Mary “Molly” Hays

At the Battle of Monmouth, as the temperature approached 100 degrees and gunners collapsed from heat exhaustion, Mary Hays, an Irish water carrier and the wife of William Hays, a gunner in Captain Francis Proctor’s company of the Pennsylvania or 4th Continental Artillery Regiment, stepped forward to help work Proctor’s cannon. Her wartime heroism later grew into the myth of “Molly Pitcher.” When British infantry pursued General Scott’s Continentals across the Sutfin farm, canister and grapeshot stopped them, and after most Continental artillery shifted to other targets, Captain Proctor continued bombarding the battalion of Royal Highlanders pinned down in Derick Sutfin’s cider orchard. Private Joseph Martin recalled seeing a woman attend the cannon with her husband throughout the action and continue her work even after an enemy cannon shot passed between her legs and tore away the lower part of her petticoat. After the war, Mary and William Hays settled in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and after outliving two husbands, Molly died in 1832.

New Jersey · United States