Deborah sampson biography history channel
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Deborah Sampson
Edited by Debra Michals, Ph.D., 2015 | Updated January 2023
Deborah Sampson became a hero of the American Revolution when she disguised herself as a man and joined the Patriot forces. She was the only woman to earn a full military pension for participation in the Revolutionary army.
Born on December 17, 1760 in Plympton, Massachusetts near Plymouth, Sampson was one of seven children to Jonathan Sampson Jr. and Deborah (Bradford) Sampson. Both were descendants of preeminent Pilgrims: Jonathan of Myles Standish and Priscilla Alden; his wife, the great granddaughter of Massachusetts Governor William Bradford. Still, the Sampsons struggled financially and, after Jonathan failed to return from a sea voyage, his impoverished wife was forced to place her children in different households. Five years later, at age 10, young Deborah was bound out as an indentured servant to Deacon Benjamin Thomas, a farmer in Middleborough with a large family. At age 18, with her
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Deborah Sampson
Continental Army soldier (1760–1827)
Deborah Sampson Gannett, also known as Deborah Samson or Deborah Sampson,[1] (December 17, 1760 – April 29, 1827) was a Massachusetts woman who disguised herself as a man and served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Born in Plympton, Massachusetts,[2] she served under the name Robert Shirtliff – sometimes spelled Shurtleff[2] or Shirtleff.[3] She was in uniform for 17 months before her sex was revealed in 1783 when she required medical treatment after contracting a fever in Philadelphia.[4] After her real identity was made known to her commander, she was honorably discharged at West Point.[4] After her discharge, Sampson met and married Benjamin Gannett in 1785. In 1802, she became one of the first women to go on a lecture tour to speak about her wartime experiences.[4] She died in Sharon, Massachusetts, in 1827.[4&# • Not unlike women eighty years later who disguised themselves as men to serve in the Union and Confederate armies of the Civil War, women of the Revolutionary Era also itched to get into the fight, do their part for the cause, and be engagerad in a historical moment. One of the best examples of a woman who disguised herself as a man to kamp in the Continental Army was Deborah Sampson from Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Amazingly she also has a paper trail concerning her combat service in the army, where she fought beneath the annat namn of Robert Shurtliff, the name of her deceased brother, in the light infantry Company of the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment. She mustered into service in the spring of 1782 and saw action in Westchester County, New York just north of the City of New York where she was sustained wounds to her thigh and forehead. Not wanting her identity to be revealed during medical care she permitted physicians to treat her head wound and then sl
Deborah Sampson