Deborah Sampson: Revolutionary Soldier: May 20, 1782
Deborah Sampson was born in Plympton, near Plymouth, Massachusetts, on December 17, 1760.
On May 20, 1782, Sampson, dressed as a male, enlisted in the American Revolutionary Army under the name of Robert Shurtleff. They were mustered into service at Worcester as a member of the fourth Massachusetts Regiment, fought in several battles, and were wounded in a battle near Tarrytown, New York.
When they were hospitalized with a fever in Philadelphia, their assigned birth sex was discovered.
On September 3, 1782, the First Baptist Church of Middleborough excommunicates Sampson on the strong suspicion of "dressing in men's clothes, and enlisting as a Soldier in the Army," after having "for some time before behaved very loose and unchristian like."
They are officially discharged by General Henry Knox at West Point, on October 25, 1782, having spent one-and-a-half years in the revolutionary Continental Army.
Returning to an uncle's home in Sharon, Massachusetts, Sampson married Benjamin Gannet, a farmer, on April 7, 1785, and three children were born to the Gannets.
The State of Massachusetts in 1792 awarded Sampson Gannet a pension for their soldiering.
In 1797, Herman Mann anonymously published in Dedham, Massachusetts, a book entitled The Female Review, a semifictionalized biography of Deborah Sampson's life and adventures as a male soldier in the American Revolutionary army.
The Female Review
Three romantic encounters of Sampson with women are described in this 1797 book published in Massachusetts. Quite apart from any accuracy these tales may or may not have, their very existence in a book subscribed to by respectable New Englanders in the late 1700s is of interest. Sampson's dressing and acting as a male, and the assertedly "pure" character of their romances no doubt made these stories seem acceptable at the time.
Because Mann's writing is often almost unintelligible, at times florid to the point of absurdity, his account of two of Sampson's three romantic attachments with women will simply be summarized.
Once during the Revolution, Sampson is accused by a captured British sergeant of alienating the affection of "his girl," whom Sampson allegedly caused to "pay attention to her."
Sampson's more extended and detailed romance with a rich and beautiful young woman from Baltimore is said to be intensely felt by both parties. In the process of explicitly denying any erotic aspect to this romance, Mann manages to detail enough of what did not happen to lend his volume a sexually suggestive character. It must have been a spicy book for its day.
In a third episode, Sampson, discharged from the army but still presenting as a male, returns to their uncle's house in Stoughton, Massachusetts. There they assume the name of Ephraim Sampson (the name of a younger brother). Here, Sampson's free conduct with women causes their biographer to comment:
INDENT But her correspondence with her sister sex!—Surely it must have been that of sentiment, taste, purity; as animal love, on her part, was out of the question. But I beg excuse, if I happen not to specify every particular of this agreeable round of acquaintance. It may suffice, merely, to say, her uncle being a compassionate man, often reprehended her for her freedom with the girls of his villa; and them he plumply called fools, (a much harsher name than I can give them) for their presumption with the young Continental. Sighing, he would say--their unreserved imprudence would soon detect itself--a multitude of illegitimates! END INDENT
Later, toward the close of his book, Sampson's biographer adds:
INDENT But to mention the intercourse of our Heroine with her sex, would, like others more dangerous, require an apology I know not how to make. It must be supposed, she acted more from necessity, than a voluntary impulse of passion; and no doubt, succeeded beyond her expectations, or desires. Harmless thing! . . . An inoffensive companion in love! . . . Had she been capacitated and inclined to prey, like a vulture, on the innocence of her sex; vice might have hurried vice, and taste have created appetition. Thus, she would have been less entitled to the clemency of the public. For individual crimes bring on public nuisances and calamities: And debauchery is one of the first. But incapacity, which seldom begets desire, must render her, in this respect, unimpeachable.
Remember, Females, I am your advocate; and, like you, would pay my devoirs to the Goddess of love. Admit that you conceived an attachment for a female soldier. What is the harm? She acted in the department of that sex, whose embraces you naturally seek. From a like circumstance, we are liable to the same impulse.END INDENT
Finally, Mann denies the gossip "that Mrs. [Deborah Sampson] Gannett refuses her husband the rites of the marriage bed."5
1802
After the original publication of Mann's biographical narrative in 1797, he then prepared a romanticized "Address" about her adventures. Deborah Sampson Gannett first presented these talks at a public gathering in Boston on March 22, 1802, then toured to various New England and New York towns.
In 1804, Paul Revere petitioned the U.S. Congress for an additional pension.
On March ll, 1805, Sampson received a pension from the U.S. Government for their Revolutionary War services.
Deborah Sampson Gannet died in 1827, at the age of sixty-six.
In 1838 their family received an additional pension.
NOTES
[Herman Mann], The Female Review. Life of Deborah Sampson, The Female Soldier in the War of the Revolution (first edition, Dedham, Mass., 1797), introduction and notes by John Adams Vinton (Boston: J. K. Wiggin & Wm. Parsons Lund, 1866; rpt. Ny: Arno Press, 1972).