America

Deborah Samson Gannett (December 17, 1760 – April 29, 1827), better known as Deborah Samson, was a woman who disguised herself as a man in order to serve in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. She is part of a small number of women with a documented record of military combat experience in that war. She served 17 months in the army, as "Robert Shurtleff " of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, was wounded in 1782 and honorably discharged at West Point, New York in 1783.

Although having prominent ancestry, the Sampson's had dropped to the bottom of colonial society by the time Deborah was born.

Although Deborah was always told that her father had most likely disappeared at sea, evidence suggests that her father actually abandoned the family, migrating to Lincoln County, Maine, and starting a new life. It is known that he took a common-law wife named Martha and had two or more children with her. He also returned to Plympton in 1794 to attend to a property transaction. There was also a multiple murder indictment against a Jonathan Sampson in 1773 in Maine. It is unknown whether this Jonathan Sampson was Deborah’s father. No trial was ever held.[6]

When Deborah’s father abandoned the family, her mother, unable to provide for her children, placed them in various households. She was first placed in the home of a relative of her mothers, who died shortly thereafter. She was then sent to live with the widow of a reverend Peter Thatcher, and elderly woman in her eighties. She too died after a few years. She was then sent to live with Jeremiah Thomas in Middleborough, where she worked as a servant for about 8 years from 1770-1778. Although treated well by the family, she was not sent to school like the Thomas children and greatly longed to learn. It is believed that she learned to read while living with the widow of reverend Thatcher, When her time as an indentured servant was over at age 18, Deborah made a living by teaching school during the summer sessions in 1779 and 1780 and by weaving in the winter. She was a highly skilled weaver and worked for the Sproat Tavern as well as the Bourne family, the Morton family, and the Leonard family. During her time as a teacher and a weaver she boarded with the families she was working for.

Deborah was recorded to have been around 5’ 7”. This was exceedingly tall for a woman at a time This could have contributed to her success as posing as male during her time in the army. Only limited evidence to her appearance exists mostly from her biographer, Hermann Mann, who knew her personally for many years. He wrote that “Her waist might displease a coquette”, implying that she was not thin. Her breasts where also reported by Mann to have been very small, which she bound with a linen cloth to hide them during her years in the army.  Mann also wrote that “the features of her face are regular; but not the most beautiful”. “a person of plain features”.

Sampson was chosen for the Light Infantry Company of the 4th Massachusetts Regiment 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.

Sampson fought in several skirmishes. During her first battle, on July 3, 1782, outside Tarrytown, New York, she took two musket balls in her thigh and a cut on her forehead. She begged her fellow soldiers to 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 took her 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 musket 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 Paterson.

After the Treaty of Paris (1783) was signed, the war was thought to be over. However, on June 24, the President of Congress ordered George 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, Sampson came down with malignant fever and was cared for by a doctor, Barnabas Binney. He removed her clothes to treat her and discovered the cloth she used to bind her breasts and, thus, discovered her secret. He did not betray her; he took her to his house, where his wife, daughters, and a nurse by the name of Mrs. Parker housed and took care of her.

After Sampson recovered, she returned to her home in Massachusetts. 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 Paterson, she thought that her secret was out. However, General Henry Knox awarded her an honorable discharge from the service, a note with some words of advice, and a sum of money sufficient to cover her expenses home. She was discharged from the Army on October 25, 1783 at West Point, NY, after a year and a half of service. She then boarded a ship from New York City to Providence and walked to Massachusetts.

Deborah was married in Stoughton, Massachusetts to Benjamin Gannett (1761–1827), a farmer from Sharon, Massachusetts, on April 7, 1785. They had three children: Earl (1786), Mary (1788) and Patience (1790), as well as Susanna Baker Shepard, an adopted orphan. Although they had a routine family life living on a farm, the family suffered from mild poverty.

Eight years later, in January 1792, Sampson petitioned the Massachusetts State Legislature for 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 court awarded her a total of 34 pounds plus interest, dating back to her discharge on October 25, 1783.

Ten years later, in 1802, Sampson began giving lectures about her experiences in the war. She would start her lecture extolling the virtues of traditional gender roles for women. Toward the end of her presentations she would leave the stage and return dressed in her army uniform. 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. Revere also helped her write letters, which helped her begin to receive pension from the government starting in 1805.

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 her family 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 more decent apparel of her own gender...humanity and justice 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."[10] 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.

On February 22, 1806, she found herself in even more financial trouble, so she wrote once more to 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 sent 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, they approved her petition, awarding her $76.80 a year. With this amount, she was able to repay all her loans and take better care of the family farm. She died on April 29, 1827 at the age of 66 of Yellow fever and was buried in Rock Ridge Cemetery in the town of Sharon, Massachusetts.