MOLLY PITCHER
True or False?
(answers at bottom of page)
- 1. Molly Pitcher was once thought to be a German woman named Mary Ludwig who married a man named John Hays but most historians now believe that Mary Ludwig was not Molly Pitcher. T F
- 2. Molly had at least two husbands, William Hays, an artilleryman during the Revolutionary War, and after he died, John McCauley. T F
- 3. Molly Pitcher's given name was Mary but historians are not sure of her maiden name or where she was born. T F
- 4. George Washington Parke Custis, who sketched one of the earliest known pictures of Molly in the 1840s, was a grandson of Martha Washington's. T F
- 5. An eyewitness said he saw Molly lose the lower part of her petticoat at the Battle of Monmouth when a cannon ball passed through her legs. T F
- 6. Paintings often show Molly Pitcher firing a cannon with a man dead at her feet but there is no convincing evidence that her husband died at the Battle of Monmouth. T F
- 7. Molly Pitcher was probably illiterate since she signed her name with an "X." T F
- 8. In her later years, Molly worked as a nurse and was described by those who knew her as Irish, heavy-set, homely in appearance, talkative, prone to swearing, and ready to do a kind act for anyone. T F
- 9. Molly Pitcher received a pension in 1822 from the State of Pennsylvania for her service during the Revolutionary War. T F
- 10. Molly Pitcher's tombstone in Carlisle, PA, where she died in 1832, reads "Mollie McCauly [sic]. . . the Heroine of Monmouth." T F
All answers are true