Deborah Sampson

Deborah Sampson Gannett, also known as Deborah Samson or Deborah Sampson, (December 17, 1760 – April 29, 1827) was a Massachusetts woman who disguised herself as a man in order to serve in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Born in Plympton, Massachusetts, she served under the name Robert Shirtliff – sometimes spelled Shurtleff She was in uniform for 17 months before her sex was discovered in 1783 when she required medical treatment after contracting a fever in Philadelphia.

After her real identity was made known to her commander, she was honorably discharged at West Point, New York.

Early life

thumb|Deborah Sampson ancestral home

Deborah Sampson was born on December 17, 1760, in Plympton, Massachusetts, to Jonathan Sampson (or Samson) and Deborah Bradford. Sampson's mother was the great-granddaughter of William Bradford, the second Governor of Plymouth Colony. Sampson's father was a descendant of Henry Samson. He also reported that her breasts were very small, and that she bound them with a linen cloth to hide them during her years in uniform. She collected a bonus and then failed to meet up with her company as scheduled. Inquiries by the company commander revealed that Sampson had been recognized by a local resident at the time she signed her enlistment papers. Her deception uncovered, she repaid the portion of the bonus that she had not spent, but she was not subjected to further punishment by the Army. The Baptist church to which she belonged learned of her actions and withdrew its fellowship, meaning that its members refused to associate with her unless she apologized and asked forgiveness.

In May 1782, Sampson enlisted again, this time in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, under the name "Robert Shirtliff" (also spelled in some sources as "Shirtliffe" or "Shurtleff"). She joined the Light Infantry Company of the 4th Massachusetts Regiment, under the command of Captain George Webb. This unit, consisting of 50 to 60 men, was first quartered in Bellingham, Massachusetts, and later mustered at Worcester with the rest of the regiment commanded by Colonel William Shepard. Light Infantry Companies were elite troops, specially picked because they were taller and stronger than average. Their job was to provide rapid flank coverage for advancing regiments, as well as rearguard and forward reconnaissance duties for units on the move. Because she joined an elite unit, Sampson's disguise was more likely to succeed, since no one was likely to look for a woman among soldiers who were specially chosen for their above average size and superior physical ability.

An official record of Deborah Sampson Gannet's service as "Robert Shirtliff" from May 20, 1782, to October 25, 1783, appears in the "Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War" Volume 14 p. 164.

Marriage

Sampson married Benjamin Gannett (1757–1837), a Sharon, Massachusetts, farmer, in Stoughton, Massachusetts, on April 7, 1785. After her discharge and marriage to Gannett, Sampson lived as a typical farmer’s wife. states, "Deborah Gannett, of Sharon, in the county of Norfolk, and District of Massachusetts, a resident and nation of the United States, and applicant for a pension from the United States, under an Act of Congress entitled an Act to provide for certain persons engaged in the land and naval service of the United States, in the revolutionary war, maketh oath, that she served as a private soldier, under the name of Robert Shurtleff, in the war of the revolution..." The legislature granted her petition and Governor John Hancock signed it. The legislature awarded her 34 pounds plus interest back to her 1783 discharge. A biography by Herman Mann was published in 1797, The Female Review: Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier in the War of Revolution.

In 1802, Sampson began giving lectures about her wartime service. After extolling the virtues of traditional gender roles for women, she left the stage, returned in her army uniform, then proceeded to perform a complicated and physically taxing military drill and ceremony routine. She performed both to earn money and to justify her enlistment, but even with these speaking engagements, her husband and she were unable to pay all the family's expenses. She frequently had to borrow money from her family and from her friend Paul Revere. Revere also wrote letters to government officials on her behalf, requesting that she be awarded a pension for her military service and her wounds.

In 1804, Revere wrote to U.S. Representative William Eustis of Massachusetts on Sampson's behalf. A military pension had never been requested for a woman, but 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." On March 11, 1805, Congress approved the request and placed Sampson on the Massachusetts Invalid Pension Roll at the rate of four dollars a month.

On February 22, 1806, Sampson wrote once more to Revere requesting a loan of ten dollars: "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." She was buried at Rock Ridge Cemetery in Sharon, Massachusetts.

Spousal support

Four years after Sampson's death, her husband Benjamin Gannett petitioned Congress for a pension as the spouse of a veteran. In 1837, the committee overseeing his petition decreed that the history of the Revolution "furnished no other example of female heroism, fidelity and courage." Gannett was awarded a pension, but died before he could receive it.

Gender and sexual orientation

After leaving military service, Sampson is not recorded to have gone about her daily life in male dress, but she did continue to wear a soldier's uniform and perform a masculine gender on speaking tours. Contemporary writers about Sampson's performances compared her to the Chevalière d'Éon, a well-known genderfluid figure from the time.

Sampson is recorded having romantic interactions with both women and men. While living as Robert Shirtliff, she engaged in an extended flirtation with a "Baltimore lady," who bought her a number of expensive and romantically charged gifts. After the Revolutionary War, while presenting as a woman, Sampson married Benjamin Gannett and raised a family with him for many years.

Historians have offered different interpretations of Sampson's reasons for adopting male dress and joining the military. While most scholars understand Deborah Sampson as a cisgender woman looking for economic and political opportunity through cross-dressing, some scholars have argued that Deborah Sampson could also be understood as a lesbian, drag performer, or transmasculine person who was able to pursue romantic relationships with women or a more comfortable gender presentation through crossdressing.

Memorials

alt=Deborah Sampson Gannett House, East Street, Sharon, Mass., August 7, 1930. Leon Abdalian Collection, Boston Public Library|thumb|Deborah Sampson Gannett House, East Street, Sharon, Mass., August 7, 1930. Leon Abdalian Collection, Boston Public Library

The town of Sharon memorializes her with a statue in front of the public library, the Deborah Sampson Park, and the "Deborah Sampson Gannett House", which is privately owned and not open to the public. The farmland around the home is protected to ensure no development occurs on the historic homestead.

In 1906, the town of Plympton, Massachusetts, with the Deborah Sampson Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, placed a boulder on the town green, with a bronze plaque inscribed to Sampson's memory.

During World War II, the Liberty Ship S.S. Deborah Gannett (2620) was named in her honor. It was laid down March 10, 1944, launched April 10, 1944, and scrapped in 1962.

As of 2000, the town flag of Plympton incorporates Sampson as the Official Heroine of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Portrayals in art and media

Portrait of Deborah: A Drama in Three Acts (1959) is a play by Charles Emery that made its debut at the Camden Hills Theatre, Camden, Maine, on February 19, 1959.
I'm Deborah Sampson: A Soldier of the Revolution (1977) by Patricia Clapp is a fictional account of Sampson's early life and experience in the Revolutionary War.
Sampson is depicted as Robert Shurtless, one of the comedic soldiers in The Rebel Mess in The American Revolution (1999) by Kirk Wood Bromley.
Whoopi Goldberg provided the voice of Sampson in "Deborah Sampson: Soldier of the Revolution" (2003), episode 34 of Liberty's Kids.
Alex Myers, a descendant of Sampson's, published Revolutionary (2014), a fictionalized account of her life.
Historian and journalist Alison Leigh Cowan presented "Deborah Sampson: Continental Army soldier," a biographical talk at Saint Paul's Church National Historic Site on July 7, 2016.
Meryl Streep included Sampson in her speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, along with other women who had made history.
Sampson's story, as narrated by Paget Brewster, was re-enacted in the fifth season premiere of Drunk History, with Evan Rachel Wood portraying Sampson.
Cloaked in Courage: Deborah Sampson, Patriot Soldier is a book by Beth Anderson and published by Calkins Creek, 2022.
A Girl Called Samson: A Novel is a historical-fiction novel by Amy Harmon and published by Lake Union, 2023.
The Memoir of a Female Soldier: Deborah Sampson's American Revolution is a historical novel by Jan Lewis Nelson published by Massaemett Media, 2023.

References

External links

Canton (Massachusetts) Historical Society Deborah Samson <nowiki>[sic</nowiki>] Retrieved April 15, 2012.
Michals, Debra. "Deborah Sampson". National Women's History Museum. 2015.