Young, Alfred F. Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier

International Social Science Review, Spring-Summer, 2005 by Vera Laska

Young, Alfred F. Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. x 417 pp. Cloth, $26.95.

On May 23, 1782, Deborah Sampson, masquerading as Robert Shurtliff, received a sixty-pound bounty in Uxbridge near Worcester, MA, to serve in the Continental Army for three years. (Several towns mentioned in this review are in Massachusetts unless otherwise indicated.) It was seven months after the decisive Battle of Yorktown, but the war dragged on in small skirmishes, and General George Washington needed troops for the defense of the newborn country. Sampson was the only female known to have enlisted, served, and been discharged with an eventual pension in the American Revolution. There is a small trace of a Samuel Gay, corporal, discharged in August 1777 because he was a she, but nothing more is known about her. (See Lists of Continental and State Troops and Militia, 1775-83, III: 161).

Deborah Sampson's father, Jonathan, was the grandson of Isaac, who was the nephew of Abraham Sampson who arrived in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, according to a chart in the Sharon Public Library archives. Her mother was a descendant of Governor William Bradford. Jonathan Sampson and Deborah Bradford married in 1751 in Plympton and had seven children. Jonathan Sampson soon left the family, and the children had to be "farmed out" to foster homes, as pauper rolls indicated, for a weekly fee. Deborah Sampson, at five years of age, was sent to live with a distant relative in Middleborough, and later to the Thomas family, also in Middleborough, for eight years. Here she learned practical domestic skills like cooking and weaving, and also the three "R's" In her late teens, she was engaged to teach school.

Sampson was tall, likely 5 feet, 7 inches, with brown eyes and long brown hair. The only likeness of her is a portrait showing a serious woman, emphasizing physical stamina rather than beauty, painted for her biography by Joseph Stone in 1797. It shows a determined look and a no-nonsense demeanor. From the Congregational church she switched to the Baptist religion, but was dismissed from that fellowship in 1782 for "questionable behavior."

Eager to see a wider world and not being too popular in her village, Sampson donned a man's disguise and enlisted in Washington's army as Robert Shurtliff. The date of this enlistment has been debated ever since her time. Evidence points to 1782 rather than to 1781, which would have located her at the Battle of Yorktown; this is unlikely, according to much of the evidence. It added to the confusion that Sampson attempted to enlist prior to 1782 and also because her eventual biographer, Herman Mann, placed her at Yorktown for her greater glory. There are several suspicious circumstances that make the documentary historian doubt the veracity of Mann's biography.

In the army, Sampson participated in fighting Indians near Albany, NY, and helped to suppress a military uprising at Philadelphia. She then contracted a fever, and in the hospital was found out to be a woman by Dr. Barabas Binney, who kept her secret. Finally, in Philadelphia, she received an honorable discharge in late 1783 from General Henry Knox, and returned home.

Sampson married the farmer Benjamin Gannett (1757-1837) of Sharon, where they made their home. They had three children. The first child, Earl, was born in late 1785, though she was married in April of that same year. These dates also have been debated.

The story of Deborah Sampson, who enlisted in the Continental Army as a man named Robert Shurtliff, was first publicized in the New York Gazette (January 10, 1784), and was "a tangle of fact, invention, and mystery" (p. 3). Much of the confusion about the facts resulted from the publication of Mann's embellished biography as well as her "impresario" for her post-war lecture tours. Mann wanted to attract large audiences to her presentations by describing her as a true heroine and adjusting some facts of her life accordingly, in his opus The Female Review, or Memoirs of an American Young Lady (1797). Here he dismissed the alleged first enlistment by Deborah Sampson under the name of Timothy Thayer in Middleborough in March or April 1782. It was also unlikely that she was fleeing from an unwanted suitor pressed on her by her mother.

Sampson served in the Continental Army for seventeen months, from May 23, 1782 until October 23, 1783. There were still 26,000 British regulars in America, half of them in New York City. "We are in a state of suspense" Washington wrote (p. 94). He had to acknowledge that the many women accompanying his army were indispensable. Where Sampson served, there were 15 women to 553 enlisted men, a ratio of 1 to 37 (p. 96). Some even proposed recruiting women who were frequently taller than men. Ironically, Sampson was taller than many male soldiers.

The regiment served in the Hudson Valley but saw relatively little action. There was a minor revolt for lack of pension pay and for trials for desertion. One in New Jersey was put down by New England troops, while another occurred in Pennsylvania. Discord in the civilian population in Westchester County between loyalists and patriots and between landlords and tenants did not simplify matters. The capture of Major John Andre, Benedict Arnold's chief accomplice, by three farmers near Tarrytown, was the highlight of activities in Westchester County. The time and place are full of stories of deception, false identities, spying and double agents; many were smuggled from danger in women's disguise.