By: Mehitabel Glenhaber

In 1804, Paul Revere wrote a letter on behalf of his neighbor, advocating for a fellow revolutionary war veteran who lived near him in Sharon, Massachusetts to receive a military pension. The neighbor in question was the now-famous Deborah Sampson, who had fought in the continental army under the name Robert Shirtliff. This letter is an interesting mystery because the document’s context – an appeal to the government for financial aid – makes it difficult to know how well the document reflects Samson’s or Revere’s private thoughts about Sampson’s military service. But it is nonetheless an illuminating glimpse into the reasons that people in 18^th Century Massachusetts might have had for transgressing their society’s strict gender roles, and how those people’s neighbors made sense of their choices.

Deborah Sampson was 21 years old and working as a domestic servant in Middleboro when she dressed as a young man and enlisted in the Continental Army. She first enlisted in early 1782 in Middleboro, under the name Timothy Thayer, and then, after getting found out, tried again in Uxbridge that May, under the name Robert Shirtliff.[1] By the time Sampson enlisted, the British had already surrendered at Yorktown, but Sampson was still involved in several battles, in upstate New York where the hostilities had not yet concluded.[2] During her service, she experienced a variety of misadventures, including a flirtation with a “Baltimore lady” who brought fruits and love letters to her bedside when she was sick and gifted her “six Holland shirts, 25 guineas, and an elegant silver watch.”[3] In 1783, she was wounded in a skirmish with a Tory raiding party, and dug a bullet out of her leg rather than risk going to the camp surgeon and being found out again. Several months later, a serious fever forced her to seek medical attention, and her disguise was reported to her commanding officer by the doctor who treated her. Sampson was honorably discharged on October 25^th, 1783, after serving in the army for 17 months.[4]

After leaving the service, Sampson married Benjamin Gannett and moved to his farm in Sharon. The land of the farm was overworked and could not support the family’s five children. The disabilities which Sampson suffered from her service in the army made it difficult for her to work to supplement her husband’s income. In Paul Revere’s words, they were “really poor.” In 1804, Sampson appealed for a military pension for disabled veterans. She successfully received her pension in 1805. After her death in 1827, her husband also successfully filed for support for a military spouse, though he died in 1837 before he could receive it.[5] Even with the aid of her pension, Sampson and her husband continued to struggle financially – in 1806, she wrote to Paul Revere again, asking to borrow ten dollars, and apologizing “that after receiving ninety-nine good turns as it were – my circumstances require that I should ask the hundredth.”[6]

While the committee which approved Deborah Sampson’s petition declared that “the whole history of the American Revolution furnishes no similar example of female heroism, fidelity, and courage,”[7] Sampson was actually far from the only woman (or, at least, person described in military records as a woman) to fight in the Revolutionary War. A handful of others, including Mary Ludwig Hayes and Margaret Corbin of Pennsylvania, even received military pensions for their service.[8] Others, like Anne Bailey and Anne Smith, faced harsh punishment and charges of fraud for disguising themselves as men to enlist.[9] And those are just the ones whose names are known to history – other women may have served undetected in the Continental Army, and hundreds of others certainly supported the army as camp followers and nurses, or played a part in local skirmishes during which the line between combatants and civilians disintegrated.

Deborah Sampson, much like Paul Revere, is not famous because her actions were unique, but because of how her story was told after the fact – though, unlike Revere, she actually did become famous during her lifetime. In 1789, Sampson became the subject of a popular biography, The Female Review by Herman Mann, and went on a national speaking tour between 1802 and 1804. Over 1,500 people who were interested in seeing a female soldier in the flesh bought tickets to see her perform in Boston, New York, and Rhode Island.[10]

In the 1790s, stories about “woman warriors” were very much in vogue.[11] The Federalist Boston Gazette ran an advertisement of Sampson’s show which read: “The appearance of the American Heroine is at least a subject of great curiosity…Madam D’Ens herself was not so great a phenomenon in character as this Female Soldier”[12], referencing the Chevalier D’Eon, a French spy and duelist who lived openly as a man and a woman at different times, and whose story was already popular with 18^th century audiences. In her biography and public appearances, Sampson very much modeled herself on the story of Hannah Snell, who became famous for dressing as a man to fight in the British military in the 1740s.[13] Sampson’s audiences at the time would have been familiar with these stories, and may have found them intriguing and subversive.

In her public performances, Sampson would often play up the gender-bending aspect of her military service, while also verbally reaffirming her society’s gender roles. At many performance venues, her appearance onstage was preceded by the performance of a romantic play involving a cross-dressing heroine.[14] Then Sampson would appear in men’s military clothes, and perform rigorous training drills that she had learned during her service in the army. However, at many venues, before appearing in uniform, Sampson would first perform in traditionally feminine dress, and deliver a speech apologizing for committing “a breach in the decorum of [her] sex” in attempting to take on a traditionally masculine role.[15] She reassured her viewers that if they found her descriptions of her military exploits too subversive, then “humilized [sic] and contented will I sit down inglorious, for having unfortunately performed an important part assigned for another—like a bewildered star traversing out of its accustomed orbit.”[16]

Sampson’s reasons for publicizing her story may have been financial. Proceeds from book sales and public performances could have helped supplement her small farm’s income, especially since Sampson’s disabilities from injuries she suffered in the Revolutionary War barred her from other sorts of work.[17] Some scholars have also argued that Sampson’s biography and speaking tour may also have helped to raise support for her in her application for a pension, which she filed shortly after her speaking tour concluded in 1804. Like Revere’s letter of support, which stresses that Sampson’s “ill health is in consequence of her being exposed when She did a Soldiers duty; and that while in the Army, She was wounded,” Mann’s biography of Sampson also plays up her role in battles and the injuries she suffered. Proving that she had been in combat and injured in the line of duty would have been required for Sampson to qualify for her pension.[18]

In addition to the publicity from her performances, Sampson also needed personal character references and letters of support for her application. At the time, Paul Revere had recently opened his copper mill in Canton, MA, and as a local established land-owner and businessman, his word would have carried a lot of weight for Sampson’s petition. He was a natural choice for Sampson to ask for a reference.

Revere’s letter of support on behalf of Sampson to Member of Congress William Eustis is an excellent example of how 18^th century audiences might have reacted to Deborah Sampson’s gender bending. Revere wrote that when “he first heard” of Sampson, he expected her to be “a tall, Masculine female, who had a small share of understand [sic], without education, & one of the meanest of her Sex,” but when he met her, he was surprised to learn that she was “a small, effeminate, and conversable Woman. whose education entitled her to a better situation in life.” Perhaps, other audiences who heard of Sampson’s story were similarly intrigued to have their expectations subverted by Sampson demonstrating that she could perform both masculinity and femininity.

Revere’s letter might also give us some clues into how Sampson chose to present herself onstage and in her biography. It’s hard to read too much into Paul Revere’s own feelings in this letter, since he is trying to craft a favorable impression of his neighbor for a third party, but it does seem clear that Revere believed Congress was more likely to grant Sampson’s petition if they believed that Sampson had “quitted the male habit…for the more decent apparel of her own sex.” He stresses multiple times in his letter that while Sampson did exhibit masculine heroics in the army, she was now “a mother,” “a dutiful wife,” and an “affectionate parent.” In order to write the best letter of support, Revere even thought that it was important to play up Sampson’s feminine physical characteristics, and point out that she was short and not tall, and “effeminate” rather than masculine. If Sampson had still looked or acted too masculine, would William Eustis have rejected her petition? We might even ask whether Revere would have written a letter in support of her. Perhaps these were the same pressures which Sampson was responding to too when she apologized for her gender-bending on speaking tours, while also courting audiences who were clearly titillated by her masculinity. In order to qualify for her pension, which would provide desperately needed financial support, Sampson had to prove that she was “a woman…of good morals,” which meant proving that her crossdressing was a temporary blip in her life story, necessitated by the urgent situation of the American Revolution and her sense of duty, and not a continuing threat to the social order.

It’s impossible to know exactly what Deborah Sampson’s reasons were for dressing as a man to join the army and then returning to a feminine presentation after being discharged. As Revere’s letter makes clear, all of Sampson’s choices were profoundly constrained by the financial pressure she was under, and the rigid gender norms of the time she lived in. To pursue a military career, Sampson had to pass as a man, and to receive her pension for that military service, she had to pass as a woman. In order to survive, Sampson depended on the judgements of people like Paul Revere and William Eustace, who likely held rigid ideas about what actions and appearances were acceptable for people of each gender. Stories like Sampson’s are illuminating examples of exactly why it is so hard to interpret historical people’s feelings about gender roles and identities. Like most people who lived in 18^th century New England, Sampson might have had many reasons for choosing to live as a man or a woman other than her personal feelings.

Still, it is interesting to try to read past the social pressures she was under to guess at what Sampson herself may have felt. Many historians and historical fiction authors alike have speculated on how Sampson might have interpreted her experience:[19] Did she join the army because she needed the money, to fight for ideals she believed in, or because it was an opportunity to live in the “male habit”?[20] Did she identify with “Robert Shirtliff”, or just see him as a necessary disguise?[21] When the “Baltimore lady” mentioned in Sampson’s autobiography began to flirt with her during her time as a soldier, was Sampson mortified, or excited by the opportunity to openly pursue a romantic relationship with a woman?[22] After the war, was she relieved to be able to resume life as a woman, wife, and mother, or did she feel pushed back into a social role which had never fit her?[23] If she were alive today, would Sampson identify as a lesbian, a straight cisgender woman, a nonbinary person, or a transgender man – or would she just be confused by this whole conversation? This ambiguity is perhaps a part of what makes Deborah Sampson’s story so compelling. So many people of so many identities today can see themselves reflected in a part of her story, and be reminded that people who challenged gender norms always existed.

You can read the full letter from Paul Revere to William Eustis on behalf of Deborah Sampson here! 

 

[1] Astrid M. Fellner, “The Theatricality of Sexual Difference in Late-Eighteenth-Century America: Deborah Sampson’s Staged Gender Masquerade” in The Politics of Gender in Early American Theater: Revolutionary Dramatists and Theatrical Practices, (Columbia University Press, 2022: 119-14), 129.

[2] Judith Hiltner. “’She bled in secret’: Deborah Sampson, Herman Mann, and The Female Review,” Early American Literature, Vol 34. Iss. 2 (1999): 190-220, 198.

[3] WM Frederick Norwood, “Deborah Sampson, Alias Rober Shirtiff, Fighting Female of the Continental Line,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, March-April, 1957, Vol. 31, No. 2, 158 and Greta L. LaFleur, “Precipitous Sensations: Herman Mann’s “The Female Review” (1797), Botanical Sexuality, and the Challenge of Queer Historiography,” Early American Literature, Vol. 48, No. 1 (2013): 93-123.

[4] Alfred Young, Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier, (Random House, New York: 2005).

[5] Fellner, 130 and Betsy Erikkla, “Revolutionary Women,” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, Vol. 6, No. 2, Woman and Nation (Autumn, 1987): 189 -223, 213.

[6] Jayne Triber, A True Republican: The Life of Paul Revere, (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1998), 189.

[7] Erikkla, 213.

[8] Paul Lewis, “Attaining Masculinity: Charles Brockden Brown and Woman Warriors of the 1790s,” Early American Literature, Vol. 40, No. 1 (2005): 37-55, 40.

[9] Hiltner, 199.

[10] Young, 209.

[11] Sandra M. Gustafson, “The Genders of Nationalism: Patriotic Violence, Patriotic Sentiment in the Performances of Deborah Sampson Gannett” in Possible Pasts: Becoming Colonial in Early America, ed. Robert Blair St. George, Cornell University Press, 2000 : 380-400.

[12] Young, 203.

[13] Fellner, 130.

[14] Young, 205.

[15] Fellner, 134.

[16] Deborah Sampson, “An addrss [sic], delivered with applause, at the Federal-Street Theatre, Boston, four successive nights … beginning March 22, 1802; and after, at other principal towns” in Publications of the Sharon Historical Society of Sharon Massachusetts, No. 2, April, 1902, 8.

[17] Fellner, 130.

[18] Young, 209 and Hiltner, 198.

[19] For some fictionalized interpretations of Sampson’s story, see Cloaked In Courage by Beth Anderson, The Secret Soldier by Ann McGovern, or I’m Deborah Sampson, by Patricia Clapp.

[20] Judith Hiltner. “’She bled in secret’: Deborah Sampson, Herman Mann, and The Female Review,” Early American Literature, Vol 34. Iss. 2 (1999): 190-220, 198.

[21] Astrid M. Fellner, “The Theatricality of Sexual Difference in Late-Eighteenth-Century America: Deborah Sampson’s Staged Gender Masquerade” in The Politics of Gender in Early American Theater: Revolutionary Dramatists and Theatrical Practices, (Columbia University Press, 2022): 119-142.

[22] LaFleur, 109-111.

[23] Esther Forbes, Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, (Boston: Mariner Books, 1945).

 

Works Cited:

Erkkila, Betsy. “Revolutionary Women.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, Vol. 6, No. 2, Woman and Nation (Autumn, 1987): 189 -223.

Fellner, Astrid M. “The Theatricality of Sexual Difference in Late-Eighteenth-Century America: Deborah Sampson’s Staged Gender Masquerade” in The Politics of Gender in Early American Theater: Revolutionary Dramatists and Theatrical Practices. Columbia University Press, 2022: 119-142.

Forbes, Esther. Paul Revere and the World He Lived In. Boston: Mariner Books, 1942.

George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. “Deborah Sampson.” https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/deborah-sampson accessed 2/19/2025.

Gustafson, Sandra M. “The Genders of Nationalism: Patriotic Violence, Patriotic Sentiment in the Performances of Deborah Sampson Gannett” in Possible Pasts: Becoming Colonial in Early America, ed. Robert Blair St. George. Cornell University Press, 2000 : 380-400.

Hiltner, Judith. “’She bled in secret’: Deborah Sampson, Herman Mann, and The Female Review.” Early American Literature, Vol 34. Iss. 2 (1999): 190-220.

LaFleur, Greta L. “Precipitous Sensations: Herman Mann’s “The Female Review” (1797), Botanical Sexuality, and the Challenge of Queer Historiography.” Early American Literature, Vol. 48, No. 1 (2013): 93-123.

Lewis, Paul. “Attaining Masculinity: Charles Brockden Brown and Woman Warriors of the 1790s.” Early American Literature, Vol. 40, No. 1 (2005): 37-55.

Mann, Herman. The Female Review: Life of Deborah Sampson, The Female Soldier in the War of the Revolution. Boston: J.K. Wiggin and W.M. Parsons Lunt, 1866. https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcmassbookdig.femalereviewlife00mann/?sp=11 accessed 2/19/2025.

Massachusetts Women Veteran’s Network. “Deborah Sampson: American Revolutionary War Hero.” https://www.mass.gov/info-details/deborah-sampson-american-revolutionary-war-hero  accessed 2/19/2025.

Norwood, WM Frederick. “Deborah Sampson, Alias Rober Shirtiff, Fighting Female of the Continental Line.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, March-April, 1957, Vol. 31, No. 2, 147-161.

Sampson, Deborah. “An addrss, delivered with applause, at the Federal-Street Theatre, Boston, four successive nights … beginning March 22, 1802; and after, at other principal towns” in Publications of the Sharon Historical Society of Sharon Massachusetts, No. 2, April, 1902. https://www.loc.gov/item/07023999/ accessed 2/19/2025

Triber, Jayne. A True Republican: The Life of Paul Revere. Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1998.

Young, Alfred. Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier. Random House, New York: 2005.