Season 9 Ep 1: Deborah Sampson's Revolutionary Life!

In 1989, on North Main Street in Sharon, Massachusetts, Muriel Moody Nelson led the dedication ceremony of a life-size statue commemorating her great-great-great-grandmother, Deborah Sampson. The statue depicts Sampson dressed half in Continental Army attire and half in traditional women’s attire. But Sampson's service in the Continental Army is only the beginning of this revolutionary life!

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Transcript

Deb Fowler: Hello, and welcome to UnErasing LGBTQ History and Identities: A Podcast. I’m Deb Fowler, co-founder of History UnErased.

In 1989, on North Main Street in Sharon, Massachusetts, Muriel Moody Nelson led the dedication ceremony of a life-size statue commemorating her great-great-great-grandmother, Deborah Sampson. The statue depicts Sampson dressed half in Continental Army attire and half in traditional women’s attire. 

For more than two centuries, historians have debated not only what Deborah Sampson accomplished, but also what her life tells us about negotiating and contesting ideas about gender and belonging in early America. Take it away, Kathleen! 

Kathleen Barker: When we picture the American Revolution, the same iconic images usually come to mind: George Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas night in 1776. Paul Revere galloping out of Boston to warn the patriots in Lexington and Concord on the evening of April 18, 1775. Baron von Steuben training the weary troops at Valley Forge in the winter of 1778. These are the heroes commemorated in paintings, poems, and monuments.

But what if one of the Revolution's most extraordinary soldiers was someone that no one expected to see on the battlefield? What if one of the Continental Army's bravest veterans had to hide who they were simply to serve? 

Deborah Sampson was born on December 17, 1760, in Plympton, Massachusetts, not far from where her ancestors helped establish the Plymouth colony in 1620. The colonies were still under British rule when Sampson was a child. Property rights for women were limited, and political participation was virtually nonexistent. Military service was unthinkable!

At the same time, ideas about liberty, equality, and natural rights filled newspapers, taverns, churches, and town meetings. Colonists increasingly argued that individuals possessed rights that no government could take away. Ironic, isn’t it? Many of those same people who proclaimed that "all men are created equal" excluded women, enslaved people, Indigenous peoples, and countless others from those promises. Deborah Sampson grew up with those contradictions. 

Before she became a Revolutionary War soldier, Deborah Sampson first had to survive a childhood shaped by loss, poverty, and uncertainty. Her father disappeared while she was still very young. 

Whether he died at sea or abandoned the family remains uncertain. Her mother, unable to support her seven children, placed them into different households. A few years later, when Sampson was 10 years old, she was bound out as an indentured servant to Deacon Benjamin Thomas, a farmer in Middleborough, and his family. Indentured servants were legally bound to work for a certain number of years in exchange for food and shelter. In addition to hours of hard work, Sampson found time to educate herself. She read, she listened, and she observed. And so, after completing her indenture when she was 18, she supported herself as a teacher in the summers of 1779 and 1780, and as a weaver in the winter. 

Much of what we know about Deborah Sampson comes from an extraordinary primary source. In 1797, a writer and Revolutionary War veteran named Herman Mann published a biography titled The Female Review: or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady. The biography blends Sampson’s own recollections and evidence from public records with a healthy dose of literary embellishment. Historians generally agree that Mann dramatized parts of the story, but his work remains one of our most valuable sources. Early in the book, Mann introduces Deborah Sampson with unmistakable admiration, describing her as possessing an “active, aspiring, and enterprising disposition.” Throughout the biography, Mann repeatedly emphasizes qualities that eighteenth-century Americans usually associated with men: courage, discipline, independence, and physical endurance. Yet he also worked hard to reassure readers that Sampson remained virtuous and respectable, especially after her service ended. Mann wanted readers to admire her heroism without questioning the gender norms of the young republic. Here is how Mann describes Sampson early in the text:

“Though destitute of many advantages of education, she happened to fix on many genuine principles. She may be noted for a natural sweetness and pliability of temper—a ready wit, which only needed refinement—a ready conformity to a parent’s, or patroness’ injunctions—a native modesty and softness in expression and deportment, and passions naturally formed for philanthropy and commiseration.”

By 1782, the American Revolution had entered its final years. Although the decisive battle at Yorktown had taken place in the fall of 1781, fighting had not completely ended. The Continental Army still needed soldiers to guard strategic positions, patrol contested territory, and prepare for the possibility that hostilities might resume. Recruiting had become increasingly difficult because years of war had exhausted communities, and the Army was desperate for healthy young recruits.

Some historians believe these circumstances made it easier for Deborah Sampson to pass unnoticed through the enlistment process. Still, enlisting in the Continental Army was a risky decision. Army life offered almost no privacy. Soldiers slept together, marched together, bathed together, and often received medical care together. Discovery could have resulted in dishonorable discharge, and perhaps even imprisonment. Sampson decided the rewards outweighed the risks. After carefully cutting her hair, binding her chest, and donning masculine clothes, Deborah Sampson enlisted under the name 

Robert Shurtliff and became a soldier in the Continental Army assigned to the light infantry company of the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment. As Herman Mann  describes it: 

“On May 13th, she arrived at West-Point in company with about fifty other soldiers, who were conducted there by a sergeant sent for that purpose. West-Point was then an important post, where was stationed a large division of the American army. It guarded a passage in the river Hudson, sixty miles from the city of New-York.”

Military life was harsh for soldiers in America's Continental Army. They often endured poor food, worn clothing, disease, mud, freezing winters, and endless marches. There were long hours drilling with muskets; guard duty through cold nights; repairing roads and building fortifications. According to military records, Robert Shurtliff did it all, earning the respect of fellow soldiers and commanding officers alike.  

You may be wondering if Robert Shurtliff saw any combat? Historical records indicate that he participated in several military engagements in New York. One of the most famous occurred near Tarrytown during the summer of 1782. During the fighting, he received a musket ball wound to the thigh, and another piece of ammunition struck him in the forehead. The head wound drew the attention of military surgeons, but the leg wound presented a much greater danger. Would doctors discover that Robert Shurtliff was hiding something during the examination? According to Herman Mann's account, Shurtliff made an extraordinary decision. Rather than allowing an army surgeon to examine his leg injury, Shurtliff secretly removed the musket ball using a penknife, without anesthesia or antiseptic! Herman Mann describes Shurtliff carefully extracting the bullet to preserve the disguise that had become essential to his military life. (Note that throughout Mann’s book, he refers to Sampson using she/her pronouns.) 

“She requested the favor of more medicine than she needed for her head; and taking an opportunity, with a penknife and needle, she extracted the ball from her thigh; which, by that time, had doubtless come to its feeling.” 

In other words, that wound was probably starting to hurt like crazy. 

Eventually, illness accomplished what enemy soldiers could not. In 1783, Robert Shurtliff contracted a severe fever while stationed near Philadelphia. During the examination, Dr. Barnabas Binney discovered that his patient had been assigned female at birth. For unknown reasons, rather than sharing his findings immediately, Dr. Binney treated the illness, but protected the secret while Shurtliff recovered. Eventually, however, Binney shared Shurtliff’s secret with General John Patterson. And so, in October 1783, Robert Shurtliff received an honorable discharge from the Continental Army. For decades afterward, that honorable discharge would become crucial evidence in the campaign for recognition and a military pension. Here is Mann’s vivid account of Robert Shurliff’s dismissal from the Army, as narrated by General Patterson. 

“Since you have continued near three years in my service, always vigilant, vivacious, faithful, and, in many respects, distinguished yourself from your fellows.—I would only ask—Does that martial attire, which now glitters on your body, conceal a female’s form!” The close of the sentence drew tears in his eyes, and she[meaning Sampson] fainted. He used his efforts to recover her; which he effected. But an aspect of wildness was blended in her countenance. She prostrated herself at his feet, and begged her life! He shook his head; but she remembers not his reply. Bidding her rise, he gave her the letter, which he continued to hold in his hand. Reason having resumed its empire, she read it with emotions. It was interesting, pathetic and colored with the pencil of humanity. He again exclaimed—“Can it be so!” Her heart could no longer harbor deception. Banishing all subterfuge, with as much resolution, as possible, she confessed herself—a female.”

When Deborah Sampson returned home in 1783, the American Revolution was ending, but the work of building a new nation had only just begun. Like thousands of veterans, she had to figure out how to build a civilian life after military service. In 1785, Sampson married Benjamin Gannett, a farmer from Sharon, Massachusetts. Together they raised three children, Earl, Mary, and Patience, and also cared for an adopted daughter, Susanna Baker Shepard.

The Gannett family struggled economically, and Sampson sought ways to support the household. She chose to do something pretty remarkable for a woman in the late eighteenth century: she took the story of her military service to the public. Beginning in 1802, Deborah Sampson Gannett embarked on what historians often consider one of the first public lecture tours by an American woman.

Imagine this production: Deborah Sampson walked onto the stage. At first, she appeared dressed in conventional women's clothing and reminded audiences of key moments from the history of the American Revolution. Then, she leaves the stage only to reemerge wearing the uniform of a Continental Army soldier. Before astonished audiences, she demonstrated military drills, manual exercises with a musket, and marching commands she learned while serving as Robert Shurtliff. For many audience members, it was the first time they had ever heard a woman publicly recount military service from firsthand experience.

One of the people impressed by Sampson’s story was Paul Revere. In 1804, he wrote to a Massachusetts congressman, on her behalf, asserting that he found her "much more deserving than hundreds to whom Congress have been generous."  Revere acknowledged that Sampson had performed military service faithfully and argued that financial need should not erase that contribution. He also noted that “Humanity, & 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 of handsom talents, good Morals, a dutifull Wife and an affectionate parent.” An interesting, and important, piece of information, assuring government officials that Sampson returned from her military adventures to resume more traditional female pursuits: marriage and motherhood. 

Recognition came slowly, and like many Revolutionary War veterans, Sampson faced years of petitions, paperwork, and repeated appeals before receiving any meaningful compensation. But finally, in 1805, the United States Congress granted her a pension of $4.00 per month based on disability resulting from military service. Later legislation, in 1816, increased that support to $76.80 per year. Today, Deborah Sampson is recognized as the only woman known to have received a full military pension for combat service in the Continental Army.

Deborah Sampson died in 1827 at the age of sixty-six. Her story gradually faded from popular memory, and it wasn't until the late twentieth century that historians began examining Sampson's life in greater depth. Of course, one of the challenges of studying Deborah Sampson is that almost everything we know about her comes through other people's voices. The most important contemporary source is Herman Mann's 1797 biography, The Female Review. Although Mann knew Sampson personally, and drew upon interviews with her, he was also writing for an eighteenth-century audience. His purpose wasn't simply to document facts, he also wanted to present Sampson as a patriotic hero while reassuring readers that her extraordinary military service did not threaten accepted ideas about womanhood. Mann was also very interested in bolstering his own publishing career. Thus what could have been a straightforward biography became a literary work shaped by Mann's own assumptions and goals.

The surviving evidence does provide us with several well-documented facts. Sampson successfully lived as Robert Shurtliff for well over a year while serving in one of the least private environments imaginable. After the war, Sampson sometimes continued to appear publicly in military uniform during lecture tours. Sampson married and bore children after her military service. What those experiences meant personally, however, remains unknown. Some scholars argue that Sampson’s male identity was primarily practical, and that serving as Robert Shurtliff opened opportunities that simply did not exist for women. Military wages, adventure, public service, and some degree of independence all became possible through life as Robert Shurtliff. Other historians suggest that the ease and duration with which Sampson lived as Shurtliff invites us to consider whether the experience may also have had personal significance beyond economic necessity.

People in eighteenth-century America undoubtedly experienced love, attraction, and diverse forms of gender expression. However, terms like lesbian, transgender, nonbinary, and even sexual orientation reflect concepts and identities that developed long after Deborah Sampson's lifetime. The people of Sampson's era understood and described these experiences using a very different vocabulary and within a different cultural framework. 

What we can say with confidence is that Deborah Sampson lived a life that challenged eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century gender expectations. By enlisting in the Continental Army, successfully concealing her identity as a woman, petitioning for military pension benefits, and embarking on a public lecture tour to support her family's financial survival, Sampson repeatedly crossed traditional gender boundaries. These experiences remind us that people have always negotiated and contested ideas about gender and gender expression.

Perhaps that is Sampson's greatest contribution to the story of the American Revolution. The Revolution was founded on bold ideas about liberty, equality, and the rights of individuals, yet those promises were not extended equally to everyone. By claiming a place in the Continental Army and later insisting that the new nation recognize that service, Deborah Sampson tested the boundaries of those revolutionary ideals. Her life reminds us that the struggle to define who belongs, who deserves recognition, and who has the right to fully participate in American society did not end in 1783. In many ways, that conversation began with the Revolution, and it continues today. 

DF: Kathleen Barker is History UnErased’s program director and podcast host, and is a library and information specialist and public historian with over 20 years of experience as a museum and library educator.  This podcast is funded by the New York City Council. It was developed by History UnErased and produced and edited by Dinah Mack, our youth equity program director and podcaster. Our theme music is “1986” by BrothaD via Tribe of Noise. 

We would love to hear from you! Email hello@unerased.org and let us know where in the world you are listening, or what history we can highlight in a future episode from your corner of the world. That’s hello@unerased.org - and please rate this podcast and share! 

I’m Deb Fowler. Thanks for listening. 

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Primary and Secondary Sources:

1. Letter from Paul Revere to William Eustis, February 20, 1804: MHS Collections Online: Letter from Paul Revere to William Eustis, 20 February 1804
2. Engraving of Deborah Sampson from The Female Review: or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady. ca. 1797. MHS Collections Online: The Female Review: or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady ... 
3. Deborah Sampson caption card. Engraving published by H. Mann. 1797. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002725275/ 
4. Deborah Sampson | National Women's History Museum
5. Disguised as a Man, She Fought in the Revolutionary War and Later for Recognition as a Veteran