Margaret Corbin, Date of Birth, Date of Death

Margaret Corbin

Continental Army soldier

Date of Birth: 12-Nov-1751

Date of Death: 16-Jan-1800

Profession: nurse, soldier

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Margaret Cochran Corbin (November 12, 1751 – January 16, 1800) was a woman who fought in the American Revolutionary War.
On November 16, 1776, her husband, John Corbin, was one of some 600 American soldiers defending Fort Washington in northern Manhattan from 4,000 attacking Hessian troops under British command.
Margaret, too nervous to let her husband go into battle alone, decided she wanted to go with him.
Since she was a nurse, she was allowed to accompany her husband as a nurse for the injured soldiers.
John Corbin was on the crew one of two cannons the defenders deployed; when he fell in action, Margaret Corbin took his place and continued to work the cannon until she too was seriously wounded.
It is said that Corbin was standing next to her husband when he fell during battle.
Immediately, she took his post, and because she had watched her husband, a trained artilleryman, fire the cannon so much, she was able to fire, clean and aim the cannon with great ease and speed.
This impressed the other soldiers and was the beginning of her military career.
She later became the first woman in U.S.
history to receive a pension from Congress for military service because she could no longer work due to injury and was enlisted into the Corps of Invalids.