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DEBORAH SAMPSON Revolutionary War Soldier Born in 1760 - Died in 1827

Deborah Sampson's family was very poor. She was the oldest of six children. Her father deserted his family and went to sea on a ship. When her mother could no longer feed her family, she sent them to live with friends and relatives.

Eventually, at the age of 8 to 10 years old, she became an indentured * servant. She worked on a farm and worked very hard. She learned to sew and spin. She could hunt, ride a horse, and even do carpenter work. She loved to learn and would get the boys in the family to teach her the lessons they were learning in school. She learned so well that she later became a teacher.

During the Revolutionary War she wanted to help, but they did not allow girls to join the army. She decided she could join the army if she pretended to be a man. She practiced walking and talking like a man until she could even fool her mother. She was ready. She became an enlisted * "man" using the name Robert Shurtleff.

Statue of Deborah Sampson outside the Sharon, Massachusetts public library. (CC)

She was tall for a woman; 5 foot and 7 inches, so her fellow soldiers thought she was a short man. They teased "Robert" because he didn't have to shave, but they just thought this "boy" was too young to grow a beard. "Robert" was a good, brave soldier and volunteered * for some dangerous jobs. The other soldiers were proud of him. Deborah became the aide * , or personal helper of the general. She served him his meals and took care of his clothes for him.

Things were going well until she was wounded in battle. She let the doctor treat the wound on her head, but she removed the bullet from her leg by herself with a penknife and a needle. Her leg never did heal properly, but her secret was still safe. She was afraid if they found out she was a girl, they would shoot her.

Later she developed a fever and was put in the hospital. The doctor discovered that "Robert" was actually a woman. He took her to his family's home to get well. She was given an honorable discharge * from the army.

After she left the army, she married a farmer named Benjamin Gannett and they had three children. She taught at a school and also would give talks or lectures about her experiences in the war. At the end of her lectures, she would leave the stage and then come back onstage dressed in her uniform and go through the soldier's routine with the gun.

Paul Revere wrote a letter to Congress asking for her to be given a pension * . She began receiving four dollars a month.

She died at the age of sixty-six.

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"Deborah Sampson"
listen to a song sung by the Texas Boys Choir
for the bicentennial celebration

Amazing Women in War and Peace

Deborah Sampson, Patriot

Deborah Sampson,
Soldier of the American Revolution

Deborah Sampson
Canton, Mass. Historical Society

The Life of Deborah Sampson,
online book

The Life of Deborah Sampson,
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Revolutionary War By Teacher Created Resources Thematic Units from Teacher Created Materials are literature based, cross-curricular, and ready to use. They provide activities, many of them hands-on, for all areas of the curriculum, including math, science, language arts, social studies, physical education, art, and music. Each book offers two or more literature-based units and lesson plans plus cross-curricular activities and worksheets, a culminating activity, management ideas, and a bibliography. The books used in this unit (that will need to be purchased or borrowed) are--Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes and The Fighting Ground by Avi. Complete and comprehensive, these reproducible units are designed with student interest and teacher usability in mind. The planning is complete. 80 pages, softcover. Grades 5-8.

Betsy Zane: The Rose Of Fort Henry By Durrant / Houghton-mifflin Philadelphia in 1781 is bustling and thick with wartime intrigue, but thirteen-year-old Betsy Zane is bored: tired of her great-aunt's stories about the old days, and tired of living in a hot, dirty city. She'd rather be riding her horse, the Merry May, along the Ohio River she remembers from childhood, galloping faster that the wind. When great-aunt Elizabeth dies, Betsy makes her way to her brother's homestead In the western wilderness. But the freedom she expected to find on the frontier is not as easily come by as she had hoped. Just Like her great-aunt before them, Betsy's brothers, the military authorities, and even the charming young lieutenant who comes courting--all have strong opinions about how a young lady should behave. Based on the life of the real Betsy Zane, including her historic run for gunpowder, which turned the tide in the final battle of the Revolutionary War, this novel offers a compelling portrait of a young woman and of a new nation, both on the very brink of independence.

More than Petticoats: Remarkable North Carolina Women By Globe Pequot Examines the lives of fourteen extraordinary women from North Carolina's history. Alive during such momentous events as the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the beginning of the twentieth century, the women included in this book saw reformation all around them and realized that they too could promote change. They did not weaken in the face of challenge but met it head on. Their lasting contributions are chronicled here for readers in the beginning of the twenty-first century. Discover Mary Hooks "Polly" Slocumb, Susan Twitty, Abigail "Aunt Abby" House, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Cornellia Phillips Spencer, Emeline Jamison Piggot, Sallie Southall Cotten, Dr. Annie Lowrie Alexander, Adela F. Ruffin, Annie Wealthy Holland, Mary T. Martin Sloop, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Lillian Exum Clement Stafford, Maggie Axe Wachacha. Softcover, 198 pages.

From Word Central's Student Dictionary
by Merriam - Webster
(Pronunciation note: the schwa sound is shown by ə)

indenture
Pronunciation: in-'den-chər
Function: noun 1 : a written agreement :
2 : a contract by which one person is made to work for another for a stated period

enlisted
Pronunciation: in-'lis-təd
Function: adjective
: of, relating to, or forming the part of a military or naval force in the ranks below commissioned or warrant officers

volunteer
Function: verb
1 : to offer voluntarily
2 : to offer oneself as a volunteer

aide
Pronunciation: 'Ad
Function: noun
: a person who acts as an assistant

pension
Pronunciation: 'pen-chən
Function: noun
: a sum paid regularly to a person especially following retirement or to surviving dependents

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2009-12-15 Thaks for the info!!

2009-12-03 i have to do research on her and this did not help at all!! pebbles (evamaejones_AT_gmail_DOT_com)

2009-11-10 This page is great. Thanks for the information!

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Biographies in this Series

Reference citations information for these biographies

Presidents of the United States	George Washington	John Adams	Thomas Jefferson	James Madison	James Monroe	Andrew Jackson
	Abraham Lincoln	Theodore Roosevelt	Franklin D. Roosevelt	John F. Kennedy	Ronald Reagan	Barack Obama
American Patriots	Benjamin Franklin	Francis Scott Key	Deborah Sampson
World Leaders	Constantine	Alexander the Great	Winston Churchill
Inventors	Alexander Graham Bell	Johann Gutenberg	Cyrus McCormick	The Wright Brothers	Henry Ford	Thomas A. Edison
	Sequoyah	Nikola Tesla
Explorers	Christopher Columbus	Meriwether Lewis	Robert Peary	John Muir	Matthew Henson	Sir Edmund Hillary
	Kit Carson	"Johnny Appleseed"
Women who made a difference	Clara Barton	Helen Keller	Florence Nightingale	Joan of Arc	Amelia Earhart	Annie Oakley
	Susan B. Anthony	Elizabeth Keckly	Harriet Tubman	Anne Frank	Eleanor Roosevelt	Madam C.J. Walker
Scientists	George Washington Carver	Sir Isaac Newton	Marie Curie	Louis Pasteur	Albert Einstein	Galileo
	Lise Meitner	Norman Borlaug
Educators	Noah Webster	Booker T. Washington	Aristotle
Physicians	Hippocrates	Walter Reed	Albert Schweitzer
Religious Leaders	Increase Mather
Athletes	Lou Gehrig	Wilma Rudolph	Tiger Woods	Michael Phelps
Civil Rights Leaders	Martin Luther King	Rosa Parks	Sojourner Truth	Frederick Douglass	Mary Ann Shadd Cary	James Forten
	Gandhi	César Chávez
Composers	Beethoven
Authors	Laura Ingalls Wilder	Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)	Ernest Hemingway
Artists	John James Audubon	Gutzon Borglum	Ansel Adams

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