PATRICK K O’DONNELL: The untold story of America’s female Revolutionary sniper
Jemima Warner followed her husband into war. She didn’t know she’d take his place when he fell.
Jemima’s husband, James Warner, was an original member of the Continental Army and served in the 1st Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment. These crack-shot riflemen were among the best marksmen in Washington’s army. Many had been longhunters who lived and hunted beyond the Allegheny Mountains and often had to battle Native Americans. Their woodcraft, scouting skills and expert marksmanship helped pioneer many aspects of early American special operations. In the fall of 1775, Col. Benedict Arnold tapped them to help move his army through the Maine wilderness to attack Quebec.
Handsome, athletic and no more than 25 years old, James Warner was accompanied by his beautiful 17-year-old bride on the ill-fated journey. She was among a small group of women in the force known as camp followers. Two such women marched with the Pennsylvanians.
The full story of these remarkable riflemen and the role of the Pennsylvania long rifle in helping win the Revolutionary War can be found in my newest bestselling book, "Revolutionary Snipers: Washington’s Frontier Commandos Whose Marksmanship Forged A New Way of War and Helped Win the Revolution,"the third book in a trilogy on the elite units of the war.
This groundbreaking look at the Revolutionary War recounts the untold story of the Continental Army’s first soldiers in an immersive "Band-of-Brothers"-style narrative that puts the reader in the boots of these snipers, who preceded today’s U.S. Army special operators. The book is also the first time the full story of Jemima Warner has been told.
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In general, camp followers, known as "Mollies," had a complicated relationship with the military hierarchy. Many officers despised having these wives, mothers, daughters, mistresses and their children along, believing that they distracted the soldiers, slowed their movements and consumed food that could have fed the men.
Others were more pragmatic, noting that the men might not keep fighting if they couldn’t bring their wives. Washington wrote that he "was obliged to give Provisions to the extra Women in these regiments, or lose by Desertion, perhaps to the enemy, some of the oldest and best Soldiers in the Service."
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Camp followers also provided valuable services to the Continental Army. Many worked as laundresses, earning rations and small fees for their labor. Others cooked or served as nurses. A few even spied on British camps while working as cooks or laundresses.
But the intrepid Jemima found herself doing more.
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She had already marched hundreds of tortuous miles with the company when she found her husband at the foot of a tree, refusing to move, telling her he was "determined to die."
The 350-mile march from New England to Canada had become a grueling journey marked by starvation, torture and despair. The battle against the elements — freezing rain; swamps; bogs; snow; whitewater; traversing rivers, ponds, and lakes with small, poorly crafted rafts and little to no provisions; drinking contaminated water — had proved deadlier than the British or the Native Americans. Many of the starving, exhausted men found themselves in the same situation as James, but without a wife to urge them on.
Jemima managed to press James forward for a few days "until he again sat down." Finding that all her solicitations could not induce him to rise, she had no choice but to leave him. In a final gesture of sacrificial love, the starving woman "placed all the bread in her possession between his legs with a canteen of water." She then took up his beloved rifle and resumed the march alone into the wilderness.
When Arnold’s beleaguered force eventually made it to Canada and, together with reinforcements, besieged the city of Quebec, the men were utterly shocked to see Jemima. "The widow of poor James Warner came to our quarters … bearing her husband’s rifle, his powder horn and pouch." She tearfully recounted the tragic story.
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The Americans had earlier sent an officer and an enlisted man bearing a white flag of truce into the besieged city of Quebec to offer American terms for surrender. The British had angrily responded by firing upon them with their artillery.
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So, when the American force demanded Quebec’s surrender for the second time in December 1775, instead of sending their troops under a flag of truce, they sent the intrepid Jemima Warner, fresh from her solo journey through the Maine wilderness, to deliver the message. Crossing no-man’s-land, the same ground where the previous party received enemy fire, Jemima entered the city and delivered the missive. The commander of the Crown forces burned the letter in front of her.
Fortunately, she returned alive. Courageous to the end, Jemima remained on the front lines. But on Dec. 11, 1775, Jemima Warner was struck and killed by British grapeshot during the siege, making her one of the first documented American women killed in action.