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When Deborah Sampson disguised herself as a man and joined the Patriot soldiers during the American Revolution, she became a hero. For her service in the Revolutionary army, she was the only woman to receive a full military pension.
Sampson was one of seven children born to Jonathan Sampson Jr. and Deborah (Bradford) Sampson on December 17, 1760 in Plympton, Massachusetts, near Plymouth. Jonathan of Myles Standish and Priscilla Alden were both descendants of prominent Pilgrims; his wife was the great granddaughter of Massachusetts Governor William Bradford.
Despite this, the Sampsons struggled financially, and after Jonathan went missing on a sea journey, his destitute wife was compelled to split her children up. Deborah was bound out as an indentured servant to Deacon Benjamin Thomas, a farmer in Middleborough with a large family, five years later, at the age of ten. Sampson, who was self-educated, worked as a teacher during summer sessions in 1779 and 1780 and as a weaver in the winter once her indenture was completed at the age of 18.
As the Revolutionary War raged on, patriotic Sampson disguised herself as Robert Shurtleff and enlisted in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment.
She was posted to Captain George Webb's Company of Light Infantry at West Point, New York. She was tasked with scouting neutral area in order to assess the British buildup of men and materiel in Manhattan, which General George Washington was considering invading. In June 1782, Sampson and two sergeants led a group of around 30 infantrymen on an excursion that culminated in a fight with Tories, frequently one-on-one. She was in charge of a raid on a Tory home, which resulted in the capture of 15 men. She dug trenches, helped storm a British redoubt, and braved canon fire during the siege of Yorktown.
Sampson's true sex had eluded identification for nearly two years, despite numerous near calls. When she got a gash in her forehead from a sword and was shot in her left thigh, she extracted the pistol ball herself.
She was discovered in Philadelphia, a year and a half into her employment, after becoming ill during an epidemic, being transferred to a hospital, and losing consciousness.
Sampson returned to Massachusetts after receiving an honorable discharge on October 23, 1783. She married Benjamin Gannet of Sharon on April 7, 1785, and they had three children: Earl, Mary, and Patience. Herman Mann wrote The Female Review: or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady in 1797, which tells the narrative of her life. The state of Massachusetts provided her with a military pension. Despite the fact that Sampson's life after the war was primarily that of a farmer's wife, she began a year-long lecture in 1802.
She is the first woman in the United States to do so, and she dresses in full military attire at times.
Sampson's husband petitioned Congress for pay as a soldier's spouse four years after she died at the age of 66. Despite the fact that the pair was not married at the time of her service, the committee found in 1837 that the Revolutionary War's history "provided no other such example of female valor, fidelity, and daring." He was given the money, but he died before he could receive it.
WORK CITED
Bellesiles, Michael. "Sampson, Deborah." Encyclopedia of the American Revolution: Library of Military History. Ed. Harold E. Selesky. Vol. 2. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006. 1026. U.S. History in Context. Web. Accessed February 10, 2015.
Berkin, Carol. Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005).
Keiter, Jane. “Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier: The Westchester Connection.” The Best of the Westchester Historian. Winter 2000 (Vol. 76, No. 1). Accessed January 10, 2015.
Leonard, Patrick. “Deborah Samson: Official Heroine of the State of Massachusetts.” Canton Historical Society. Accessed January 10, 2015.
Weatherford, Doris. American Women’s History: An A to Z of People, Organizations, Issues, and Events. New York: Macmillan General Reference, 1994.
How to Cite this page
MLA - Michals, Debra. " Deborah Sampson." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2015. Date accessed.
Chicago - Michals, Debra. "Deborah Sampson." National Women's History Museum. 2015. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/deborah-sampson.
Additional ResourcesWeb Sites:
Encyclopedia Britannica- http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/520705/Deborah-Sampson
Mann, Herman. The Female Review. Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier in the War of the Revolution
https://archive.org/stream/femalereviewherm00mannrich/femalereviewherm00mannrich_djvu.txt
