By Sharon Oliver
Contributing writer
PLYMPTON – Today’s enlisted members of the armed forces consist of every race, sex, sexual orientation and religion there is. The journey to wearing a uniform has not been easy for many. While there were those who were forcibly drafted, there were also a few who bravely took matters into their own hands. Deborah Sampson of Plympton not only took to the battlefield disguised as a man to serve alongside soldiers in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, but she was also a trailblazer.
Sampson’s father abandoned the family home in 1760, forcing her mother to send her to work for a family as an indentured servant. She was released from servitude after reaching the age of 18 and worked a variety of jobs which included carpenter, weaver and as a teacher. However, an occupation as soldier in the army is what held her attention. Sampson cut her hair, dressed in men’s clothing and at age 21, she registered under the name Robert Shurtliff.
Wounded in first battle
An exceptionally strong woman of average height, she was placed in the Light Infantry Company of the 4th Massachusetts Regiment under the command of Captain George Webb. The group was made up of 50 to 60 men who were taller than the average soldier. During her first battle, Sampson received a gash in the forehead and took two musket balls to her thighs and used a penknife and sewing needle to remove one musket ball. The second was lodged too deep, and her leg never fully healed.
The determined woman kept fighting in more battles undetected for nearly two years. In 1783 Sampson fell ill with fever while stationed in Philadelphia and was brought to a hospital. It was there where it was discovered that Robert Shurtliff was actually a female but her treating physician, Barnabas Binney, kept her secret, at least for a while.
Once Sampson got better, Binney decided to inform her superior officers. Sampson was fearful of receiving time in jail for her deception but was honorably discharged instead in 1783 by George Washington who did not offer a word of thanks. Washington did not approve of women being in the camp and instructed his generals to remove all women from service to improve discipline.
Later life
After she returned to Massachusetts, Sampson married Benjamin Gannett of Sharon where there stands a statue of the war hero as well as other statues and monuments in her honor. The couple had four children and the former soldier would give lecture tours around New England dressed in her military uniform and demonstrating battlefield techniques.
Sampson’s decades-long battle to receive back pay, disability and pension relief from her time in service began in 1792 and the Gannetts struggled financially. Help finally arrived after Paul Revere supported her cause and wrote a letter to Congressman William Eustis in 1804.
The action resulted in Sampson receiving a lump sum of $104 plus $48 a year thereafter in 1805. In 1818, she gave up disability pay for a general pension of $96 a year. The fight for retroactive payments continued until Sampson died of yellow fever in 1827 at age 66. After she died, Benjamin Gannett petitioned Congress to receive a pension as the widower of a Revolutionary veteran. Congress eventually passed an act providing full military pension to the heirs in 1838. Gannett was awarded a pension but died before ever receiving it.
Photo/Digital Commonwealth
During World War II, the Liberty Ship S.S. Deborah Gannett (2620) was named in her honor. It was scrapped in 1962. Deborah Sampson Gannett is buried in Sharon.
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