11-16-1994 Women of Achievement and Herstory

     My only excuse for the garbled version that appeared in the 11-

10-94 WOA is that I was in a hurry to get away on a trip and that is

absolutely NO excuse. It was just flat-assed wrong and garbled!  But

let me assure everyone that any incorrect information that appears in

WOA is QUICKLY found by one of the many thousands of university and

college students and faculty, as well as the many, many thousands of

others with solid credentials who read these daily installments. I DO

make corrections promptly. 

     Please send any comments and perceived errors directly to

irenestuber@delphi.com because I don't know all the places that this

column is reprinted on cyberspace ... I'm constantly amazed.  I want

everyone to feel confident in using WOA information.  Encyclopedias,

texts, etc., revise editions and do not print corrections.  I've always

been faintly amused by that ... and feel it is slightly dishonest.

****ERRATA (and please replace) B. 11-10-1865, Mabel Loomis Todd who

WITH Thomas W. S. Higginson prepared many of Emily Dickinson's poems

for their first publication. After ED's death, her sister Lavinia

discovered some 900 poems no one seemed to know existed and enlisted

the aid of Todd who in turn enlisted Higginson, a literary man of the

day to whom ED had sent several of her poems for consideration. 

According to editor Thomas H. Johnson whose publication of the poems

in 1955 returned her poetry to as close to its original form as possible:

"Higginson's problem was compounded by the fact that during (ED's)

lifetime he was never convinced that she wrote poetry....together (Todd

and Higginson) made a selection of 115 poems for publication.  But

Colonel Higginson was apprehensive about the willingness of the public

to accept the poems as they stood.  Therefore in preparing copy for

the printer he undertook to smooth rhymes, regularize the meter, delete

provincialism, and substitute 'sensible' metaphors ...and occasionally line

arrangements was altered." In 1896 Todd alone edited the third in the

series of ED's poems being selected for publication and she also edited

Letters of Emily Dickinson (1894). In 1914 Martha Dickinson Bianchi, ED's

niece and literary heir issued The Single Hound ... "and alterations in

the text...are refreshingly few."

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Event 11-16-1776, Margaret "Molly" Corbin, at the death of her husband

immediately took his place, continuing to sponge out and reload the

cannon until the battle ended.  She was wounded and taken prisoner

by the British.  After her release, she went to West Point to seek

treatment for her battle wounds.  Her home state of Pennsylvania gave

her $30 and in July, 1779, the Congress approved her military pension

and other Revolutionary War veteran benefits.  She is buried at the

West Point cemetery.

     The significant fact of Corbin's and Molly Pritchard's sheroism on

the battlefield is that they were THERE!  A very little mentioned fact

in HIStories of wars was that many women accompanied ALL armies,

wives, suppliers, and prostitutes who cooked, did laundry, and were

even forced to being beasts of burden etc., between battles while

during the actual fighting WERE ON THE BATTLEFIELDS running

errands, nursing, supplying food and water, carrying munitions, etc. ...

and getting shot at and injured or killed, just like the men. Somehow

HIStories seem to leave the impression that women on the battlefield

were surrounded by some special force field that kept them from

harm...or dirt...or blood...or the horror of seeing your husband blown

away and then having the courage to take up his battle post and fight

on.

     And there were many women who fought and died disguised as

male soldiers.

 (C) 1994 Irene Stuber, PO Box 6185, Hot Springs National Park, AR

71902, irenestuber@delphi.com. Distribute verbatim copies freely with

copyright notice for non-profit use.