Margaret Cochran Corbin was the daughter of Robert Cochran, a Scotch-Irish pioneer in western Pennsylvania. She was born on November 12, 1751, in what is now Franklin County, Pennsylvania, United States. In 1756, at a time when she was away from home, her father was killed by Indians, and her mother carried off. She lived during the rest of her childhood at the home of an uncle.
In 1772 Margaret married John Corbin. When the Revolution began he joined the First Company of Pennsylvania Artillery as a matross. Margaret accompanied him, a custom not unusual at that period. At the battle of Fort Washington, November 16, 1776, where Corbin was in charge of a small camion on a ridge later named Fort Tryon, he was killed during an assault by the Hessians. Margaret, who witnessed his fall, took his place and courageously performed his duties until she was severely wounded.
After the surrender of Fort Washington, she was not included among the prisoners, but was allowed to go to Philadelphia. Her injuries completely incapacitated her, and her serious condition came to the attention of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania, which, on June 29, 1779, granted her $30 for her immediate necessities and referred her case to the Board of War. The Board reported favorably, and Congress, on July 6, 1779, voted her “during her natural life or the continuance of said disability the one-half of the monthly pay drawn by a soldier in the service of these states and now one complete suit of cloaths, or the value thereof in money”. This act enrolled her in the Invalid Regiment, organized for garrison purposes, and her name appears several times on the pay-roll, and finally on the list of those discharged when it was mustered out in April 1783. She spent the remainder of her life in Westchester County, New York, near the scene of her husband’s death and her own heroism.
Margaret was married to John Corbin.
