Timeline of women in warfare in the United States before 1900

1755

• Nancy Ward, Nan'yhi (Cherokee) receives the title of Beloved Woman after fighting in the Battle of Taliwa.[1]

Molly Pitcher engraving

1775

• March: Prudence Wright organized a militia of women in Pepperell, Massachusetts.[2] The militia went on to capture two spies.[2]

1776

• November: Margaret Corbin was wounded fighting next to her husband during the attack of Fort Washington.[3][4] She eventually earned a military pension for her service.[3]

1777

• April: Sibyl Ludington rode to alert New York militia that the British were coming.[3]

1778

• Mary Hays aided Revolutionary soldiers in the Battle of Monmouth, bringing water and later being known as "Molly Pitcher."[5]

1780

• Esther DeBert Reed raised money for the war effort.[6]

1782

• Deborah Sampson disguised herself as a man and fought under the name, Robert Shurtliff in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment.[3]

1811

• For the first time, the U.S. Navy includes women nurses at their hospitals.[9]

1812

• During the War of 1812 Mary Marshall and Mary Allen worked as nurses for U.S. Commodore Stephen Decatur on the United States.[10]

1819

• Manono II, fought along with her husband Keaoua Kekuaokalani, in the Battle of Kuamoo, where both perished in defense of the kapu system.

• Women were first officially assigned as keepers in the Lighthouse Service of the U.S. Coast Guard beginning in the 1830s although many wives and daughters of keepers had previously served as keepers when their husbands or fathers became ill. Women continued as lighthouse keepers until 1947.[11]

1830

• Pine Leaf of the Crow tribe is recorded as having counted coup.

1836

• The Warner Sisters come to Constitution Island. For a half century, Susan and Anna Warner wrote popular novels and taught Sunday School to West Point cadets. Susan wrote a Wide Wide World, one of the nation's best sellers, in the 1850s. Anna wrote the words to the children's verse “Jesus Loves Me.” They later donated the island to the United States Military Academy in 1908. The remains of both sisters lie in the West Point cemetery.[12]

1842

• Kuilix, a female warrior of the Pend d'Oreilles leads a group of warriors to rescue another group from the Blackfeet. Women of both the Pend d'Oreilles and the related Flathead tribe actively participated in warfare, entering battles and dancing in war dances.

1846

• Mexican War (1846–1848): Elizabeth Newcom enlists under the name Bill Newcom in the Missouri Volunteer Infantry. She serves briefly before being discovered and discharged.[10]
• Sarah Borginnes is hailed as the "Heroine of Fort Brown" following her actions during the Siege of Fort Texas. She goes on to operate a series of inns providing food, lodging, liquor, and prostitutes to Zachary Taylor's troops.[10]
• Kuilix participates in a fight against the Crow.

• Woman Chief (Crow) was the third-leading warrior among a group of Crow lodges.[13]

1850

• Hanging Cloud becomes the first and only woman of the Ojibwa tribe to become a full warrior.

1851

• Eliza Allen publishes her memoirs about her experiences of disguising herself as a man and fighting in the Mexican–American War.[14]

1858

• Battle of Spokane Plain. Colestah of the Yakama tribe participates.[15]

1859

• From 1859 to 1862 Maria Andreu (a.k.a. Maria Mestre de los Dolores) served as the Keeper of the St. Augustine Lighthouse in Florida, becoming the first Hispanic-American woman to serve in the U.S. Coast Guard and the first Hispanic-American woman to oversee a federal shore installation.[11]

• Civil War (1861–1865): Women were involved in civilian volunteer work where thy aided troops on both sides of the war. Biologically female soldiers on both sides wear male clothing in order to serve; some of them, such as Albert Cashier, were transgender men. By the end of the war, over 500 fully paid positions were available to women as nurses and in the United States Military.[10]

1861

Mary Edwards Walker

• Dr. Mary Walker was a doctor with the Union Army at the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) and three later major engagements, but was later captured and spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner of war. She held the rank of captain. She was the first American female prisoner of war; she was captured on April 10, 1864; she was released on August 12, 1864, in exchange for a Confederate major. At war's end, she received the Medal of Honor for her service and for hardships endured as a POW.[16]
• 1861–1863: Lizzie Compton disguises herself as a man and fights on the side of the Union.
• 1861–1865: Harriet Tubman, an abolitionist and a former slave, becomes a Union spy. She also served as a scout and nurse. She led a band of scouts and provided key intelligence to the Union Army. Tubman became the first woman to lead an armed assault during the Civil War in the Raid at Combahee Ferry in 1863. In 1913, Tubman was buried in Ft. Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York and received full military honors at the service.[17]

1862

• Susan King Taylor becomes the first African American army nurse in the United States.[18]
• March 20: Malinda Blalock disguises herself as a man and registers as "Samuel Blalock" in the Confederate military. She fights in three battles with her husband, who was her sergeant.
• April 6–7: Laura J. Williams participates in the Battle of Shiloh with a company that she raised and led, all while disguised as a man.
• Four nuns from Holy Cross and five African American women worked as nurses on the Navy's Red Rover.[9]

1863

• Pauline Cushman, an actress, served on the Union side as a spy dressed in male uniform. She was given a volunteer reserve commission as a major and became known as Miss Major Cushman. By the end of the war in 1865 she was touring the country giving lectures on her exploits as a spy, and was presented by P.T. Barnum in New York.
• Ann Bradford Stokes enlists as a ship's nurse in the Navy.[19]

1864

• Rose O'Neal Greenhow works as a Confederate Spy until her death in October 1864.[20]

1865

• Florena Budwin dies and becomes the first American woman to be buried in a national cemetery. She had disguised herself as a man in order to join the Union Army.
• February 17: Confederate soldier Mollie Bean is captured by Union forces while disguised as a man. When questioned, she said she had served for two years and that she was wounded twice.

1866

Cathay Williams

• 1866–1868: Cathay Williams, a former Missouri slave, went on to become one of the only women Buffalo Soldiers. Williams took the name, William Cathay, and was able to enlist in the Black infantry. She served from November 15, 1866 to October 14, 1868. When she applied for her Army pension in 1891, it was only then that her true identity was revealed.[17]

1868

• 1868: Battle of Beecher Island takes place. Ehyophsta of the Cheyenne fights in it and later fights the Shoshone that same year.

1870

• 1870s: Calamity Jane serves as a scout in the United States Army.

1872

• 1872–1873: Modoc War. Female Modoc interpreter Toby Riddle assists in negotiations between the Modoc tribe and the United States.

1876

• Battle of the Rosebud. The Cheyenne refer to this battle as "The Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother" because of the actions of Buffalo Calf Road Woman (Norther Cheyenne), who charged into battle to save her wounded brother, causing the Cheyenne to rally and to defeat George Crook.[21] The Other Magpie, a Crow woman, fought on the opposite side.
• Battle of Little Big Horn. Buffalo Calf Road Woman, Minnie Hollow Wood, Moving Robe Woman, and One Who Walks With the Stars participate.

1878

• Noted warrior, Running Eagle (Blackfeet Tribe), died while stealing horses for battle.[21]

1881

• Lime Rock Lighthouse Keeper Ida Lewis becomes the first woman to be awarded a Gold Lifesaving Medal by the U.S. Coast Guard.[11]

1886

• Dahteste (Choconen Apache) works as a mediator during the final surrender of Geronimo (Mescalero-Chiricahua).[21]

1898

• Spanish–American War: During an epidemic of typhoid, malaria, and yellow fever, Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee suggests the idea that the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) could work as contract nurses to help with the soldiers suffering from the epidemic. Around 1,500 civilian contract nurses aid the war effort and around twenty nurses die. Around 32 African American women also served as contract nurses and were thought to be immune to many of the diseases in the epidemic, but three died. Eighty African-American professional nurses served under Army contract.[17] Dr. McGee is appointed Acting Assistant Surgeon General and is the first woman to hold that position. She is also tasked in creating legislation for a permanent corps of nurses in the Army.[10]

• Roberts, Cokie (2005). Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation. Perennial. ISBN 0060090251 – via Internet Archive.
• Salmonson, Jessica Amanda (2015). The Encyclopedia of Amazons: Women Warriors from Antiquity to the Modern Era. Open Road Media. ISBN 9781453293645.