PRESENTATION OUTLINE
DEBORAH SAMPSON (1760-1827)
Deborah Sampson was born on December 17, 1760 in Massachusetts. She grew up listening to her relatives tell stories of the family's hard experiences in the American wilderness after arriving on the Mayflower.
At the age of 21, Deborah Sampson dressed up as a man and enlisted in her local militia under the name of Robert Shurtleff.
During her first battle, she took two musket balls in her leg and a cut on her forehead. She asked the other soldiers to let her die and not take her to the hospital, but a soldier put her on his horse and took her to a hospital. The doctors treated her head wound, but she left the hospital before they could treat to her leg. Fearful that she would be discovered, she removed one of the balls herself with a knife and sewing needle, but the other musket ball was too deep to reach. Her leg never fully healed.
On June 24, the President of Congress ordered George Washington to send a contingent of soldiers under Paterson to Philadelphia to help quell a rebellion of American soldiers who were protesting delays in receiving their pay and discharges. During the summer of 1783, Samson became ill in Philadelphia and was cared for by Doctor Barnabas Binney. He removed her clothes to treat her and discovered that she was a woman. Without revealing his discovery to army authorities, he took her to his house, where his wife, daughters, and a nurse took care of her.
When Dr. Binney asked Deborah to deliver a note to General Paterson, she correctly assumed that the note would reveal her gender. In other cases, women who pretended to be men to serve in the army were reprimanded, but Paterson gave her an honorable discharge, a note with some words of advice, and enough money to travel home. She was soon married, had 3 kids & adopted 1, then died on April 29, 1827.
