It has been estimated that as many as 5,000 women accompanied the British army in America. A few, such as Mrs Thomas Gage and Baroness von Riedesel, were the wives of generals and other high-ranking officers, but a large proportion were the wives of common soldiers.
The British army recruited unmarried men, and discouraged their marrying. Only women of sound moral character, industrious, and able to earn their share of the rations would be permitted to live with their husbands. Six women per company were allowed on the ration strength (where they received a half-ration, and children a quarter-ration), but even so this did not automatically give them access to the primitive medical care provided by the regimental surgeon. Those wives remaining behind were permitted a "begging certificate".
The "better behaved" women were sometimes required to cook and clean the barracks, or work as nurses in military hospitals. Any that refused would be struck from the ration strength. Others hired out as domestics, housemaids or launderers (collecting perhaps threepence per shirt).
Since only legally married women were allowed aboard the cramped military transport ships (where two or three couples would be assigned to the same bed), a large number of the 5,000 women attending the army in America were "wayside accretions". The unfortunate poor, attaching themselves to lonely soldiers as a means of survival.
On the march, these women accompanied the baggage - and sometimes were left behind as camp watch while the army marched out. Yet some of them found themselves in the thick of the fighting. The wife of a grenadier was killed prior to the occupation of Philadelphia; at Fort Ann a woman "who kept close by her husband's side during the engagement" was mortally wounded; a soldier's wife died while prisoner-of-war in New Frederick, near Winchester, where Burgoyne's army was held; and several were taken prisoner at Princeton.
Although the widow of an officer would be provided for, a soldier's widow could expect at most his wage arrears or a small "donation" from the government or a private charity, and passage home. Even so, they would have to plead destitution to receive the money, when they would be placed on the "Compassionate List", and receive from four to ten pounds.
Further Reading:
The British Soldier in America by Sylvia Frey