Following the Drum: Women at the Valley Forge Encampment Contributor(s): Loane, Nancy K. (Author) |
|
ISBN: 1597973858 ISBN-13: 9781597973854 Publisher: Potomac Books OUR PRICE: $33.26 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: April 2009 Annotation: The untold story of the women who helped the Revolutionary War soldiers survive their darkest winter |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - History | United States - Revolutionary Period (1775-1800) - History | United States - State & Local - Middle Atlantic (dc, De, Md, Nj, Ny, Pa) - Social Science | Women's Studies |
Dewey: 973.334 |
LCCN: 2008044817 |
Physical Information: 0.9" H x 6.3" W x 9" (1.05 lbs) 224 pages |
Themes: - Sex & Gender - Feminine - Chronological Period - 18th Century - Geographic Orientation - Pennsylvania |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Friday, December 19, 1777, dawned cold and windy. Fourteen thousand Continental Army soldiers tramped from dawn to dusk along the rutted Pennsylvania roads from Gulph Mills to Valley Forge, the site of their winter encampment. The soldiers' arrival was followed by the army's wagons and hundreds of camp women. Following the Drum tells the story of the forgotten women who spent the winter of 1777-78 with the Continental Army at Valley Forge--from those on society's lowest rungs to ladies on the upper echelons. Impoverished and clinging to the edge of survival, many camp women were soldiers' wives who worked as the army's washers, nurses, cooks, and seamstresses. Other women at the encampment were of higher status: they traveled with George Washington's entourage when the army headquarters shifted locations and served the general as valued cooks, laundresses, or housekeepers. There were also the ladies at Valley Forge who were not subject to the harsh conditions of camp life and came and went as they and their husbands, Washington's generals and military advisers, saw fit. Nancy K. Loane uses sources such as issued military orders, pension depositions after the war, soldiers' descriptions, and some of the women's own diary entries and letters to bring these women to life. |