Career
Both joined the army of the new Duchy, with Joanna initially a camp-follower. Soon she enlisted in the 2nd Infantry Regiment (4th company, 2nd battalion) as a private, hiding that she was a woman from both her superiors and fellow soldiers. In 1809, Joanna took part in the Galician Campaign, distinguishing herself in the Battle of Zamość on May 19 of that year.
After the campaign, she joined the 17th Infantry Regiment in Dąbrowski"s Division, under January Henryk Dąbrowski.
Her husband was an ensign in the same regiment and Joanna Żubr was promoted to sergeant, as the first woman in the Polish Army. Their division, renamed the Greater Polish Division, took part in Napoleon"s invasion of Russia and his campaign in present-day Belarus.
During the battles and Napoleon"s retreat, she was separated from her division, but she managed to escape from Russia on her own. In the summer of 1813, weeks after Prince Józef Poniatowski"s forces had abandoned Krakow, she reached Polish units in Saxony and served with distinction until the signing of the Treaty of Fontainebleau and the end of the war.
Because she could return to neither Austrian-occupied nor Russian-held parts of Poland, they settled at Wieluń.
She died there during a cholera epidemic in 1852, at the age of about eighty.
