Wonder Woman of the Week: Deborah Sampson

This week’s Wonder Woman may be the closest person the US has to an American Mulan. In 1779 when Deborah Sampson was only eighteen years old, she left her home under the guise that she was going off to find work to help her family. Sampson certainly found work, but not the kind her family had suspected. Once safely outside of town, Sampson changed into men’s clothes and started calling herself Robert Shurtlieff.

Originally she worked as an indentured servant for two years while educating herself and acting as a teacher for the children of her master- but this woman did not throw away her dress to be some homebound arithmetician. “Robert Shurtlieff” ditched her service and enlisted with the Continental Army in 1781. Her first encampment was at West Point, NY- a site which would become the most prestigious military school in the United States.

Not long after the whole, “I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” montage, Sampson was assigned to a small detachment of scouts with the task of moving through No Man’s Land to spy on British movements on Manhattan. On their way back to West Point, Deborah and her merry men were ambushed by British Loyalists and fought their way out to make it back to allied lands. After the encounter, Sampson and her group were sent to coordinate campaign plans with the French military which was preparing for the last final campaign of the war. Near the middle of August, the French military and Deborah’s unit set off for a forced march- a military maneuver where soldiers travel rapidly over a long distance with little or no rest- south to Yorktown, Virginia.

In the battle that resulted from months of planning, Deborah dug ditches, endured massive artillery barrages, and stormed an important British defensive fort in what would be called the Battle of Yorktown. The British commander was forced to surrender and the battle was the final victory the United States needed to win the revolution.

The story was not over for Sampson however who came to learn the revolution did not end over night. During a patrol through the woods, Deborah and her unit were ambushed again by Loyalists and Sampson received a nasty slash from an enemy sword and a wound from a musket. Sampson patched herself up as best as she could and reported back for service almost immediately. That’s some Wonder Woman level badassitude if you ask me.

Sampson was sent to a private home to care for another wounded soldier. At the home, she discovered the head of the household was a secret Loyalist and was sending info out to the enemy about the Continental Army. Sampson wasn’t going to tolerate that baby-back-bull-shit and convinced the man’s daughter to help her raid the man’s house. The raid led to the capture of fifteen Loyalist soldiers.

After the fight, Sampson was sent to serve a General of the 1st Massachusetts Brigade after the war had officially ended in 1783. She was quickly dispatched to help quell a rebellion among soldiers out west, but arrived to find a quitted mutiny and a diseased settlement. Deborah fell ill quickly and blacked out from the epidemic.

While in service to her nation, Deborah came close to revealing her sex multiple times. She fainted during a forced march, lied about having smallpox to escape vaccination, receiving a bullet would in her thigh, nearly drowning in the Croton River, marched over treacherous terrain, escaped robber and ambushers, and even avoided bathing with her fellow soldiers. The two things she feared the most were unconsciousness- where she could not rely on quick thinking, and hospitals- where doctors would probe her without consent. After passing out from disease in 1783, both fears came true.

The lead doctor was able to save Deborah’s life, but he discovered the secret she had kept for nearly two years. He reported her to her commanding officer immediately. The general sent Sampson with a had-written, secret note straight to George Washington. Upon Sampson’s arrival, Washington read the note quietly and looked up to the woman standing before him. Washington himself signed the papers to give Sampson full Honorary Discharge for her services and upon Sampson’s death in 1827, her husband received full widow’s benefits from the Army and was the only man to receive such money- due entirely to the respect the nation had for Deborah Sampson Gannet.

http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/deborah-sampson/