Anna Maria Lane
Camp Follower
c. 1755 – June 13, 1810
Anna Maria Lane was the first documented female Soldier from Virginia to fight with the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. She dressed as a man and accompanied her husband on the battlefield. Lane was later awarded a pension for her courage in the Battle of Germantown. Today, Lane is recognized for going above and beyond the call of duty to make a difference during the Revolution.
Lane’s early life is virtually unknown, as very little information is present in historical records. She may be from New Hampshire and was likely born in the early 1750s. By 1776, she had married John Lane. Lane and her husband joined the Continental Army in 1776 and originally served under Maj. Gen. Israel Putnam. Some women accompanied the Soldiers as camp followers during the American Revolution to serve as cooks, nurses or laundresses. Lane, however, was the only documented woman in Virginia to dress as a man and fight on the battlefield. There has been speculation that it probably wasn’t difficult for Lane to pass as a man. Revolutionary Soldiers didn’t bathe very often and slept in their uniforms. “As far as enlistment, there are no physicals when one enters the Army in the 18th century,” said historian Joyce Henry. “One must have front teeth and an operating thumb and forefinger so one may be able to reach in, grab a cartridge, tear off the paper, and be able to successfully load your musket.”
Lane and her husband fought in campaigns in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. On Oct. 3, 1777, they served under General George Washington in the Battle of Germantown, near Philadelphia. It was during the battle that Lane was severely wounded, which left her lame for life. Before the Battle of Germantown, Washington had issued an edict which forbade women “camp followers” from accompanying men to the battlefield. Some historians have suggested that Lane did not want to receive treatment for her wound for fear of discovery because of this edict. Despite her injury, Lane continued fighting alongside her husband when he re-enlisted in the Virginia Light Dragoons. She was with him when he received severe wounds himself in the Siege of Savannah in 1779. They both served until 1781.
After the war ended in 1783, the Lanes settled down in Virginia. For a while, John worked at the state arsenal at Point of Fork in Fluvanna County. When the Point of Fork guard disbanded in 1801, the General Assembly of Virginia created a new Public Guard that consisted of 68 Soldiers responsible for protecting all public property in Richmond. The Lanes subsequently moved to Richmond, where he joined the new Public Guard. They lived in the barracks of the Public Guard with their three children and received daily rations. In Richmond, Lane volunteered to tend to Soldiers at the military hospital in January 1802. There, she met a physician named Dr. John H. Foushee. Foushee later asked Governor James Monroe and the Council of State to authorize a small stipend for her nursing work.
Lane had apparently stopped working at the hospital by late 1804. Her name no longer appeared on the list of nurses in the council journal. It is possible she had become too feeble to continue to work effectively. After the Revolutionary War, the Virginia government issued pension records to people who gave military service. This not only included Soldiers but also other participants in the war. A woman who served in a quasi-military role and recognized by the Army — such as a cook, a laundress, or a nurse — could receive a pension. In 1808, disabilities resulted in the discharge of Lane’s husband and several other men from the public guard. Gov. William H. Cabell asked the General Assembly to give pensions to those disabled male Soldiers, as well as a few women. Cabell specifically mentioned Lane, writing that she was “very infirm, having been disabled by a severe wound which she received while fighting as a common soldier, in one of our Revolutionary battles, from which she never has recovered, and perhaps never will recover.” Eight people received pensions by the Virginia General Assembly. John and the other pensioners received $40 a year, which was the standard for Virginia state pensions. Lane, however, received far more than they did. Her pension notes that Lane received $100 a year for life in recognition of the fact that she, “in the Revolutionary War, performed extraordinary military services at the Battle of Germantown, in the garb, and with the courage of a soldier.” Lane accompanied her husband to the Capitol in Richmond during the spring and summer of 1808 to collect their pensions, which occurred quarterly. Among the pension records that survive is her mark, made in place of a signature, found among the records in the auditor’s office. This signifies she was most likely uneducated and illiterate. She continued to collect this pension for the last two years of her life.
Lane died on June 13, 1810. John would join her in death 13 years later on July 14, 1823. Lane was virtually forgotten for more than a century after her death. This changed when the Virginia Pension records were found again in 1928 by the editor of the Richmond Magazine, John Archer Carter. He also submitted an article to the Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine’s May 1928 edition entitled “A Virginian Heroine.” In 1978, E.M. Sanches-Saavedra pieced together more information while compiling “A Guide to Virginia Military Organizations in the American Revolution, 1774-1787.” In 1997, the Virginia Sons of the American Revolution honored Lane by sponsoring a descriptive marker in Richmond near the Bell Tower in Capitol Square, erected by the Department of Historic Resources. An unfortunate truth is there is little knowledge about women’s military roles in the Revolutionary War. This does not mean they did not participate. Few documents survive to support their activities, or the evidence winds up overlooked. The fact that Lane received recognition for her excellence on the battlefield both during her lifetime and now shows how her legacy endures.
Lane Gooding
Graduate Historic Research Intern
Sources
“Anna Maria Lane.” Daughters of the American Revolution. Last modified October 15, 2023. https://isdar.org/chapters/annamarialane/Anna_Maria_Lane_biography.html.
“Anna Maria Lane: Pioneering Revolutionary, Inspirational Heroine, and Wife.” Nations & Cannons. Accessed June 19, 2024. https://www.nationsandcannons.com/blog/anna-maria-lane-pioneering-revolutionary-inspirational-heroine-and-wife.
“Anna Maria Lane: Woman Soldier in the Revolutionary War.” History of American Woman. Accessed June 19, 2024. https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2011/07/anna-maria-lane-soldier.html#google_vignette.
“Women’s History Month: The Story of Anna Maria Lane.” Emerging Evolutionary War Era. March 18, 2019. https://emergingrevolutionarywar.org/2019/03/18/womens-history-month-the-story-of-anna-maria-lane/.
Additional Resources
“A War Veteran.” The Library of Virginia. Accessed June 19, 2024. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/exhibits/destiny/where_women/veteran.htm.
“Anna Maria Lane – Soldier of the American Revolution Marker, SA-47.” Marker History.com. Accessed June 19, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20160910170907/http://www.markerhistory.com/anna-marie-lane-soldier-of-the-american-revolution-marker-sa-47/.
Carter, John Archer. “A Virginia Heroine.” Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine, May 1928. https://services.dar.org/members/magazine_archive/download/?file=DARMAG_1928_05.pdf.
Danyluk, Kaia K. “Women and the Revolutionary War.” Colonial Williamsburg Interpreter (Fall 1997): 8–13.
Tendrich Frank, Lisa. An Encyclopedia of American Women at War: From the Home Front to the Battlefields. Volume 1 ABC-CLIO, 2013.
Treadway, Sandra Gioia. “Anna Maria Lane: An Uncommon Soldier of the American Revolution.” Virginia Cavalcade 37, no. 3 (1988): 134–143.
Ward, Harry M. For Virginia and For Independence: Twenty-eight Revolutionary War Soldiers from the Old Dominion. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2011.