Timeline of women in 19th century warfare

Warfare through history has mainly been a matter for men, but women have also played a role, often a leading one. The following list of prominent female warrors and their exploits from about 1800 C.E. up to about 1899 C.E. can only indicate the involvement of women, some of them thrust into positions of leadership by accident of birth or family connection, others by force of circumstance from humble origins.

Prominent female warriors

* 1801: Austrian army lieutenant Franziska Scanagatta is discovered to be a woman. She leaves the army.
* Early 19th century: Queen Kittur Chennamma fights against the British in India.
* Early 19th century: Juana Azurduy de Padilla acts as a guerilla leader in Bolivia. cite book | title=The Encyclopedia of Amazons | author=Salmonson, Jessica Amanda | publisher=Paragon House | year=1991 | pages=p.26]
* Early to Mid 19th century: White explorers document Bowdash, a Kootenai two-spirit warrior.
* 19th century: Ojibwa Chief Earth Woman accompanies men on the warpath after claiming to have gained powers from a dream. [ Salmonson, p.56]
* 19th century: Gouyen, an Apache woman, assassinates a Comanche chief who killed her husband in battle. She later fought aside other Apaches in a battle against a party of miners.
* 19th century: Pawnee woman Old Lady Grieves The Enemy changes the course of a battle with the Ponca and Sioux by attacking the enemy, thus shaming the men into fighting when they were in retreat. [Salmonson, p. 201]
* 1803: Lorenza Avemanay leads a revolt against Spanish occupation in Ecuador. [Salmonson, p. 26]
* 1805: Mai Sukhan defends the town of Amritsar against Ranjit Singh.
* 1805: Jane Townsend serves in the Royal British marines during the Battle of Trafalgar.
* 1807: Nadezhda Durova earned the cross of St George for valour in combat and became the Russian army's first female officer.
* 1808: Agustina de Aragón defends Spain during the Spanish War of Independence. Legend has it that during the bloody sieges of Saragossa, the Spanish troops abandoning their posts before falling to nearby French bayonets, she runs forward, loads a cannon, and lights the fuse, shredding a wave of attackers at point blank range. The sight of a lone woman bravely manning the cannons inspires the fleeing Spanish troops and other volunteers to return and assist her. She would later become a professional officer in the Spanish Army.
* 1808-1809: Elisa Bernerström enlists in the Swedish army dressed as a man because "She had decided to live and to die with her husband", the soldier Bernhard Servenus; she participates in the war between Sweden and Russia about Finland, and during one battle, she collected the ammunition of the Russians and gave them to her comrades. She is later discovered, fired but decorated with a medal for bravery in battle.
*1809: Joanna Żubr received the Virtuti Militari, the first woman to be granted the highest Polish military award.
* 1813: Eleonore Prochaska killed fighting for the Lützow Free Corps
* 1813-1815: Anna Lühring and Friederike Krüger serve in the Prussian army during the Napoleonic Wars.
* 1815: William Brown (birth name unknown), a Royal Navy sailor, is discovered to be a woman. She is the first black woman to serve in the Royal Navy.
* 1817: Gertrudis Bocanegra, a woman who raised a female army to fight in the Mexican War of Independence, is arrested, tortured, and executed. [Salmonson, p. 35]
* 1817: Two women, whose names are kept secret, are reported to have fought a duel outside Savannah in Georgia.
* 1821: Laskarina Bouboulina fights in the Greek War of Independence.
* 1821: Manto Mavrogenous fights in the Greek War of Independence.
* 1821: Rallou Karatza participates in the Greek war of Independence.
* 1822: Angelique Brulon, a female soldier who had in defence of Corsica from 1792-1799, is promoted to lieutenant. She had originally fought while disguised as a man, but eventually fought openly as a woman. She retires the same year.
* 1824: Queen Kittur Chennamma of the Kittur kingdom in India fights the British.
* 1830s: Pine Leaf of the Crow tribe is recorded as having counted coup.
* 1831: Countess Emilia Plater creates her own group to fight in the Polish November Uprising. She becomes commanding officer of a company of infantry in the rank of captain. She dies from illness contracted during a forced march in December 1832. Several other women served openly as soldiers during this Polish rebellion against Russia, although not many are named; Soltyk reported that a beautiful girl of eighteen fought at the Russian crossfier at the Vola trenches in Warsaw the 4th September 1831, and he added that "the where not one troop of our army, where not one or more of these heroines fought."
* January 20, 1839: Sergeant Candelaria Perez fights in the Battle of Yungay.
* 1842: Kuilix, a female warrior of the Pend d'Oreilles leads a group of warriors to rescue another group from the Blackfeet. Women of both the Pend d'Oreilles and the related Flathead tribe actively participated in warfare, entering battles and dancing in war dances.
* 1846: Kuilix participates in a fight against the Crow.
* 1848: Louisa Battistati defends Milan during the Revolution of 1848. [Salmonson, p.29]
* 1850s: Hanging Cloud becomes the first and only woman of the Ojibwa tribe to become a full warrior.
* 1850: Female Blackfoot war chief Running Eagle is killed in battle.
* 1851: Eliza Allen publishes her memoirs about her experiences of disguising herself as a man and fighting in the Mexican-American War. [Salmonson, p. 7]
* 1851: Seh-Dong-Hong-Beh of the Dahomey Amazons leads an all-female army of 6,000 into battle against the Egba fortress of Abeokuta.
* 1854: Florence Nightingale (a British nurse) revolutionised both the care of sick soldiers in the Crimean War, and also expectations of the role of women of her status.
* 1857: Last stand of Lalla Fatma N'Soumer, an Algerian woman who resisted French colonialism.
* 1857: Indian queen Rani Avantibai fights the British to regain her throne.
* 1857–1858: Indian resistance leader Jalkari Bai defends Jhansi fort against the British.
* 1857–1858: Indian queen Rani Lakshmibai leads battles against the British.
* 1857–1858: Begum Hazrat Mahal leads a band of her supporters against the British in the Indian rebellion of 1857.
* 1858: Battle of Spokane Plain. Colestah of the Yakama tribe participates. [Salmonson, p. 63]
* 1861: Dr. Mary Walker was a doctor with the Union Army at the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) and three later major engagements, but was later captured and spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner of war. At war's end, she received the Medal of Honor for her service and for hardships endured as a POW. She is the only female to ever receive this honor. By the end of the war, over 500 fully paid positions were available to women as nurses and in the United States Military. It is also known that women disguised themselves as men in order to fight.
* 1861–1863: Lizzie Compton disguises herself as a man and fights on the side of the Union in the American Civil War.
* March 20, 1862: Malinda Blalock disguises herself as a man and registers as "Samuel Blalock" in the Confederate military. She fights in three battles with her husband, who was her seargant.
* April 6-7, 1862: Laura J. Williams participates in the Battle of Shiloh with a company that she raised and led, all while disguised as a man.
* August 3, 1862: Albert Cashier (who was female-bodied and was born "Jennie Hodgers") enlists in the Union Army as a man. He fights in over 40 battles.
* 1863: Pauline Cushman, an actress, served on the Union side as a spy dressed in male uniform. She was given an honorary commission as a major by President Abraham Lincoln, and became known as Miss Major Cushman. By the end of the war in 1865 she was touring the country giving lectures on her exploits as a spy, and was presented by P.T. Barnum in New York.
* January 25, 1865: Florena Budwin dies and becomes the first American woman to be buried in a national cemetery. She had disguised herself as a man in order to fight on the side of the Union Army in the American Civil War.
* February 17, 1865: Confederate soldier Mollie Bean is captured by Union forces in the American Civil War while disguised as a man. When questioned, she said she had served for two years and that she was wounded twice.
* July 25, 1865: Retired military Inspector General, H.M. Army Hospitals, Doctor James Barry, dies. Upon inspection of the corpse, it is discovered that Barry was in fact, female-bodied.
* 1868: Battle of Beecher Island takes place. Ehyophsta of the Cheyenne fights in it and later fights the Shoshone that same year.
* October 1868: In Japan, Nakano Takeko and a group of other women take part in the Battle of Aizu.
* 1870s: Calamity Jane serves as a scout in the United States Army.
* 1871: Gregoria Apaza, an Aymara woman, leads an uprising against the Spanish in Boliva.
* 1872–1873: Modoc War. Female Modoc interpreter Toby Riddle assists in negotiations between the Modoc tribe and the United States.
* 1876: Battle of the Rosebud. The Cheyenne refer to this battle as "The Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother" because of the actions of Buffalo Calf Road Woman, who charged into battle to save her wounded brother, causing the Cheyenne to rally and to defeat George Crook. The Other Magpie, a Crow woman, fought on the opposite side.
* 1876: Battle of Little Big Horn. Buffalo Calf Road Woman, Minnie Hollow Wood, Moving Robe Woman, and One Who Walks With the Stars participate.
* 1876: In southern Japan, the women of Satsuma take an active, offensive role in the Seinan War.
* Late 19th century: Lozen and Dahteste act as compatriots to Geronimo in his rebellion against the United States.
*1896: Shona spiritual leader Nehanda Nyakasikana rebels against colonization of Zimbabwe.

References

ee also

*Women in warfare (1750 - 1799)
*Women in warfare (1900-1914)