Women in the British Army
I mentioned Don Haigst presented on "Women in the British Army" and how enlightening it was for me.
Now, a little background, and I'm sure many of you can relate: you want to interpret a particular period, you join a group, either by yourself or with your partner. He becomes a solider, you become a campfollower, forever relegated to sewing, knitting or cooking, and possibly (depending on your unit) cleaning up after everyone. It's so boring and sometimes what the men do looks enviable (hence our unit, chock full of women acting as men). Or, if you prefer being distaff, you wander around aimlessly wondering if there is anything more to what you can do. You try to find what else women did, but it's difficult, you find a line here or there mentioning something, nursing, sultering, laundry, sewing. It's even harder if you are the "enemy" to find any information on distaff. But just the words: no descriptions as to what that entailed with said job or what it paid or how long it would last. Oh, Nursing? It pays more than a solider, but how much more? What are your duties? What kind of person are you expected to be? Oh, Sultering. Okay. What do I sell? How much do I charge for it? How do I get my goods around? Am I allowed employees? And so on and so forth.
That's where this talk helped me so much. The what and the how and the where and why on women on my side of the fence. Some of the obvious and less obvious myths were dispelled. Like the whopper about if you were widowed you had to marry within 24 hours/one week/one month or you were thrown out of camp. Truth: like any other community, military or otherwise, if you lost your husband you weren't suddenly persona non grata, the army made sure you were taken care of. You were given your husband's back pay, clothes (which could be sold back to the regiment) and whatever estate or possessions he had. The army gave you passage back to Great Britain and a half-Guinea (10 1/2 shillings) to get you where you needed to go once you got there. The less obvious myth of "Only six women per Regiment" is dispelled as "Only six women per transport per Regiment." Only 6 women could be chosen to go with their husbands, more could come but had to pay their own way. On campaign, it could vary from regiment to regiment how many could come along, but it seems the average was 2 or 3 per 100 men.
Since a soldier's pay was 1 shilling/week, his wife would certainly have to work to support herself and any children. Nursing was the highest paid, at 2 shillings/week. You were expected to be clean, sober, and punctual and duties were hard: keeping the hospital or chosen sick bay clean, washing bedding and charges, feeding and administering medicine to said charges and monitoring them, reporting any deaths immediately to the head nurse or doctor. Laundering was another duty, but that was "heavily regulated" as to how much could be charged; unfortunately there doesn't seem too much information on that. Laundry had to be done away from camp.
What I found most fascinating was Sutlering. A woman could sell anything that soldiers and their families would buy, usually things not rationed. So, alcohol was a big one, mostly gin and whiskey, and you could get into some trouble with that one. Others sold vegetables they stole from other people's yards and farms. And there are the less criminal things of soap and such that modern sutlers sell at events. Some women made enough money to purchase a mule or a cart and horse to transport their goods or even hire employees to help them run it. There was a couple interesting prints of sulteries, both included the usual tents we're used to seeing, but one had an interesting sort of mish-mash of scrap and brush lean-to and the other a caravan up on blocks (!!). There's also record of at least one wife on this side of the pond purchasing a milk cow while encamped.
The recorded accounts he gave of Army wives were my favorite. A man wrote about leaving a fort and coming upon a farmhouse, where the family said they had found a woman in labor in the woods. It turns out she was also from the fort and her hubs was on campaign. Despite being 9 months pregnant, she went after him, and ended up going into labor. She gave birth to a healthy little girl. The man left and came back the next day to check on her, but the family said, despite their protests, she left with the baby to find her husband. She and the baby made it safely to her destination.
Another sounds more familiar: when the fort at Crown Point burned down, there was an inquiry into what happened. One guy testified that Mrs. Whatserface did it when starting a fire to do laundry in the barracks (see above) and the chimney caught fire, which is what Mrs. Hoosiewhatsit told his wife, who in turn told him.
And a quite vulgar story about prisoners in a New York fort (I can't remember). The wives were captured with their men, but since they were civilians they could leave the fort when they wanted to. The Continentals were limited on men, so usually the old were used as guards. A wife wanted to go somewhere and oldie tried to stop her. So she "abused him with Billingsgate language" and when he still wouldn't let her pass, she knocked him down, lifted up her skirts, and peed on him.
But, of course, there were dangers. There are several accounts of wives (and it seems they were all wives) being shot during battle, burned when barracks caught fire, and other such calamities. Also, an interesting note, which makes me consider my own unit: there is no evidence of women masquerading as men in the British Army during this particular war. Apparently, signing up meant you had to undergo a physical, whereas you might not be completely naked was still invasive enough to weed out any women.
Of course, I wonder what this all means as a Loyalist regiment, but I can e-mail him and ask him.
Next time: what all this information means to me, and how I can use it to improve my own impression.
Now, a little background, and I'm sure many of you can relate: you want to interpret a particular period, you join a group, either by yourself or with your partner. He becomes a solider, you become a campfollower, forever relegated to sewing, knitting or cooking, and possibly (depending on your unit) cleaning up after everyone. It's so boring and sometimes what the men do looks enviable (hence our unit, chock full of women acting as men). Or, if you prefer being distaff, you wander around aimlessly wondering if there is anything more to what you can do. You try to find what else women did, but it's difficult, you find a line here or there mentioning something, nursing, sultering, laundry, sewing. It's even harder if you are the "enemy" to find any information on distaff. But just the words: no descriptions as to what that entailed with said job or what it paid or how long it would last. Oh, Nursing? It pays more than a solider, but how much more? What are your duties? What kind of person are you expected to be? Oh, Sultering. Okay. What do I sell? How much do I charge for it? How do I get my goods around? Am I allowed employees? And so on and so forth.
That's where this talk helped me so much. The what and the how and the where and why on women on my side of the fence. Some of the obvious and less obvious myths were dispelled. Like the whopper about if you were widowed you had to marry within 24 hours/one week/one month or you were thrown out of camp. Truth: like any other community, military or otherwise, if you lost your husband you weren't suddenly persona non grata, the army made sure you were taken care of. You were given your husband's back pay, clothes (which could be sold back to the regiment) and whatever estate or possessions he had. The army gave you passage back to Great Britain and a half-Guinea (10 1/2 shillings) to get you where you needed to go once you got there. The less obvious myth of "Only six women per Regiment" is dispelled as "Only six women per transport per Regiment." Only 6 women could be chosen to go with their husbands, more could come but had to pay their own way. On campaign, it could vary from regiment to regiment how many could come along, but it seems the average was 2 or 3 per 100 men.
Since a soldier's pay was 1 shilling/week, his wife would certainly have to work to support herself and any children. Nursing was the highest paid, at 2 shillings/week. You were expected to be clean, sober, and punctual and duties were hard: keeping the hospital or chosen sick bay clean, washing bedding and charges, feeding and administering medicine to said charges and monitoring them, reporting any deaths immediately to the head nurse or doctor. Laundering was another duty, but that was "heavily regulated" as to how much could be charged; unfortunately there doesn't seem too much information on that. Laundry had to be done away from camp.
What I found most fascinating was Sutlering. A woman could sell anything that soldiers and their families would buy, usually things not rationed. So, alcohol was a big one, mostly gin and whiskey, and you could get into some trouble with that one. Others sold vegetables they stole from other people's yards and farms. And there are the less criminal things of soap and such that modern sutlers sell at events. Some women made enough money to purchase a mule or a cart and horse to transport their goods or even hire employees to help them run it. There was a couple interesting prints of sulteries, both included the usual tents we're used to seeing, but one had an interesting sort of mish-mash of scrap and brush lean-to and the other a caravan up on blocks (!!). There's also record of at least one wife on this side of the pond purchasing a milk cow while encamped.
The recorded accounts he gave of Army wives were my favorite. A man wrote about leaving a fort and coming upon a farmhouse, where the family said they had found a woman in labor in the woods. It turns out she was also from the fort and her hubs was on campaign. Despite being 9 months pregnant, she went after him, and ended up going into labor. She gave birth to a healthy little girl. The man left and came back the next day to check on her, but the family said, despite their protests, she left with the baby to find her husband. She and the baby made it safely to her destination.
Another sounds more familiar: when the fort at Crown Point burned down, there was an inquiry into what happened. One guy testified that Mrs. Whatserface did it when starting a fire to do laundry in the barracks (see above) and the chimney caught fire, which is what Mrs. Hoosiewhatsit told his wife, who in turn told him.
And a quite vulgar story about prisoners in a New York fort (I can't remember). The wives were captured with their men, but since they were civilians they could leave the fort when they wanted to. The Continentals were limited on men, so usually the old were used as guards. A wife wanted to go somewhere and oldie tried to stop her. So she "abused him with Billingsgate language" and when he still wouldn't let her pass, she knocked him down, lifted up her skirts, and peed on him.
But, of course, there were dangers. There are several accounts of wives (and it seems they were all wives) being shot during battle, burned when barracks caught fire, and other such calamities. Also, an interesting note, which makes me consider my own unit: there is no evidence of women masquerading as men in the British Army during this particular war. Apparently, signing up meant you had to undergo a physical, whereas you might not be completely naked was still invasive enough to weed out any women.
Of course, I wonder what this all means as a Loyalist regiment, but I can e-mail him and ask him.
Next time: what all this information means to me, and how I can use it to improve my own impression.