Women played a major role with every army in the early war for Canada, and on the Carleton and Burgoyne expeditions. Women’s roles can be divided (at the risk of generalization) into three categories; women in the army, women with the army, and women caught up in the war but not directly tied to the British Army.

The easiest category to approach is the women actually in the Army. Every company of infantry in the army had an allotment of women “on the rolls” of the regiment. Although they received no direct pay, their allowances were sizeable and they were given pay for labor — especially nursing and laundry, their two major jobs. In addition, they served as a reserve of labor for every company with expert skills in sewing and maintaining uniforms, for which they were paid. Several skilled professional women accompanied the Burgoyne expedition, with at least three midwives and one female warrant officer of the Royal Hospital. The evidence of the mess group system suggests that women were neither more or less cooks than any other man in their mess group, and that it was the corporal, not the woman, in the mess group who was responsible for the food. These women lived with the army — a proportion of them marched when the army marched, and on at least one occasion, were armed as a desperate measure.

The next category is women with the army, but not members of it. At one end of the spectrum, these might be day labor — extra laundresses, extra seamstresses. These women did not live with the army and did not accompany it into the field, and would include prostitutes. However, the army had rules, and all of these women were sent from the camp before lights out. Most, if not all of them, were left at Montreal when Burgoyne's army marched.

At the other end of the social spectrum, there are the wives of officers. The Burgoyne expedition was accompanied by quite a number of ladies of rank and position. They camped with their husbands, nursed their wounds, and were often seen as examples of womanly virtue — this isn’t the Victorian era, and women were expected to be a tough lot.

Finally, there are two groups of women who might be with a British Army for a period of time, but were in no way members of it. The first group is that of Loyalist Refugee women — women caught up in the conflict due to their own loyalty to the Crown, or their family or husband’s loyalty. These women were often forced to flee their homes, and were protected and fed by raiding parties or by the army for as long as they took to get to Canada or to rejoin their husbands, fathers, or brothers. A second group would be Native American women. To be precise, Native women could fall into every category present — Native women might be paid auxiliaries of the army, as interpreters; they might be paid laborers, as seamstresses; they might be prostitutes (at least, as seen by white standards), they might be refugees, cast off tribal lands for loyalty to the crown; or they might simply accompany a warrior or even travel with the army on their own, as happened in the mid-summer of 1777. Most Native women fell into the last category — they traveled with the army for their own convenience.

For more information on Loyalist refugees, visit the King’s Royal Regiment of New York; for information on women with the army refer to Don Hagist’s excellent article The Women of the British Army in America.