Deborah Sampson: Fighting for Recognition

In preparation for the upcoming exhibition Myth and Memory: Stories of the American Revolution, which commemorates the 250th anniversary of American independence, Historic New England has been gathering objects and archival material from its collections to highlight New England’s Revolutionary stories. Many of these items arrived at Historic New England with mythologies attached to them, and Myth and Memory separates fact from fiction and uncovers how the narratives surrounding these items have evolved over time. One such story concerns soldier Deborah Sampson; in the first of two blog posts about Sampson, we explore the complex history of an unusual figure—an eighteenth-century female soldier.

On June 28, 1778, the Continental Army under George Washington attacked the British Army in Monmouth, New Jersey. As the summer heat beat down, a woman emerged from the cannon smoke with a pitcher, delivering water to fallen soldiers through the gunfire. Today, we know her as Molly Pitcher, and her name has become a shorthand for the women who traveled with the Continental Army as wives and nurses. While Molly Pitcher came to symbolize all women who assisted the Continental Army, Deborah Sampson, who fought as an enlisted soldier, offers a different lens on how women served in the American Revolution. Historic New England’s upcoming exhibition, Myth and Memory, explores how we remember the American Revolution today. Deborah Sampson is one of the figures included in the exhibition—her wedding dress is part of Historic New England’s collection and serves as the vessel through which her story is told.

Sampson’s army service between 1782 and 1783 is well-documented through military records, articles, a biography, a speech, and her own diary. Born in Plympton, Massachusetts, in 1760, Sampson worked as a teacher in nearby Middleborough before attempting to join the army. When that failed, she disguised herself as a man and successfully enlisted in 1782. When her identity was discovered, she received an honorable discharge from General Henry Knox in 1783. Sampson married Benjamin Gannett in 1785. She secured a military pension from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1792 and sought an additional pension from the United States government in 1797. After she was denied a federal pension, Sampson became the first woman to go on a lecture tour in the United States, making the case that she deserved to be compensated for her service. In March 1805, she was finally awarded a federal pension and continued to live in Massachusetts until her death in 1827.

Sampson’s place in history was secured in 1797 when Herman Mann published The Female Review: The Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier in the War of Revolution. Although Mann and Sampson may have collaborated on the biography, the extent to which she influenced the content remains unknown, and Mann ultimately shaped public narratives about Sampson, whom he cast as a folk hero. “I hesitate not to announce that her primeval temper was uniform and tranquil,” he wrote. “Though destitute of many advantages of education, she happened to fix on many genuine principles.” Mann, a young and ambitious writer, had already been writing about the American Revolution when he visited Sampson in 1796; at times, the biography’s focus drifted away from Sampson herself and toward military battles, such as the Siege of Yorktown, where he claims she was present.

Mann’s assertion that Sampson was at Yorktown is contested by historians and illustrates how mythologies become associated with historical figures. The Siege of Yorktown took place in September 1781, but Sampson did not join the military until 1782. The siege—the last major battle of the American Revolution and one that looms large in public memory both historically and today—ended with British General Charles Cornwallis’s surrender to George Washington. Mann places Sampson in the middle of this battle and references it in a speech he is believed to have written for her, where she said, “Your ears then are yet deadened from the thundering of the invasion of Yorktown.” Mann admitted, years after the biography was published, that he embellished and even fabricated aspects of her story.

Unlike most women of her time, Sampson had some control over how her story was told. Though the accounts published by Mann and journalists were not told in her own words, she was able to influence how she was remembered through her lecture tour and her 1802 diary—the only written material she is confirmed to have authored. While her diary does not reveal her reasons for joining the army, cooperating with Mann on her biography, or campaigning for a pension, it does reveal her determination to share and legitimize her story. Her diary highlights the hardships she faced on her campaign for a federal pension, including missing her children and enduring physical discomfort (she recorded being “very sick with a tooth ake and ague in my face”). Rather than going back home or taking a break, Sampson continued to travel around the United States demanding compensation and respect.

Sampson’s story is not just about her military service, but also her life as a teacher, wife, mother, and advocate. She drew on the memory of well-known battles and the novelty of being a female soldier to ensure that her voice was heard. At a time when most women were excluded from the public sphere and denied a voice, she boldly advocated for herself.

Fall 2024 curatorial intern Mackenzie Landsittel was a contributing author for this post.