The fight for American independence was everyone’s to bear—from the brave soldiers marching with Washington to the minute men who sprang from their beds to the women who maintained the family home and business while their husbands were fighting. But one brave woman wouldn’t stay home. She wanted to, needed to fight.
This is the Forgotten History of America’s First Female Fighter.
To say that Deborah Sampson had a difficult childhood would be the understatement of the 18th century. Although she was born into a prominent family in Plymouth, Massachusetts that traced its ancestry back to Pilgrim governor William Bradford, her father left them when she was just a girl.
Her mother, unable to provide for Deborah and her six brothers and sisters, sent them to live with various relatives and neighbors. Deborah ended up in the home of an elderly widow who taught her to read, but died when Deborah was just 10 years old.
She was forced to work as an indentured servant in the home of a wealthy man in nearby Middleborough who did not believe that women should be educated, but Deborah continued learning from his sons, who would secretly allow her to do their schoolwork with them.
At 18, she left servitude and was so well-educated that she began teaching summer school lessons while supplementing her modest income as a carpenter and basket weaver. But she was also a patriot, and after America declared its independence, she was determined to fight for it.
Women, of course, were barred from service in either the Continental Army or any local militia, but Deborah was not deterred. She was tall woman—taller in fact than the average man of her day—and not frail in the least. She figured that if she bound her breasts, cut her hair, and spoke in the deepest voice she could muster, she would be able to enlist.
Her plan almost worked, but she was recognized when she enlisted in the Army in Middleborough under the name “Timothy Thayer.” That failed to deter her. A few months later, in May 1782, she enlisted again in the town of Uxbridge under the name “Robert Shirtliff.”
Under the command of Captain George Webb, she joined an elite Light Infantry Company and took part in several skirmishes, including one in which she led 30 men in a daring raid that netted 15 captured British soldiers.
On July 3rd, 1782, she was injured in battle near Tarrytown, New York and panicked—not because of the sword slice to her forehead or two musket balls lodged in her thigh, but because if she knew that if she was treated for them she would be discovered. Over her strenuous objections, her company rode her to a doctor, who bandaged her forehead but, as he prepared for surgery on her leg—which would have revealed her to be a woman—she slipped out.
She was able to remove one of the musket balls herself with a sewing needle and knife, but the other was in too deep to remove, so she returned to her company with it still in her thigh.
The following year, though, her luck ran out. While serving in Philadelphia, she fell ill and, while unconscious with a fever, was transported to famed army surgeon Dr. Barnabas Binney. When he opened her shirt to treat her, he discovered the binding of her breasts and realized that Robert Shirtliff was a woman in disguise.
When Deborah awoke, Dr. Binney sent her to her commanding officer, General John Paterson with a letter that she knew was informing Paterson that she was a woman. She braced for punishment, but instead General Paterson praised her bravery and fighting skill, gave her an honorable discharge, and money for a trip home.
Her military service was over, but Deborah Sampson wasn’t done fighting. She thought it highly unfair that the Army would not pay her a pension for her year-and-a-half of service, so she petitioned the Massachusetts State Legislature and Governor John Hancock granted it.
She supplemented this meager income by giving lectures about her exploits in the war, but it wasn’t enough for her and her husband to keep their family farm. She asked for loans from her good friend, Paul Revere, but when that too wasn’t enough, she petitioned Congress for an Invalid Soldier’s pension.
It was granted, and in 1809, she had enough money to save her family’s farm. Deborah lived happily with her husband and children until her death from Yellow Fever in 1827. She was such a beloved figure in the young nation that when her widower petitioned Congress for a pension as the spouse of a veteran, it was granted.
As Congress wrote, Deborah Sampson, America’s first female fighter, “furnished no other example of female heroism, fidelity and courage."