Allan Appel Photo
A woman showed up among the infantry in New Haven’s July 4th ceremonies, revealing a little known part of American Revolutionary history — females dressed as male soldiers.
The woman, Meg Berthold, was one of more than 100 participants and spectators who kicked off local celebrations of Independence Day with solemn, educational proceedings at the Grove Street Cemetery Monday morning.
A member of the 6th Connecticut Regiment, Company of Light Infantry reenactors, Berthold stayed rigidly in character as she impersonated David Eagleston, a known Revolutionary War soldier from Bridgeport.
It was a double impersonation. Berthold noted that a small number of women expressed their patriotism by joining the ranks of the Continental Army; to do so they had to impersonate men.
It’s not known whether Eagleston was actually a woman, said Berthold’s commander, Captain Eliezer Claghorn, aka Richard Swartwout.
“There was a double standard,” Berthold said. “If you were found out, you’d be fined,” and perhaps worse.
Then Claghorn-led Eagleston and the rest of his troops participated in a triple musket volley in honor of the soldiers and signers buried at Grove Street Cemetery who helped to create the American republic 235 years ago.
Allan Appel Photo
In ceremonies that spanned generations as well as genders, as the Second Company Governor’s Foot Guard looked on, Anna and Molly Nichols, 7 and 5 years old respectively, helped to lay a memorial wreath at the grave site of General David Humphreys. Humphreys was George Washington’s aide de camp, or secretary.
Humphreys, who went on to be the new country’s ambassador to Portugal and then Spain, has lent his name to the General David Humphreys Branch Number One chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution. The chapter organized the memorial services that are now in their 60th year.
The little girls were described by Tim Wilkins, the president of the chapter, as lifetime members of the Washington, D.C.-based Children of the American Revolution. The girls’ mom, Pamela Nichols, said that organization “teaches them to be good citizens.”
In many ways, the ceremonies were about evoking names and profiles of real individuals whose contributions were indispensable to the creation of the new country.
After the volleys and pledge of allegiance, the names of 33 members of the Second Company Governor’s Foot Guard buried at Grove Street were individually called out. Among them were names that evoke local streets: Hezekiah Beecher, Amost Gilbert, James Hillhouse, Joshua Newhall, Gold Sherman, John Townsend.
At the grave site of Roger Sherman, the only signer of the Declaration buried at Grove Street, Marshall Robinson, a leader of the branch, called aloud the names of all 56 signers of the Declaration, colony by colony. A Boy Scout carrying a flag from each future state stepped forward one state at a time.
Branch historian Howard Greene (far left in photo and himself a direct descendant of Major General Israel Putnam of “Don’t Fire Until You See the Whites of Their Eyes” fame at the Battle of Bunker Hill) described how he felt such proceedings compare to more popular celebratory modes, such as fireworks and partying by the seaside: “It’s more purely patriotic to honor the people who put their lives on the line. Had we lost the revolution, they would have been hanged.”
At the conclusion of a group sing-a-long of “God Bless America” beside Humphreys’s pyramidal marker, a benediction, and several revolutionary huzzahs, attendees dispersed to their picnics and parties.
A small group accompanied Captain Claghorn to the grave site of Lt. John Trowbridge. There, after ordering the troops to lay their muskets on the ground, Claghorn led them in a full reading of the Declaration of Independence. He said it was only the third year he’s done this at the cemetery, a relatively new tradition.
Meg Berthold said she is continuing her research about women who served in the ranks during the Revolutionary War. She cited Deborah Samson (sometimes spelled “Sampson”), whom she said was now designated as an “official heroine” of Massachusetts. Samson served as a soldier called Robert Shurtlieff with an Uxbridge, Mass.-based unit. She was wounded in 1782 and discharged in 1783 at West Point.
Awesome history lesson and tribute to our history.