Young, Alfred F. Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier.

• Author: Laska, Vera
• Position: Book Review

Young, Alfred F. Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. x + 417 pp. Cloth, $26.95.

On May 23, 1782, Deborah Sampson, masquerading as Robert Shurtliff, received a sixty-pound bounty in Uxbridge near Worcester, MA, to serve in the Continental Army for three years. (Several towns mentioned in this review are in Massachusetts unless otherwise indicated.) It was seven months after the decisive Battle of Yorktown, but the war dragged on in small skirmishes, and General George Washington needed troops for the defense of the newborn country. Sampson was the only female known to have enlisted, served, and been discharged with an eventual pension in the American Revolution. There is a small trace of a Samuel Gay, corporal, discharged in August 1777 because he was a she, but nothing more is known about her. (See Lists of Continental and State Troops and Militia, 1775-83, III: 161).

Deborah Sampson's father, Jonathan, was the grandson of Isaac, who was the nephew of Abraham Sampson who arrived in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, according to a chart in the Sharon Public Library archives. Her mother was a descendant of Governor William Bradford. Jonathan Sampson and Deborah Bradford married in 1751 in Plympton and had seven children. Jonathan Sampson soon left the family, and the children had to be "farmed out" to foster homes, as pauper rolls indicated, for a weekly fee. Deborah Sampson, at five years of age, was sent to live with a distant relative in Middleborough, and later to the Thomas family, also in Middleborough, for eight years. Here she learned practical domestic skills like cooking and weaving, and also the three "R's" In her late teens, she was engaged to teach school.

Sampson was tall, likely 5 feet, 7 inches, with brown eyes and long brown hair. The only likeness of her is a portrait showing a serious woman, emphasizing physical stamina rather than beauty, painted for her biography by Joseph Stone in 1797. It shows a determined look and a no-nonsense demeanor. From the Congregational church she switched to the Baptist religion, but was dismissed from that fellowship in 1782 for "questionable behavior."

Eager to see a wider world and not being too popular in her village, Sampson donned a man's disguise and enlisted in Washington's army as Robert Shurtliff. The date of this enlistment has been debated ever since her time. Evidence points to 1782 rather than to 1781, which...