By Molly Groarke
This 1784 painting by Robert Pollard depicts a scene from the American War of Independence, shortly after the Battles of Saratoga in 1777. The British forces had been defeated and one of their officers, Colonel John Dyke Acland, had been wounded and captured. In the painting, his wife Lady Harriet Acland, who had accompanied her husband to the Americas, holds out a piece of paper bearing a request from General Burgoyne (of the British forces) to General Gates (of the American forces) for Harriet’s safe passage to tend to her husband. To her left is Reverend Brudenell, a military chaplain, holding the white flag of truce. On the river bank an American guard holds them at gunpoint, suspicious of their intentions, threatening ‘to fire into the boat if they stirred before daylight’.[1] Eventually, General Gates allowed them through and reunited Harriet with her husband.
It is difficult to tell how much of this story is dramatized; the painting clearly portrays a romanticised version of the scene. The painter had not witnessed the events and his main source was an account from General Burgoyne, who was not at the scene either.[2]
However, even without the potential exaggeration, it remains a fascinating episode. Public reaction back in Britain hailed Harriet’s bravery as ‘one of the few bright events in a dismal campaign’.[3] The 1846 collection Tales of Female Heroism featured Harriet, declaring ‘that a woman should be capable of such an undertaking as delivering herself to the enemy, probably in the night, and uncertain of what hands she might fall into, appeared an effort above human nature’.[4]
These events challenge any assumptions that eighteenth-century war, particularly colonial conflict, was an entirely male domain. Women (of a certain class) were not only present but active participants in military history, even persuading superior officers to act on their behalf – and they could be lauded rather than derided for it.
References:
[1] Quoted from General Burgoyne in: Anonymous, Tales of Female Heroism (London: James Burns, 1846), p. 128.
[2] Anne Acland, A Devon Family: The Story of the Aclands (London: Phillimore, 1981), p. 36.
[3] Acland, Devon Family, p. 36.
[4] Tales of Female Heroism, p. 127.
Doing History in Public 
