[ Ссылка ]
The story of Sarah Roberts Taylor a woman from Manchester who fought in the Napoleonic Wars.
Our Bee Mug [ Ссылка ]
“If you buy something through our “links” we may get a small share of the sale.”
Ladies, Wives and Women: British Army Wives in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1793-1815: 99 (From Reason to Revolution) [ Ссылка ]

Wicked Acorn is "a man in a shed who makes things" check out our webpage to see some of the things he makes [ Ссылка ]

Following is the complete article from the Manchester Herald. December 1814. It is too long to include in the description so it will continue in the comments.

The Manchester Herald December 1814
The Manchester Heroine: Sarah Taylor

On Friday last, a middle-aged woman applied for relief at the Church warden's office, in this town, and on being questioned as to her present situation, and her former life, she proved to be that description of heroines, of which Hannah Snell and Christiana Davies, have cut so conspicuous a figure in English biography, and which Joan of Arc, and several others, particularly in the revolutionary war, have done in that of France.

It appears, that when a girl, she was in the habit of wearing boy's clothes, in which dress she served her father, William Roberts (who is a bricklayer), as a labourer; and being tall of her age, when about 14 years old, she enlisted as a soldier into the 15th light dragoons. Probably her extreme youth and healthy appearance might occasion a laxity of attention, for she passed muster without her sex being discovered.

In the course of two months, she learned her exercise sufficiently for all the purposes of parade; the rough riding-master declaring her the best rider in the squad of recruits with whom she was taught; which she imputes to the circumstance of having been used to mount, undaunted, to the top of high buildings, when attending to her father.

She remained with the 15th light dragoons, in which she progressively attained the ranks of corporal and serjeant, for 21 years; her sex all the time remaining a secret to everyone. Perhaps the care she was under of guarding it, had the good effect of producing that regularity and orderly conduct; which recommended the pretended "William Roberts" to the favour and protection of the Officers, and procured her promotion.

When she had been a soldier for 21 years, the Colonel of the regiment tendered her discharge, which she demurred the acceptance of; but being under size, by her own consent, she was transferred to the 37th regiment of foot, which regiment she joined in 1800, at the island of St. Vincent's, in the West Indies, where, soon after, she was taken seriously ill (for the first time, in her military career), of the yellow fever, when wanting some of those attentions which would inevitably lead to a discovery of her sex, she was obliged to intrust the secret she had so well kept, to the wife of a serjeant, at a time she expected nothing but death.

She, however, recovered, and having no longer even a nominal claim to manhood, she was obliged to resume feminine habiliments; but, still enamoured of a military life, as she could no longer be a soldier herself, se became, in May 1801, the wife of one, a private in the 37th foot, of the name of Taylor, by whom the Amazon has since had three children; still following the fortune of war through various climates; during which she was, with her husband, two years in a prison in France, from which they were released in July last in consequence of the peace.

On the day she landed from the cartel, her husband died and this martial heroine is now a widow, still anxious, as she says, to follow a camp, as the most pleasant life of which she can conceive. In the course of her military career, she has visited many distant parts of the globe, and has been in many actions, and received several wounds, which, however, were not severe, and were in parts of the body which did not betray her sex. A scar from a sabre, which graces her head, and the mark where a musket ball was extracted from her leg, are honourable testimonials of her service; but she says that the two years she spent in a French prison were far more difficult to support, and did her constitution more injury than her voyages to the East and West Indies, her march from the Red Sea through Egypt, or her campaigns in Flanders, in Spain, and in Italy. She is, however, in excellent spirits, and "fights her battles o'er again," with all the ardour of Goldsmith's old veteran, who "shouldered his crutch, and shew'd how fields were won."

свернуть