Deborah Sampson
A portrait of Sampson, circa 1780
Born	December 17, 1760(1760-12-17) Plympton, Massachusetts
Died	April 27, 1827 (aged 66) Sharon, Massachusetts
Spouse(s)	Benjamin Gannet
Children	Earl Mary Patience Susanna (adopted)

Deborah Sampson (December 17, 1760 - April 27, 1827^[1]) was the first known American woman to impersonate a man in order to join the Army.^[2] She gave her name as Robert Shirtliffe, of Uxbridge, Massachusetts and successfully convinced the Uxbridge Sergeant that she was a \women in order to join the Continental Army near the end of the American Revolution.

[edit] Early life

Deborah Sampson was born in Plympton, Massachusetts on December 17, 1760. She was the oldest of six children of Jonathan and Deborah Bradford Sampson, both of them direct Mayflower descendants. Her siblings were Jonathan, Sylvia and Nehemiah. The family lived in Middleborough, Massachusetts. Her family was poor and her father was rumored to have drowned in a shipwreck in 1765, when Deborah was almost five years old. The family later discovered that he left them and started a new life in Maine. Her mother supported the family and her children were sent to live at different households. Deborah lived in two different households; first with a spinster, and then with the widow of Reverend Peter Thatcher. She became an indentured servant in the household of Deacon Jeremiah and Susannah Thomas, the parents of ten sons in 1770. She grew strong and mastered both traditional men's and women's work including fertilizing and plowing fields, milking cows, stacking hay, carpentry, spinning, sewing and weaving cloth. She educated herself by reading books that she found around the house and by tagging along with the Thomas sons to the town schoolroom. With this education she began to develop a great interest in politics and in the events of the war that had begun between the American colonies and the Kingdom of Great Britain.

When she turned 18 and was released from her indentured servitude with the Thomas family, she got a job as a local school teacher where she taught both boys and girls. Deborah was at the age where most young women got married. Her mother wanted her to settle down although she had no interest in it. After all those years she wanted an adventure.

[edit] Army

In 1778, she felt the need to do her part for the war and wanted to enlist in the Army. Women were not allowed to enlist, so she disguised herself as a man. She had little trouble doing this, since she was tall, educated, and just as strong as most of the men. Even her own mother failed to recognize her while she was disguised. In disguise, the local recruiting office enlisted her under the name of "Robert Shurtliff" of Carver. Because of the notable manner in which she held a quill pen, she may have been recognized and did not report the next day for service. On May 20, 1782, she tried again, this time successfully enlisting in the Continental Army on the Muster of Master Noah Taft under the name of her deceased brother, Robert Shurtliff from Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Her signature still exists in Massachusetts records.

She was chosen for the Light Infantry Company of the 4th Massachusetts Regiment^[1] under the command of Captain George Webb. The unit, consisting of fifty to sixty men, was first quartered in Bellingham, Massachusetts and later the unit mustered at Worcester under the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, commanded by Colonel Shepard. Although she had some trouble with the men in her regiment after she looked in on the men changing, her distant cousin, Reverend Noah Alden, a minister in Bellingham, kept her secret.

Deborah fought in several skirmishes. During her first battle, on July 3, 1782, outside Tarrytown, New York, she received 2 musket balls in her thigh and a huge cut on her forehead from a bullet. She begged her fellow soldiers to just let her die and not take her to the hospital, but they refused to abandon her. A soldier put her on his horse and they rode six miles to a hospital. The doctors treated her head wound, but she left the hospital before they could attend to the musket balls. Fearful that her true identity would be discovered, she removed one of the balls herself with a penknife and sewing needle, but her leg never fully healed because the other ball was too deep for her to reach. On April 1, 1783 she was promoted and spent seven months serving as a waiter to General John Patterson. This job entitled her to a better quality of life, better food, and less danger.

After the peace treaty was signed, everyone thought the war was over. However, on June 24 the President of Congress ordered General Washington to send a fleet of soldiers to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to aid in squelching a rebellion of several American officers. During the summer of 1783, Deborah came down with malignant fever and was cared for by a doctor, Barnabas Binney. He removed her clothes to treat her and discovered the band she used to bind her breasts and, thus, discovered her secret. He did not betray her secret; he took her to his house, where his wife and daughters further treated her.^[3]

After Sampson recovered she returned to the army, but not for long. In September 1783 peace was assured through the signing of the Treaty of Paris. November 3 was the date for the soldiers to be sent home. When Dr. Binney asked her to deliver a note to General John Patterson, she knew that her secret was out. However, General Paterson never uttered a word; instead, she received an honorable discharge from the service, a note with some words of advice, and a sum of money sufficient to bear her expenses home. Thus, on October 25, 1783, General Henry Knox honorably discharged Deborah Sampson from the Army at West Point, after a year and a half of service.

[edit] Marriage

Deborah got married in Stoughton, Massachusetts to Benjamin Gannett (1757-1837), a farmer from Sharon, Massachusetts, on April 7, 1785. They had three children Earl (1786), Mary (1788) and Patience (1790), Susanna Baker Shepard, an adopted orphan that they took in as their own.

[edit] Later life and death

Statue of Sampson outside the Sharon, Massachusetts public library

Eight years later, in January 1792, she petitioned the Massachusetts State Legislature for back pay which the army had withheld from her because she was a woman. Her petition passed through the Senate and was approved, then signed by Governor John Hancock. The General Court of Massachusetts verified her service and wrote that she "exhibited an extraordinary instance of female heroism by discharging the duties of a faithful gallant soldier, and at the same time preserving the virtue and chastity of her sex, unsuspected and unblemished". The court awarded her a total of 34 pounds.

Ten years later, in 1802, Sampson began giving lectures about her experiences in the army. Deborah enjoyed speaking about serving her country. These speeches were initiated because of her financial needs and a desire to justify her enlistment. But even with these speaking engagements, she was not making enough money to pay her expenses. She had to borrow money from her family and from her friend Paul Revere on many occasions. The soldiers in the Continental Army had received pensions for their services, but Sampson did not because she was female.

In 1804, Paul Revere wrote to Massachusetts' representative William Eustis, on Sampson's behalf. Revere requested that Congress grant her a military pension. This had never before been requested by or for a woman, but with her health failing and family being destitute, the money was greatly needed. Revere wrote, "I have been induced to enquire her situation, and character, since she quit the male habit, and soldiers uniform; for the most decent apparel of her own sex; and obliges me to say, that every person with whom I have conversed about her, and it is not a few, speak of her as a woman with handsome talents, good morals, a dutiful wife, and an affectionate parent." On March 11, 1805 Congress in Washington obliged the letter, and placed her on the Massachusetts Invalid Pension Roll. This pension plan paid her four dollars a month.

In February 22, 1806, she found herself in even more financial trouble, so wrote once more to her friend Paul Revere asking for a loan of ten dollars. Part of her letter read, "My own indisposition and that of my sons causes me again to solicit your goodness in our favor though I, with Gratitude, confess it rouses every tender feeling and I blush at the thought of receiving ninety and nine good turns as it were, my circumstances require that I should ask the hundredth." He replied as kindly as he did the many other times she had asked the same favor, and sent Deborah the ten dollars.

In 1809, she sent another petition to Congress, asking that her pension as an invalid soldier, given to her in 1804, commence with the time of her discharge, in 1783. Had her petition been approved, she would have been awarded $960, to be divided into $48 a year for twenty years. However, it was denied until 1816, when her petition came before Congress again. This time, out of kindness, generosity, and maybe a little guilt, they approved her petition, awarding her $76.80 a year. She found this amount much more satisfactory, and was able to repay all her loans and take better care of the family farm. She died in 1827 at the age of 66 of yellow (mountain) fever and was buried in Rock Ridge Cemetery in the town of Sharon, Massachusetts. Her grandson, George Washington Gay, erected a monument to her and the Civil War veterans many years later.

Her long and ultimately successful public campaign for the American Revolutionary War pension bridged gender differences in asserting the sense of entitlement felt by all of the veterans who had fought for their country.^[4]

The town of Sharon, Massachusetts now memorializes Sampson with Deborah Sampson Street, a Deborah Sampson Statue in front of the public library, Deborah Sampson Field, and the Deborah Sampson House.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Deborah Sampson at Find a Grave Retrieved on 2009-01-24
• Massachusetts Historical Society Deborah Samson