In the years following the American Revolution, efforts to inscribe the revolutionary war history with patriotic language and symbols, heroes and heroines, resulted in a largely mythologized view of women’s contributions to the war for independence. The roles of Betsy Ross and the largely fictionalized Molly Pitcher were embroidered to celebrate women’s contributions in what were deemed appropriate roles for women to play: the seamstress who put her skills to work on behalf of the patriotic cause, or the wife, who stepped in for her husband at a crucial moment to ensure the ability of patriot soldiers to win the day.

The history however, is more complicated than these myths

Primary sources reveal women very keenly aware of the military, and domestic challenges posed by the war. Women’s letters like those written by William Livingston’s daughters, reveal them to be aware of military matters, and eager to share the latest developments regarding the war through their correspondence. Their letters also reveal the struggles experienced by those who lived along the crossroads of the American Revolution. For example, the letters of Livingston’s daughters describe their efforts to protect Liberty Hall during the war, their struggle to remain safe, and – even for the governor’s wife – struggle to ensure sufficient supplies of food. Their responsibilities on the “home front” included not only protecting the home, but also protecting valuable papers of Gov. Livingston. William Livingston wrote to his wife, Susanna French Livingston, about the importance of protecting his papers and the need to possibly remove them from Liberty Hall, as he expected British soldiers to not only read the property, but also very likely destroy it. The British did indeed raid the home, and his daughters are credited with preventing the British from taking those papers in what has become part of Livingston family lore. In the telling of this history, a Livingston daughter is credited with using her feminine modesty to prevent British soldiers from taking those papers by persuading the soldiers that the papers in question were her own and that the private papers of a respectable young woman were off-limits to the British soldiers. In another version of the story, a Livingston daughter appeared at the top of the stairs in Liberty Hall clad in her white nightgown, appearing to the British soldiers to be a ghost whom they assumed to be the ghost of a woman named Hannah Caldwell, the wife of Rev. James Caldwell, who had been accidentally shot and killed weeks earlier. The frightened soldiers left without destroying the home or taking the Governor’s papers. In another story, Susan Livingston is credited with having flirted with British soldier, Cosmo Gordon, even presenting him with a rose from Gov. Livingston’s garden, to either save Liberty Hall, or prevent him from joining his troops in battle. It is difficult to know the how closely the lore of these family stories adhere to the true instances of exchanges between Livingston daughters and British soldiers, but historical memorialization insured that the actions of Livingston daughters were well within the bounds of what was regarded as appropriate behavior for young women.

We can expect the reality to have been much more complicated

Archival sources relating to Liberty Hall and the family of William Livingston are remarkably rich in revealing sources for uncovering and reconstructing the experiences of elite women in the revolutionary era. As a young man, William Livingston described his ideal wife in his poem, Philosophic Solitude. Also surviving is the correspondence between William Livingston and his wife, Susanna French Livingston, both during their courtship and during their time apart during the American Revolution. Of William and Susanna's children, six were daughters and much of their correspondence with each other and their parents also survives. Their letters reveal their experiences during the American Revolution, not only in New Jersey and in Philadelphia, but also in Europe – Sarah Livingston, who married John Jay at Liberty Hall in 1774, accompanied her husband to Spain and France during the revolution. Together, they carried out efforts to win financial and military support from the French, and to negotiate peace with the British. Equally important are the letters of Susan Livingston Kean Nemciewicz. Susan Livingston Kean Nemciewicz was the niece of William Livingston. Following the death of her husband John Kean in 1795 – and the return of her second husband Count Julian Nemciezicz to his native country of Poland in Europe – Susan Livingston Kean Nemciewicz purchased Liberty Hall. Her letters offer invaluable insights into ways the actions of a woman exercising power as the head of an estate.

While we can study these documents to understand the experiences of the Livingston women, it is far more difficult to recover the experiences of the women of lower economic status, women who were less well-educated, and especially those women who were enslaved. And yet, with a careful reading of the sources that we do have, it is possible to gain some insight into their experiences as well. Frustratingly, most surviving sources come from the perspectives of the societal elites. Therefore, they must be read carefully, and their biases understood, in order to understand the experiences of others. The papers of William Livingston during the American Revolution are filled with numerous appeals by women to Livingston as Governor. Many appeals ask for passes to allow them to cross into British territory in New York, for example, to visit ailing family members or conduct family business. Livingston’s suspicions that not all of these requests were legitimate, shows both the possible reliance of both sides' militaries on the undercover actions of women, as well as the complex roles that ordinary women played in their family economies during the war.

Many enslaved colonists took advantage of the War for Independence to try and secure their own freedom and liberty. Most Blacks sided with the British, as the British Army actively recruited men enslaved to Patriot masters and were seen as more likely to grant freedom. As many as 100,000 Blacks took advantage of the upheaval and opportunities to run away and many were killed as a result of the war. Far fewer, perhaps 5000, Black Americans served in the patriot forces on land and at sea.

Perhaps the best known Black Loyalist soldier is Colonel Tye. Titus, the man who would later be known as Colonel Tye, ran away from his master’s Monmouth County, NJ, farm in 1775. He would return to Monmouth County from his base with the British garrison on Staten Island, numerous times over the next five years to free enslaved men and women there, seize cattle, burn crops, and capture and kill patriot leaders and soldiers. Colonel Tye appears to have been one of the few militia leaders with whom British regulars would work with directly. He was wounded on a raid to capture a Patriot militia captain and ultimately died.

Of course the American Revolution did not end slavery in the United States or in New Jersey. The number of enslaved people in NJ continued to grow through the end of the 18th century. In 1804, NJ would be the last northern state to pass a law for the gradual emancipation of enslaved people.