Elizabeth Zane a Heroine of the American Revolution

 

Elizabeth “Betty” Zane (1765–1823) was a heroine of the Revolutionary War. In 1782 Native American and Loyalist forces attacked a small garrison of forty-two at Fort Henry in western Virginia (modern day Wheeling, West Virginia). The garrison began to run out of black powder for their muskets and rifles. Zane immediately volunteered to leave the fort to retrieve a secret cache of powder. She ran fifty yards in full view of the enemy to retrieve the gunpowder. Her mad dash allowed American forces to hold the fort.

In 1861, John S. Adams wrote a poem entitled, Elizabeth Zane which immortalized Betty Zane and which reads, in part:

“No time had she to waver or wait
Back must she go ere it be too late;
She snatched from the table its cloth in haste
And knotted it deftly around her waist,

“Then filled it with powder –never, I ween,
Had powder so lovely a magazine;
Then scorning the bullets’ deadly rain,
Like a startled fawn, fled Elizabeth Zane.

“She gained the fort with her precious freight;
Strong hands fastened the oaken gate;
Brave men’s eyes were suffused with tears
That had been strangers for many years.”

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