also likely the stuff of legend. No account from her lifetime says she was on the battlefront; it was not until after her death that the story of her heroism emerged and that she became associated with the “Molly Pitcher” nickname. But stories about a brave woman at the Battle of Monmouth have been found in the historical record, stories which have been tied to her. Could they be true?