The air was sultry. Not a leaf stirred on the maple trees. Men dropped fainting to the earth, from sunstroke. Yet the American guns were fired vigorously, sending their sh’ot across the swamp into the British ranks, and until night the battle went on. Sometimes under shelter, sometimes under fire, Molly Hays went back and forth to the spring, carrying water for the suffering men, and for wetting the sponges to swab out the cannon. And the weary thirsty soldiers, welcoming the sight of her with the sparkling water, would call out gratefully, “Here comes Molly with her pitcher!” a call soon shortened to “Molly Pitcher!” On one of her trips from the well Molly saw her husband fall suddenly. Accounts differ as to whether he was wounded, or had a sunstroke working in the blistering heat near the cannon. General Knox, in charge of the battery, had no competent man to put in Hays’ place and was about to withdraw the gun, when Molly sprang forward, seized the rammer and fired. A moment was sufficient to show that she could fill her husband’s position, that she had the strength and nerve for his task. The men cheered as she loaded and fired shot after shot, with the skill of a veteran gunner. Her hair disheveled, her eyes blazing, her hot face begrimed with powder and smoke and dust, barefooted like many of the soldiers, she kept on with her perilous work. That night the British stole silently away, leaving their dead and wounded, with Washington in possession of the field. This victory was the last battle of importance in the North, the beginning of a brighter period for the Americans. The story of Molly Pitcher’s brave act spread through the camp. General Greene thanked her, “in the name of the army.” The next morning in her dusty, torn, powder-stained dress, she was presented to Washington. With such honor as he would have shown to one of his gallant men, he spoke a few words of sympathy and praise, gave her a sergeant’s commission, and later placed her name on the list of half-pay officers for life. An old Revolutionary rhyme tells the story: “Moll Pitcher she stood by her gun And rammed the charges home, sir; And thus on Monmouth’s bloody field A sergeant did become, sir.” Hays was the proudest man in the army, at Washington’s praise of his wife, when he heard the soldiers cheer her to the echo. Lafayette asked if his men “might have the pleasure of giving Madame a trifle,” and invited Molly to review his troops. Between two long lines of French officers she passed, and at the end her hat was filled with gold crowns.