nother person of an entirely
different station in life, of different nationality, and even different
sex, played a very notable part in the working of the American cannon on
that eventful day.

This was a young Irishwoman, wife of an artilleryman. She was of a
different disposition from ordinary women, who are glad enough to hide
themselves in places of safety, if there is any fighting going on in
their neighborhood. Molly was born with the soul of a soldier, and,
although she did not belong to the army, she much preferred going to war
to staying at home and attending to domestic affairs. She was in the
habit of following her husband on his various marches, and on the day
of the Monmouth battle she was with him on the field.

The day was very hot. The rays of the sun came down with such force that
many of the soldiers were taken sick and some died; and the constant
discharges of musketry and artillery did not make the air any cooler.
Molly devoted herself to keeping her husband as comfortable as possible,
and she made frequent trips to a spring not far away to bring him water;
and on this account he was one of the freshest and coolest artillerymen
on the ground. In fact, there was no man belonging to the battery who
was able to manage one of these great guns better than Pitcher.

Returning from one of her trips to the spring, Molly had almost reached
the place where her husband was stationed, when a bullet from the enemy
struck the poor man and stretched him dead, so that Molly had no sooner
caught sight of her husband than she saw him fall. She ran to the gun,
but scarcely had reached it before she heard one of the officers order
the cannon to be wheeled back out of the way, saying that there was no
one there who could serve it as it had been served.

Now Molly's eyes flashed fire. One might have thought that she would
have been prostrated with grief at the loss of her husband, but, as we
have said, she had within her the soul of a soldier. She had seen her
husband, who was the same to her as a comrade, fall, and she was filled
with an intense desire to avenge his death. She cried out to the officer
not to send the gun away, but to let her serve it; and, scarcely
waiting to hear what he would say, she sprang to the cannon, and began
to load it and fire it. She had so often attended her husband, and even
helped him in his work, that she knew all about this sort of thing, and
her gun was managed well and rapidly.

I