Smartly, Sarah drew the conclusion that they were vomiting due to lack of time to cook. On a misty, cool night, Sarah noticed many men in the trenches throwing up their food including her husband. A stark change of pace came as a plague settled about the soldiers. From there, they dug entrenchments all the way to the battle site, relentlessly bombarded by enemy artillery. Having done so much for the war while taking discouragement from so many shows her resilience.Īmerican soldiers during the battle of Yorktown set up their camps about a mile away from the city. Though Sarah partook in stereotypically ‘womanly’ activities (cooking, mending, cleaning) at the different encampments, her accomplishments do not deserve to go unrecognized.
The Quakers felt the role of women at the time was to stay away from the war and ‘in their own lane.’ Quakers were notorious pacifists, and during the Revolution were often torn between following their religion and avoiding harassment by their pro-war neighbors. While on the journey, some Quaker women tried to urge Sarah to stay behind. Although it was likely that she would have, Aaron stepped in saying, he couldn’t leave her behind. Across the Hudson to Fishkill, then to West Point, down to Philadelphia, further to Baltimore, then all the way back up to Yorktown, where the final battle of the Revolutionary War would take place.
Starting in Albany, they moved from place to place. Sarah and her husband had a tireless journey through the northeast. Sarah was always very firm in her opinions. However after learning that Aaron would be serving on the Commissary Guard and that she would be given sleigh, horseback, and wagons to ride on, Sarah begrudgingly agreed. He wanted Sarah to come with him, but Sarah initially offered a hard pass. But, rather than a honeymoon, Aaron discovered he would be returning to the war. They married that same winter month of 1780, in the blacksmith’s house. Sarah discovered that Aaron had been splitting his time between service and blacksmithing at Willis’s- first serving at his enlistment site in Goshen, Orange County, NY and then a year at Fort Schuyler/Stanwix. In the hard winter of 1780, a woman then known as Sarah Benjamin was working in the house of John Willis (Albany’s resident blacksmith), as a servant when she met her future husband Aaron Osborn.
0 kommentar(er)
