03/29/2024
Mad Anne. Crazy Ann.
That's what they called her, although, had she been a man, she would have been lauded as the Revolutionary War hero that she was.
She was born in Liverpool, England in 1742, and formally educated. Orphaned and virtually penniless at 18, she decided to make the transatlantic journey to the new world of America. She lived with relatives in Virginia near Staunton in the Shenandoah Valley. At 23, she married a seasoned frontiersman, and they had one son.
9 years later, Native Americans under the Shawnee Chief Cornstalk attacked the Virginia militia, hoping to halt their advance into the Ohio Country. The battle was tough, the Indians retreated and were pursued, eventually agreeing to a truce. By the end of the battle, Anne was a widow and single momma on the frontier. The logical thing to do would have been to had back east and rejoin her relatives, but she had scraped out a life with her own two hands and refused to abandon it.
Anne left her young son in the care of neighbors and set out to avenge the death of her husband. Clad in buckskin leggings, petticoats, heavy brogan shoes, a man’s coat and hat, a hunting knife in a belt around her waist, and a rifle slung over her shoulder, she set out across the frontier, riding from one recruiting station to another, making appeals to all she met to volunteer their services to the militia in order to keep the women and children of the border safe, to fight for freedom from the Indians, and later the British.
Although she primarily rode up and down the western frontier, she also recruited for the Continental Army, and delivered messages between various Army detachments during the Revolutionary War. She often traveled as a courier on horseback between Forts Savannah and Randolph, a distance of almost 160 miles. Alone. On horseback. In the wilderness. In hostile territory. Such a badass! She was well known and respected by the settlers along the route, but the whites and Indians alike called her "mad" for not behaving like a conventional white woman.
On her rides Mad Anne often came across a group of Shawnee Indians. In one such encounter, she was being chased by them and about to be caught when she jumped off her horse and hid in a log. Though they looked everywhere for her and even stopped to rest on the log, they couldn't find her. They gave up and just stole her horse. After they left, she came out of the log and during the night crept into their camp and retrieved her horse! Take that!
When she was far enough away, she began to scream and shriek at the top of her voice. The Shawnee thought she was possessed by the great spirit and could not be injured by a bullet or arrow. After this event, they saw her often, but they were afraid of her and only watched her from afar, making her relatively safe living in the woods.
After several years living on her own, at the age of 45, Anne met a member of a legendary group of frontier scouts called the Rangers, who were defending the Roanoke and Catawba settlements from Indian attacks. He was tough enough to match her, and she married him on November 3, 1785.
Three years later, her hubby started active duty at Fort Clendenin, where there was more conflict between the settlers and Native Americans. Anne began working for the settlers, riding on horseback to warn them of impending attacks. When she was 49 (the same age I am today!) she singlehandedly saved Fort Lee (now Charleston, West Virginia) from certain destruction by hostile Indians with a three-day, 200–mile round trip to replenish their supply of gunpowder.
The dudes there were so grateful that they gave her the horse she rode... the best and fastest one in the fort. She named him Liverpool in honor of her birthplace.
Widowed for the second time at 60, she gave up her home and lived in the wilderness for over 20 years. She visited friends occasionally, but often slept outside. A cave near Thirteen Mile Creek was said to be her favorite place. Bailey continued to messenger supplies for the settlers throughout the area. She made her last trip to Charleston in 1817, at age 75.
Seventy. Five. Glorious!
The following year, she moved with her son and his family to his new farm in Gallia County, Ohio, but knowing how fiercely independent she was, he built her own cabin nearby.
Anne Hennis Trotter Bailey died at Gallipolis, Ohio, November 22, 1825, at the age of 83. She is an American hero, and a mother of our republic in her own right.
