8 Forgotten Figures From the American Revolution

Many of the discussions of the American Revolutionary War center around colossal figures like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin—but it took much more to win the war than the efforts of a few white men in powdered wigs. From spies to enslaved people to everyday civilians caught in the crossfire, these often unsung figures undeniably shaped the early history of the United States.

1. James Armistead Lafayette 
2. Margaret Corbin 
3. Peggy Shippen
4. Deborah Sampson 
5. Joseph Brant 
6. Crispus Attucks 
7. John Laurens 
8. Joseph Plumb Martin 

James Armistead Lafayette 

James Armistead Lafayette was a Continental Army double agent tasked with spying on the British during the Revolutionary War. He was born into slavery and enslaved by William Armistead, a Virginia man supportive of the Patriot cause. James joined the Continental Army under the Marquis de Lafayette, a French military officer with staunchly anti-slavery views. After Lord Dunmore, the British royal governor of colonial Virginia, declared that any enslaved men who joined the British Army would be granted freedom, Lafayette instructed James to pose as a runaway enslaved person to infiltrate the British Army as a spy.

James successfully joined the British Army under Lord Cornwallis; he then offered the British his services as spy and began feeding the Brits false information while relaying critical intelligence on British military movements back to the Continental Army. Thanks to James’s information, the Continental Army was able to properly time their strike on Yorktown, securing victory over the British in what would be the final major battle of the Revolutionary War.

Though many enslaved Continental Army troops were granted their freedom in recognition of their service during the Revolutionary War, because James was a spy and not a soldier, he remained enslaved until Lafayette himself intervened on his behalf. After being freed in 1787, James added “Lafayette” to his surname in honor of the French military officer and spent the remaining years of his life a successful farmer in Virginia before passing away some time between 1830 and 1832.

Margaret Corbin 

Margaret Corbin became the first woman in U.S. history to receive a military service pension. She joined the Continental Army as a camp follower (a term for the women and children who traveled with the Continental Army during the war) after her husband, farmer John Corbin, enlisted as a soldier early in the war.

A brigade of Hessians (hired German soldiers fighting for the British Army) attacked Fort Washington while the Corbins were stationed there in 1776. John was killed in battle while manning a cannon in what is now New York City’s Bennett Park, and Margaret swiftly took his place—despite having just witnessed her husband’s demise—and is said to have operated the cannon with a surprising dexterity and ease. Margaret kept firing on the Hessians until she herself was critically wounded.

After the British inevitably overcame the American forces at Fort Washington, Margaret and her fellow surviving soldiers were taken as prisoners before being released on parole by the British. She was left permanently disabled from her injuries sustained in battle and was awarded a lifelong pension by Congress on July 6, 1779. Though Margaret’s military pension certainly helped her stay afloat financially, it was still just half of what was awarded to her male counterparts.

Peggy Shippen

Second wife to infamous turncoat Benedict Arnold, socialite Margaret “Peggy” Shippen is widely considered to be the single highest paid spy during the American Independence movement. She was born to a bourgeois, aristocratic family in Philadelphia, and she not only inherited the renowned Shippen name, but their British sympathies, too. After the British took control of Philadelphia in 1777, the Shippen family began hosting social gatherings for other prominent loyalists, including Major John André, the head of British intelligence operations during the American Revolutionary War.

Shippen was introduced to Arnold in the summer of 1778 and it wasn’t long before the pair began a romantic relationship. Despite Shippen’s father’s reticence to bless the union on account of Arnold’s mounting legal disputes, the couple wed the following year; Arnold offered his services to the British as a double agent shortly after their nuptials. While Arnold gathered military intel for the British, Shippen facilitated the passage of information between her husband and André through cryptic, coded communications and messages written using invisible ink.

Under the direction of the British, Arnold relocated himself, Peggy, and their young son to Hudson, New York, so he could gather information about West Point—a vital American military stronghold. Arnold took control of West Point and began sabotaging the base’s defenses from the inside. Shortly after, he passed documents containing critical details on the military base’s fortifications to André. André was captured two days later and Arnold and his wife’s scheming was exposed. After receiving news of her husband’s apprehension, Shippen feigned insanity to shield herself from implication as Arnold fled to British-occupied New York City.

Shippen and her husband were welcomed to Britain following the conclusion of the war—the Crown even presented Shippen with an annuity and monetary compensation for her espionage efforts.

Deborah Sampson 

Deborah Sampson grew up in poverty, bouncing between indentured servitude positions while teaching herself to read and write. After enlisting in the Continental Army under the alias Robert Shirtliff in mid-1782, Sampson, then 21 years old, disguised herself as a man to fight for the Patriot cause in the ongoing American Revolutionary War—making her one of the earliest female combatants in American military history.

Sampson went to great lengths to conceal her gender, even tending to her own gunshot wounds to avoid any chance of exposure. Her true identity was discovered in 1783 after she’d fallen ill and had to be hospitalized in Philadelphia. Despite enlisting under a false name, Sampson was commended for her service and was given an honorable discharge after 17 months of military service. 

Sampson struggled financially after being discharged from the Continental Army and petitioned the American government for a military pension. With the support of Revolutionary War figures like Paul Revere and John Hancock, she was rightfully awarded her military pension in 1805, making her one of the very few women from the Revolutionary War to be given one. Sampson passed away at the age of 66 on April 29, 1827, after contracting what is believed to be yellow fever exacerbated by her military injuries.

Joseph Brant 

Born Thayendanegea (roughly translating to “he who places two bets”), Joseph Brant was a prominent Mohawk military leader best known for his fighting alongside the British during the American Revolution. His father died when he was a child, and his mother remarried a man who went by the name Brant to white colonists, leading Joseph and his sister Molly (who would later become the wife of British military officer Sir William Johnson) to adopt the surname. Growing up, Brant’s tribe maintained a positive relationship with the German and Irish settlers in their region, allowing him to familiarize himself with European cultural customs.

After fighting alongside the British during the French and Indian War, Brant and three other Mohawk men were sent to Moor’s Charity School in Connecticut, where they would be educated like other Europeans in hopes they’d be converted to Christian missionaries. Through his education and service, Brant was able to form close ties with prominent loyalist and British figures across the North. The Mohawk leader was later invited by British Indian Department officer Guy Johnson to travel with him to England to meet with King George III to address the concerns of the American Indigenous population.

Brant assembled what would be known as Brant’s Volunteers—a ragtag military battalion of a few hundred men he was able to convince to fight for theBritish—following his return. Brant’s Volunteers participated in battles across the North, fighting alongside the Loyalist forces in battles like the Siege of Fort Stanwix and the Battle of Wyoming (where Brant would earn the nickname “Monster Brant”). Brant remained a respected spokesperson for Indigenous people after the defeat of the British and conclusion of the Revolutionary War; he helped negotiate terms of the Haldimand Proclamation that granted the Mohawks more than half a million acres of land in Ontario.

Crispus Attucks 

Crispus Attucks is historically remembered as the first person killed in the American Revolution. He was a sailor of Wampanoag and African descent—although his precise heritage remains a topic of contention among historians—who was slain during the Boston Massacre, a 1770 confrontation between British forces and American civilians widely regarded as one of the most significant events precipitating the American Revolution. While details on Attucks’s early life remain unclear, it has been speculated that he was an escaped enslaved person using the alias Michael Johnson to avoid detection.

Attucks was said to be at the front of the civilian mob hurling debris at British soldiers and brandishing clubs. He took two gunshot wounds to the chest during the confrontation, killing him instantly. Attucks was later buried at Granary Burying Ground alongside the four other colonists killed in the massacre; they later became martyrs for the American cause, further fueling growing Patriot sentiment across colonial America.

John Laurens 

American military officer John Laurens is remembered for campaigning the Continental Congress to allow Black enslaved people to join the Continental Army in exchange for their freedom (he was the son of Continental Congress president Henry Laurens). Though Laurens eventually obtained permission to recruit enslaved men for the Continental Army, his staunchly anti-slavery views chafed his fellow officials in South Carolina, leading to significant resistance and eventually stopping his plans from coming to fruition.

Serving as aide-de-camp (essentially a personal assistant) to General George Washington, Laurens quickly garnered a reputation for being a brave, if wildly thoughtless, soldier on the battlefield. Laurens developed close relationships with important Revolutionary War figures like Alexander Hamilton—some historians have even speculated the two were in a romantic relationship.

Laurens was wounded in multiple battles in the Revolutionary War. He was eventually shot and killed during a skirmish near South Carolina’s Combahee River in 1782, making him one of the last battle fatalities of the American Revolutionary War.

Joseph Plumb Martin 

John Plumb Martin was a Continental Army soldier whose writings have largely elucidated what day-to-day life was like for soldiers in the Revolutionary War; his memoir has served as an indispensable primary resource for countless historians. Martin spent roughly seven years in the military and fought in crucial battles like the Siege of Fort Mifflin and Battle of Long Island among others before being discharged with the rank of sergeant in 1783. His writing was first published anonymously in 1830, but was not rediscovered and made widely available until the mid-20th century after a copy was recovered and donated to the Morristown National Historical Park in Morristown, New Jersey.

Published with the incredibly lengthy title of A narrative of some of the adventures, dangers, and sufferings of a Revolutionary soldier, interspersed with anecdotes of incidents that occurred within his own observation, Martin’s account does not generally contain information about major figures in the war like the Founding Fathers, but instead shines a light on what life in the Revolutionary War was like for regular soldiers.

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