Valley Forge of the South

Valley Forge of the South. Women at Chesterfield Courthouse Barracks. Women played an important role in the Continental Army barracks at Chesterfield Courthouse during 1780-1781. Local women were often contracted to make shirts for the sick and wounded at the military hospital and to serve as laundresses. Other Chesterfield citizens assisted in gathering provisions for army use. Some women even chose to leave home to follow the soldiers on campaign, often contracted by the individual units to be company laundresses., Commonly known as "camp followers," the women who followed the army on campaign were often the wives of soldiers, tasked by their officers to clean and mend a company's clothing. These camp followers marched along with the army and sometimes even brought their children. While following the army they camped in military tents and cooked and ate the same rations as the soldiers. Like the soldiers; a few sometimes got into trouble. Virginia officer Captain William Gamble, serving in the Hudson Highlands of New York in 1779, reported about certain laundresses who were not following orders. He wrote:, "There are three women in the company...if any of the women of my company are properly convicted of refusing to comply...for her first fault her whole rations shall be stopt, and for her second, she shall be dismissed with disgrace as a useless charge and expense of the continent.", Some of these women who had been present with Captain Gamble's company in New York are known to have been at the Chesterfield Courthouse Barracks in 1780-1781. In December 1779, units of the Virginia Line marched south from General Washington's army in New Jersey to reinforce Charleston, South Carolina. During the brutally cold and snowy march south in February 1780, several soldiers and laundresses were sick enough to be left behind in Petersburg, Virginia., In May, General Peter Muhlenberg, who commanded troops in Virginia, and Dr. William Rickman, superintendent of Virginia military hospitals, agreed to move those who remained ill to a healthier location - Chesterfield Courthouse. Rickman drafted "A Report of the Sick now in the Hospital near Petersburg the 16th of May 1780" in which he documented 16 men and 2 women of the Virginia Line who were listed as still receiving care for various afflictions. They were eventually moved to Chesterfield Courthouse where Dr. Rickman cared for them before being allowed to return home.