Women Should Be on Statues, Too
Created | Updated Jan 27, 2019
Women Should Be on Statues, Too
Plus ça change department: You think it's a new thing that people decry all those monuments to dead white males, and demand instead that we honour women of note? It is not new, friends. Here's a similar plea recorded a century ago, in 1913. From Revolutionary Reader: Reminiscences and Indian Legends, by Sophie Lee Foster, courtesy of Project Gutenberg.
The 'Redoubtable' Nancy Hart
It is generally accepted that the most conspicuous figure among the Georgia women of the Revolution is the famous Amazon of Elbert County, the redoubtable Nancy Hart. She was undoubtedly the foremost fighter from the ranks of the colonial dames North or South, and her brave and thrilling exploits were indubitably of a rank and character to entitle her to an exalted place in the American temple of fame.
The portrait of Nancy Hart while in repose, is that of a formidable warrior – when in action, she must have been a female Apollyon, dire and terrible, a veritable incarnation of slaughter and threatenings. Six feet in height, cross-eyed, ungainly in figure, redheaded, big hands, big feet, broad mouth, massive jaw, sharp of tongue and rude in speech1, she was a picture before which a Redcoat, a Tory, or a bachelor, well might quail. "She was a honey of a patriot2 but the devil of a wife," is the reading of the record – the tribute of a neighbor who lived in the bloody times which made her known to fame.
It is related that in later years [1828], a resolution was introduced in the legislature of Georgia providing for an equestrian statue of General Jackson – representing his horse in the act of plunging forward, the warrior pointing his sword with martial eagerness towards the foe – to be placed in the capitol of Georgia. A patriotic member of the body arose in the assembly and protested that he would not vote for the resolution unless the legislature should likewise authorize a painting of Nancy Hart fording the Broad River with a tory prisoner, bare-headed and bare armed, her dress tucked up, her jaws set, her big hands suggestively pointing the musket at her cringing captive3.
It does seem a matter for regret that some such recognition is not given by the State to the daring and valor of this Georgia heroine. The history of no other nation can boast of a braver or more invincible woman, and it should be a matter of state pride among Georgians to honor her memory and commemorate with painter's brush, or sculptor's chisel, her splendid and heroic achievements in the cause of American Independence.
More About Nancy Hart
It's hard to separate fact from legend, but Nancy Hart seems to have been a pistol. She couldn't read or write, but got quite a reputation as a Patriot spy and sniper. Several prominent US political figures have been descended from her, including Henry Clay of Kentucky and Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri.
After the Revolution, Nancy Hart is said to have been converted to Methodism, and to have become a 'shouting Christian'. We're sure that whatever she did, she did it loudly and with gusto.
Unfortunately, we still can't find any statues of Nancy Hart. We would pay good money to see this lady on a statue. She did get a county and a lake in Georgia named after her, though.
