Margaret Corbin

Margaret Corbin was a Revolutionary War hero who distinguished herself at the Battle of Fort Washington.  She was born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania on November 12, 1751 to Robert and Sarah Cochran. During a Native American attack on their settlement when she was very young, her father was killed and her mother was kidnapped, leaving her orphaned. She and her brother were raised by their uncle. When she was 21 years old, she married a farmer named John Cochran. 

In 1775, John Cochran joined the Pennsylvania Militia as an artilleryman. When he left to fight in the Revolutionary War, Margaret came with him. Women who followed their relatives' regiments played an important role in meeting soldiers' material needs. They cooked for the soldiers, did their laundry, and nursed the wounded. These women received a ration from the Continental Army to support themselves and any children they traveled with, but they were not paid for their labor unless they were officially employed by the Army as cooks or laundresses.  

These women could also take on more dangerous duties to aid their male relatives during battle. Sometimes this entailed bringing soldiers tools and water to operate their cannons, and often it was to nurse the wounded. On November 16, 1776, Margaret Corbin and her husband were stationed at Ft. Washington in what is now Manhattan, New York. That day, British and Hessian troops attacked the fort, and her husband was stationed at one of the cannons defending it. She was at his side during the attack and saw him killed by the British. Not wanting to abandon the fight, she bravely stepped up to his cannon and continued to fire it at the attacking British until she herself was wounded.  

Most accounts describe a wound on her left arm that left her disabled. There is no consensus among historians about whether Margaret Corbin was captured after the attack, but, if she was captured, she was quickly released because of her injuries. When she appealed to the state of Pennsylvania for financial aid from her injuries, they gave her a small sum and referred her case to the Continental Congress' Board of War. The Board of War granted her a pension and described her as "wounded and disabled in the attack on Fort Washington." Her pension equaled half the monthly pay given to soldiers and was to last through "her natural life, or the continuance of the said disability." Corbin was the first woman to ever receive a military pension, and she earned the nickname "Captain Molly." 

After being wounded, she joined the Invalid Regiment at West Point. There, she likely performed domestic tasks for the injured soldiers who made up the regiment. She was honorably discharged from the regiment at the war's end in 1783 and lived in New York near West Point until her death in 1800.