Speaker 1: Happy. Saturday. May twenty third is Deborah Samson Day in Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: so since it's May twenty third, we've chosen our episode
Speaker 1: on her as Today's Saturday Classic. Deborah Samson served in
Speaker 1: the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War under the name
Speaker 1: Robert Shirtliff. This originally came out on July fourth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class,
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. This episode
Speaker 1: is coming out on July fourth, which is Independence Day
Speaker 1: in the US. So since we have an episode coming
Speaker 1: out on the day itself, which hasn't happened in a
Speaker 1: very long time, I thought we'd do something that's both
Speaker 1: thematically related and also a listener request. That is Deborah Samson,
Speaker 1: who known by her married name of Deborah Samson Gennett
Speaker 1: as well. Just as a note upfront, we recognize that
Speaker 1: gender is broader and more nuanced than this, and that
Speaker 1: is not a new idea. Deborah Samson was descended from
Speaker 1: multiple people who arrived in North America aboard the Mayflower
Speaker 1: in sixteen twenty, at which point, there were indigenous nations
Speaker 1: all over the continent that recognized and continue to recognize
Speaker 1: more than two genders. We've also talked about people like
Speaker 1: the Public Universal Friend, who we covered on the show
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, and the Friend lived at the same
Speaker 1: time as Deborah Samson did. They described themselves as genderless,
Speaker 1: but the communities that Deborah Samson was part of saw
Speaker 1: things as very, very very binary. That applies to everything
Speaker 1: from people's descriptions of her to how children were educated,
Speaker 1: to laws about dress, and it is central to what
Speaker 1: made her famous, which is serving in the Continental Army
Speaker 1: as Robert Shirtliffe during the Revolutionary War. Deborah Samson was
Speaker 1: born on December seventeenth, seventeen sixty in Plimpton, Massachusetts, which
Speaker 1: is just inland from Plymouth. Her family spelled their last
Speaker 1: name Samsom. The spelling with the pa in the middle
Speaker 1: shows up in her life later on. Deborah's parents were
Speaker 1: Jonathan Samson Junior and Deborah Bradford Samson, and as Tracy
Speaker 1: just said, they were both descended from people who had
Speaker 1: traveled to North America aboard the Mayflower. The Elder Deborah
Speaker 1: Samson was the great granddaughter of Plymouth Colony governor William Bradford.
Speaker 1: Jonathan's ancestors included Miles Standish and John and Priscilla mullens Alden,
Speaker 1: who today are probably best known as characters from the
Speaker 1: Courtship of Miles Standish by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Deborah was
Speaker 1: one of seven children and the family was poor. Jonathan
Speaker 1: was a farm laborer and claimed that he had been
Speaker 1: cheated out of his inheritance from his late father and
Speaker 1: that his being cheated out of that money was the
Speaker 1: root of the family's poverty. But there are probate records
Speaker 1: showing that Jonathan Samson's senior's estate looks like it was
Speaker 1: divided up pretty fairly, and then there are also records
Speaker 1: showing that Jonathan sold his property to his brother in
Speaker 1: law shortly after his father's death. Family drama. Jonathan Samson
Speaker 1: eventually went to sea, and when the young Deborah was
Speaker 1: about five, he didn't come back from a voyage. The
Speaker 1: family was informed that he had died in a shipwreck,
Speaker 1: and it's possible that Deborah believed this was what happened
Speaker 1: to him, but in reality, he had moved to what
Speaker 1: is now Maine, where he and a woman named Martha
Speaker 1: lived as a married couple, and he had two more
Speaker 1: children with her. Deborah's mother could not afford to raise
Speaker 1: seven children on her own, so Deborah and at least
Speaker 1: some of her siblings were sent to live with various
Speaker 1: friends and relatives. Than When Deborah was ten, she was
Speaker 1: indentured to the Thomas family. Some sources say that she
Speaker 1: was indentured to Benjamin Thomas Deecon at First Church of Middleborough,
Speaker 1: and others say it was to Jeremiah and Susan Thomas.
Speaker 1: There were so many Thomas's living in this area that
Speaker 1: it was nicknamed Thomastown, and Susan was Benjamin's daughter, so
Speaker 1: it's understandable that there is some confusion about exactly who
Speaker 1: she was indentured to. This was a large family, with
Speaker 1: more boys than girls, and although Deborah wasn't provided with
Speaker 1: an education the way that the family's children were, she
Speaker 1: did use their books and school materials to teach herself
Speaker 1: to read and write. Most of the documentation we have
Speaker 1: of Deborah's young life comes from a biography by Herman
Speaker 1: Mann that was published for the first time in seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety seven. Parts of that biography were definitely fabricated, and
Speaker 1: we will be talking about that more and a bit,
Speaker 1: But it does seem like she learned to do various
Speaker 1: types of work around the home and the farm during
Speaker 1: her indenture, and this included tasks that were more often
Speaker 1: done by men and boys, like plowing and whittling. Samson's
Speaker 1: indenture ended when she was eighteen. For the next couple
Speaker 1: of years, she worked as a teacher. During the summers,
Speaker 1: in the window between when crops were planted and when
Speaker 1: they were harvested, in the colder months, she worked as
Speaker 1: a spinner and a weaver. She also joined First Baptist
Speaker 1: Church of Middleborough on November twelfth, seventeen eighty. That was
Speaker 1: shortly before she turned twenty. Although there was a pretty
Speaker 1: big Baptist community in Middleborough, they had at least three
Speaker 1: Baptist churches, most people in the area were Congregationalists, especially
Speaker 1: the people who had the most wealth and power and influence.
Speaker 1: Baptists were really seen as outsiders. This was all happening
Speaker 1: during the Revolutionary War, and we don't know much about
Speaker 1: how the war's earlier years affected Deborah Sampson. That's seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety seven biography. He does give a lengthy recounting of
Speaker 1: a vivid and violent dream she reportedly had just before
Speaker 1: the Battle of Lexington in seventeen seventy five. Though it's
Speaker 1: not totally clear whether this is a dream she actually
Speaker 1: had or whether it's a dramatic embellishment, but if it
Speaker 1: really happened, it may have reflected her fear and anxiety
Speaker 1: about what was going on. Although thousands of men joined
Speaker 1: the military at the start of the war, by the
Speaker 1: late seventeen seventies the Continental Army was really struggling to
Speaker 1: find recruits. Recruitment happened at the state level, and the
Speaker 1: state started drafting people and offering incentives to entice people
Speaker 1: to join. This included offering bounties for people who volunteered
Speaker 1: to serve in the place of men who had been
Speaker 1: drafted but didn't want to go. Although this did motivate
Speaker 1: some people to join, it also caused some issues. For example,
Speaker 1: Massachusetts set quotas for how many recruits each town should provide,
Speaker 1: and it was up to the town to decide how
Speaker 1: much money they would offer as a bounty. This led
Speaker 1: some people to basically shop around for the biggest bounty
Speaker 1: they could find. Men were expected to enlist for three
Speaker 1: years or until the end of the war, whichever came first.
Speaker 1: But some just disappeared as soon as they claimed their bounty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this caused various issues. In addition to the disappearance of
Speaker 1: people who had claimed a bounty and then just vanished,
Speaker 1: they were disproportionately enlisting people who were desperate for money
Speaker 1: and maybe not people who were who would do well
Speaker 1: as soldiers. There was a whole many layers going on
Speaker 1: with this. Samson's first attempt to join the army might
Speaker 1: have been in pursuit of a bounty. This is documented
Speaker 1: in a diary entry by Abner Weston dated January twenty third,
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty two. This diary was found in New Hampshire
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen and then bought by the Museum of
Speaker 1: the Amya Revolution in Philadelphia in twenty nineteen. Somehow it
Speaker 1: did not cross my radar for any of the unearthed
Speaker 1: episodes that happened during that time. Weston wrote, quote, there
Speaker 1: happened an uncommon affair at this time for Deborah Samson
Speaker 1: of this town dressed herself in men's clothes and hired
Speaker 1: herself to Israel Wood to go into the Three years service,
Speaker 1: but being found out, returned the hire and paid the damages.
Speaker 1: Other second and third hand accounts add some other details
Speaker 1: to this, including that Samson was living in the home
Speaker 1: of Captain Benjamin Leonard, who employed her as a weaver,
Speaker 1: and that a woman named Jenny helped her steal some
Speaker 1: of Leonard's son's clothes. Jenny is described as the daughter
Speaker 1: of an enslaved woman and as Samson's roommate at the
Speaker 1: Leonard house, where Jenny was probably working as a servant.
Speaker 1: After giving her name as Timothy Thayer and receiving her bounty,
Speaker 1: Samson went to a tavern and drank, then came home intoxicated,
Speaker 1: got into bed with Jenny, and got up and went
Speaker 1: about her business. The next morning, when Timothy Thayer didn't
Speaker 1: report to be mustered in, a woman who had been
Speaker 1: in the room when he enlisted said she noticed that
Speaker 1: he held a pen, just like Deborah Samson. Apparently, Samson's
Speaker 1: way of holding a pen was distinctive because of an
Speaker 1: injury to one of her fingers, and after being questioned,
Speaker 1: Samson reportedly confessed and returned the bounty money. This was
Speaker 1: really a scandal, and although herman Mann's biography gave some
Speaker 1: other reasons. Samson may have enlisted for the second time
Speaker 1: to try to get away from it. We will get
Speaker 1: to that after a quick sponsor break. On May twentieth,
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty two, Robert Shirtliff accepted an enlistment bounty from
Speaker 1: the town of Uxbridge, Massachusetts. He was tall, taller than
Speaker 1: the average soldier, but apparently too young to grow facial hair.
Speaker 1: There were no physical exams required to enlist at this point,
Speaker 1: nobody had to provide any kind of documentation of their
Speaker 1: name or their age. About a year and a half
Speaker 1: would pass before anybody realized that Robert Shirtliffe, whose name
Speaker 1: is spelled a lot of different ways in different various
Speaker 1: records for anybody, realized that he had previously been known
Speaker 1: to everybody before this point as Deborah Sampson. Shirtliffe was
Speaker 1: mustered into the fourth Massachusetts Regiment at Worcestern, Massachusetts. Three
Speaker 1: days later, he marched with the regiment to West Point,
Speaker 1: where he was assigned to Captain George Webb's company of
Speaker 1: light Infantry. The light Infantry was seen as an elite
Speaker 1: group made up of young agile men who could move quickly,
Speaker 1: do reconnaissance and engage in skirmishes with the enemy. Webb's
Speaker 1: company spent most of their time in the Hudson River Valley.
Speaker 1: The Battle of Yorktown had ended the previous fall, and
Speaker 1: that is seen as the last major battle of the
Speaker 1: Revolutionary War and as a decisive victory for the United States,
Speaker 1: but the war did not actually end for almost two
Speaker 1: more years after that. Much of the Hudson River Valley
Speaker 1: was neutral ground between US territory and New York City,
Speaker 1: which was still being held by the British, but there
Speaker 1: were lots of troops from both sides in this area.
Speaker 1: There were also French troops who were allied with the
Speaker 1: United States, as well as indigenous peoples. Some were on
Speaker 1: the sides of the British and some of the United States.
Speaker 1: In this particular area, they were more likely to be
Speaker 1: allied with or otherwise support the British. Although this area
Speaker 1: didn't see any major battles in seventeen eighty two or
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty three, there were lots of smaller skirmishes. Later on,
Speaker 1: Herman Mann's biography of Deborah Sampson would recount a dramatic
Speaker 1: tale of her being seriously wounded with a head injury
Speaker 1: and two musket balls lodged in her thigh. She was
Speaker 1: so afraid that her sex would be discovered that she
Speaker 1: thought about taking her own life with a pistol. Instead,
Speaker 1: she made her way to a French encampment, where she
Speaker 1: allowed a French doctor to treat and dress her head
Speaker 1: wound before sneaking away with some wine, a penknife, and
Speaker 1: a needle to extract the musket balls herself. She was
Speaker 1: able to remove one of them and treat and dress
Speaker 1: the wound, but the other remained in her body for
Speaker 1: the rest of her life. It is extremely likely that
Speaker 1: during her time as Robert Shirtliff, Deborah Sampson really was
Speaker 1: wounded in action and really was disabled afterward. She had
Speaker 1: to document all that to receive pensions for her service,
Speaker 1: which she did. We'll talk about that more later. However,
Speaker 1: this part of Samson's biography is uncannily similar to another work,
Speaker 1: which was titled The Female Soldier, that describes the experiences
Speaker 1: of Hannah Snell, who joined the British Army as James
Speaker 1: Gray in seventeen forty five and fought against the Jacobites.
Speaker 1: Back in Middleborough, Massachusetts, First Baptist Church was deciding what
Speaker 1: to do about Deborah Sampson's earlier enlistment as Timothy Thayer
Speaker 1: the Church Minutes from September third, seventeen eighty two read quote.
Speaker 1: The Church considered the case of Deborah Sampson, who, last
Speaker 1: spring was accused of dressing in men's clothes and enlisting
Speaker 1: in the army, And although she was not convicted yet,
Speaker 1: was strongly suspected of being guilty, and for some time
Speaker 1: before behaved very loose and unchristian like, and at last
Speaker 1: left our parts in a sudden manner. And it is
Speaker 1: not known among us where she is gone. And after
Speaker 1: considerable discourse, it appeared that as several brethren had labored
Speaker 1: with her before she went away without obtaining satisfaction, concluded
Speaker 1: that it is the church's duty to withdraw fellowship until
Speaker 1: she returns and makes Christian satisfaction. Okay, that means they
Speaker 1: basically kicked her out, and still she apologized and was
Speaker 1: absolved for having done wrong. A couple of other notes
Speaker 1: on this. Today, the word loose has sexual connotations when
Speaker 1: it's used in this kind of a contact, but at
Speaker 1: the time it was more of a general description of
Speaker 1: bad behavior, and in terms of a conviction. Cross dressing
Speaker 1: had been outlawed in Massachusetts since the sixteen nineties. The
Speaker 1: prohibition on cross dressing also traced back to a verse
Speaker 1: in the Biblical Book of Deuteronomy, which described men dressing
Speaker 1: in women's clothes and vice versa as an abomination. To
Speaker 1: return to Samson's time as Robert Shirtliff, that injury made
Speaker 1: it impossible to keep up with the light infantry, so
Speaker 1: Shirtlift seems to have convinced someone to assign him to
Speaker 1: the task of caring for a wounded soldier who could
Speaker 1: not be moved. After that, Shirtlift was given another assignment
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty three, this time working as a waiter
Speaker 1: for General John Patterson. This wasn't a food service position,
Speaker 1: it was more like a personal servant. Shirtliff accompanied Patterson
Speaker 1: in his unit to Philadelphia, which at the time was
Speaker 1: the US capital. An armistice went into effect on April nineteenth,
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty three, and as the US started demobilizing its forces,
Speaker 1: it furloughed troops without fully paying people for their services,
Speaker 1: also without a clear plan for funding pensions for anybody.
Speaker 1: Demands for pay and for better conditions were part of
Speaker 1: a mutiny along the Pennsylvania line in seventeen eighty three,
Speaker 1: and Patterson's troops were sent to Philadelphia to try to
Speaker 1: put that mutiny down. In Philadelphia, Robert Shirtliffe became ill
Speaker 1: with a fever and delirium and was hospitalized. The cause
Speaker 1: isn't clear, although there were epidemics of both measles and
Speaker 1: smallpox in Philadelphia at that time. Measles is the more
Speaker 1: likely of the two, since the various descriptions of this
Speaker 1: don't include typical smallpox symptoms, and George Washington had ordered
Speaker 1: the troops to be inoculated against it. Yeah, it could
Speaker 1: have been something totally else, but those two diseases really
Speaker 1: were rampant. While working at a hospital in Philadelphia, doctor
Speaker 1: barnabas Binny discovered that one of his patients, known as
Speaker 1: Robert Shirtliffe, was wearing a breastbinding, but he kept that
Speaker 1: a secret. It is not totally clear how Samson's commanding
Speaker 1: officers eventually learned her identity. In Man's book, Benny gave
Speaker 1: her a letter that explained the whole situation and told
Speaker 1: her to deliver it to General Patterson, and she did
Speaker 1: that even though she was pretty sure the letter was
Speaker 1: saying that she was a woman. Later, even more romanticized
Speaker 1: versions of this claimed that she gave the letter not
Speaker 1: to Patterson but to George Washington himself, whatever those details were,
Speaker 1: general Henry Knox granted Robert Shirtliffe an honorable discharge on
Speaker 1: October twenty third, seventeen eighty three. And this is not
Speaker 1: at all how the Continental Army or the various militias
Speaker 1: generally dealt with women who tried to enlist, or with
Speaker 1: people who successfully enlisted but were later discovered to have
Speaker 1: female bodies. It was way more common for people to
Speaker 1: be publicly shamed, charged with crimes including fraud and cross dressing,
Speaker 1: or subjected to just deeply humiliating and traumatizing physical examinations
Speaker 1: which really were just sexual assaults. It's possible that there
Speaker 1: are other women who managed to serve undetected in the
Speaker 1: Revolutionary War, or people who might describe themselves as non
Speaker 1: binary or as transgendermen today, but the honorable discharge of
Speaker 1: Robert Shirtliff is really unique. After being discharged, Samson returned
Speaker 1: to Massachusetts, and as far as we know, once she
Speaker 1: got there, she resumed her life as Deborah Sampson. The
Speaker 1: first public report of her service in the Revolutionary War
Speaker 1: was published just a few months later. It named Robert Shirtliffe,
Speaker 1: but it did not mention Samson's name. Quote for particular reasons.
Speaker 1: It doesn't say what they are, just that they're particular.
Speaker 1: This was printed in the Independent Gazette or the New
Speaker 1: York Journal revived on January tenth, seventeen e and it
Speaker 1: was picked up by other newspapers later on. It began quote,
Speaker 1: an extraordinary instance of virtue in a female soldier has
Speaker 1: occurred lately in the American Army in the Massachusetts Line.
Speaker 1: Vis a lively, comely young nymph, nineteen years of age,
Speaker 1: dressed in man's apparel, has been discovered, and what redounds
Speaker 1: to her honor. She has served in the character of
Speaker 1: a soldier for near three years, undiscovered, during which time
Speaker 1: she displayed herself with activity, alertness, chastity, and valor, having
Speaker 1: been in several skirmishes with the enemy, and received two wounds,
Speaker 1: a small shot remaining in her to this day. She
Speaker 1: is a remarkable vigilant soldier on her post, and always
Speaker 1: gained the admiration and applause of her officers. Was never
Speaker 1: found in liquor, and always kept company with the most
Speaker 1: upright and temperate soldiers. This report describes her illness and
Speaker 1: the discovery of her sex, and her honorable discharge, before
Speaker 1: offering an ex explanation for why she did all of
Speaker 1: this quote. The cause of her personating a man, it
Speaker 1: is said, proceeded from the rigor of her parents, who
Speaker 1: exerted their prerogative to induce her to marriage with a
Speaker 1: young man she had conceived a great antipathy for, together
Speaker 1: with her being a remarkable heroine and warmly attached to
Speaker 1: the cause of her country, in the service of which
Speaker 1: it must be acknowledged, she gained reputation, and no doubt
Speaker 1: will be noticed by the compilers of the history of
Speaker 1: our Grand Revolution. I have so many feelings about that
Speaker 1: right up. A couple of factual notes on this. Samson
Speaker 1: was about twenty one when she enlisted, rather than nineteen,
Speaker 1: and although recruits were expected to serve for three years,
Speaker 1: Robert Shirtliff's time in the army is documented it closer
Speaker 1: to eighteen months. Samson's parents also weren't really involved in
Speaker 1: her life at all, so this story about fleeing an
Speaker 1: unwonted marriage reads more like a literary trope and a
Speaker 1: way to make readers or sympathetic to her, Rather than
Speaker 1: any real explanation of her reasoning. We'll talk about Samson's
Speaker 1: post Revolutionary war life after another quick sponsor break. Deborah
Speaker 1: Sampson married Benjamin Gannette of Sharon, Massachusetts, on April seventh,
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty five. There is a gown in the collections
Speaker 1: of Historic New England that may have been her wedding dress.
Speaker 1: Was originally made as an open gown to be worn
Speaker 1: with a petticoat around seventeen seventy, and then it was
Speaker 1: remade as a full dress without that open front about
Speaker 1: fifteen years later. Then it was altered again in the
Speaker 1: seventeen eighties, presumably so Deborah could get married in it.
Speaker 1: So the dress from there was passed down within the family.
Speaker 1: Some of her descendants even wore it for things like
Speaker 1: historical reenactments and other events. Deborah and Benjamin had three children, Earl,
Speaker 1: Mary and Patience, and they adopted Susannah Shepherd after her
Speaker 1: mother died. As had been the case in Deborah's own childhood,
Speaker 1: the family struggled financially, which is one of the reasons
Speaker 1: she worked so hard to get the benefits that she
Speaker 1: was entitled to as a veteran. This started with petitioning
Speaker 1: the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for backpay in seventeen ninety two.
Speaker 1: She was awarded thirty four pounds. Over the course of
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety seven and seventeen ninety eight, Gannett applied for
Speaker 1: a pension under the Invalid Pension Act of seventeen ninety three.
Speaker 1: It's not clear why four years passed between when the
Speaker 1: law was passed and when she submitted an application, But
Speaker 1: this process could be really onerous, so we said earlier,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of stuff that you had to document.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that documentation was really hard to track down or
Speaker 1: didn't exist. It's possible she had trouble finding a lawyer
Speaker 1: who was willing to help her with it. Herman Mann's
Speaker 1: biography of her was almost certainly written to support this
Speaker 1: pension application, As we said earlier, It was published in
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety seven, and its full title was The Female Review,
Speaker 1: or Memoirs of an American Young Lady whose life and
Speaker 1: character are peculiarly distinguished. Being a Continental soldier for nearly
Speaker 1: three years in the Late American War, during which time
Speaker 1: she performed the duties of every department into which she
Speaker 1: was called with punctual exactness, fidelity, and honor, and preserved
Speaker 1: her chastity inviolate by the most artful concealment of her sex,
Speaker 1: with an appendix containing characteristic traits by different hands, her
Speaker 1: taste for economy, principles of domestic education, etc. I do
Speaker 1: love the long title. I do too. They're so funny.
Speaker 1: This book is so romanticized, and it has so much
Speaker 1: in common with other books in print at the time.
Speaker 1: Not just the one we mentioned earlier, there were multiple others.
Speaker 1: There are some critics today that have described it not
Speaker 1: as a biography or a memoir, but as a novel.
Speaker 1: Seems like Man himself might have even thought of it
Speaker 1: this way too, and he later talked about it having
Speaker 1: just been rushed into print without enough time to do
Speaker 1: a good job with it. Some parts of it are
Speaker 1: questionable but not totally impossible, like the vivid dream that
Speaker 1: we mentioned and the sneaking a way to remove a
Speaker 1: musket ball also in that category, or things like a
Speaker 1: romantic interlude involving a young woman from Baltimore who falls
Speaker 1: in love with this patient known as Robert Shirtliff at
Speaker 1: a military hospital in Philadelphia, who she, of course believes
Speaker 1: to be a man. There's so many dramatic and thrilling tales. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of them, and several people have
Speaker 1: traced and this also save dramatic tale is in this
Speaker 1: other book that was in circulation at the time. There
Speaker 1: are parts of this writing that are flatly untrue. Like
Speaker 1: Man claims Deborah Samson Gennett was at the Battle of Yorktown,
Speaker 1: which was over long before she enlisted. There's also an
Speaker 1: account of rescuing a white woman who was held captive
Speaker 1: by indigenous people and marrying her, but putting off consummating
Speaker 1: the marriage until it could be properly solemnized in the city.
Speaker 1: In the words of Man's book quote, on their return
Speaker 1: to Philadelphia, they purchased her a suit of clothes, but she,
Speaker 1: unable to express her gratitude, received them on her knees
Speaker 1: and was doubtless glad to relinquish her sham marriage and
Speaker 1: to be sent to her uncle, who she said lived
Speaker 1: in James City. This is almost certainly just completely fabricated.
Speaker 1: Man commissioned a portrait of Gannett by folk artist Joseph Stone,
Speaker 1: which became the basis for the engraving for the book's frontispiece.
Speaker 1: This portrait still exists in the collection of the Rhode
Speaker 1: Island Historical Society today. It shows her in a feminine
Speaker 1: white dress with long brown hair that curls softly around
Speaker 1: her cheeks and her shoulders, blue eyes, fair skin with
Speaker 1: rosy cheeks, and a pretty prominent jaw. It's framed with
Speaker 1: some patriotic and elishments, like an eagle bearing a shield
Speaker 1: that's decorated with stars and stripes. Mann was not the
Speaker 1: only writer trying to support Deborah Sampson Gannett's pension efforts.
Speaker 1: Shortly after she filed her paperwork, poet Philip Freneau published
Speaker 1: A Soldier Should be Made of Sterner Stuff on Deborah Gannette,
Speaker 1: and that was published in a publication called The time Piece.
Speaker 1: Although Gannette pursued this pension she was entitled to for months,
Speaker 1: her petition for it wound up stalled in Congress. She
Speaker 1: tried applying again a few years later, and in eighteen
Speaker 1: oh two she went on a speaking tour to raise
Speaker 1: money and to try to gather support. She went all
Speaker 1: around New England and New York and was billed as
Speaker 1: the American Heroine. She worked with herman Mann again on
Speaker 1: the text of the address that she would give on
Speaker 1: this tour. Some historians have concluded that this was not
Speaker 1: a collaboration between the two of them, but he just
Speaker 1: wrote it for her. She would speak while wearing a dress,
Speaker 1: and then she would go off stage and change into
Speaker 1: her soldier's uniform and then come back and do military
Speaker 1: drills like presenting her arms. We don't really know how
Speaker 1: much Genet stuck to the prepared remarks that man worked on,
Speaker 1: but we do have a print version of it. It
Speaker 1: begins quote not unlike the example of the patriot and philanthropists,
Speaker 1: though perhaps perfectly so. In effect, do I awake from
Speaker 1: the tranquil slumbers of retirement to active public scenes of life,
Speaker 1: like those which now surround me. That genius, which is
Speaker 1: the prompter of curiosity, and that spirit, which is the
Speaker 1: support of enterprise, early drove, or rather allured me from
Speaker 1: the corner of humble obscurity. Their cheering aspect has again
Speaker 1: prevented a torpid rest. If you found that to be
Speaker 1: a whole lot of words that essentially said nothing, I
Speaker 1: was very stilted. I have bad news for you. The
Speaker 1: whole thing is like this, and It's a lot more
Speaker 1: about patriotic ideals than about any real specifics from her
Speaker 1: life for her time in the army, which makes for
Speaker 1: maybe bad copy, but probably worked really well to drum
Speaker 1: up crowds to support her. Gannett kept a journal during
Speaker 1: her tour, and this journal reveals that it was really
Speaker 1: kind of a difficult time. She was traveling alone, and
Speaker 1: she was sick a lot. There are lots of descriptions
Speaker 1: of toothaches and a pain in her face and at
Speaker 1: one point what she described as dysentery, and she also
Speaker 1: just really missed her children. Deborah Samson Connette was finally
Speaker 1: awarded a pension as a disabled veteran on March eleventh
Speaker 1: of eighteen oh five, after some prominent people spoke up
Speaker 1: on her behalf, one of them being Paul Revere. Her
Speaker 1: pension started at four dollars a month, and then she
Speaker 1: applied for and was granted increases in that amount in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixteen and eighteen nineteen. Sometimes she's described as the
Speaker 1: first woman in American history to receive a military pension
Speaker 1: or the first woman to be wounded while fighting for
Speaker 1: the United States, but neither of these is true. One
Speaker 1: earlier example is Margaret Cochrane Corbin, who became a camp
Speaker 1: follower after her husband John joined the Pennsylvania military. Margaret
Speaker 1: was helping her husband load his cannon at the Battle
Speaker 1: of Fort Washington on November sixteenth, seventeen seventy six, and
Speaker 1: when he was killed, she took his place. She was
Speaker 1: then seriously wounded as well, and she became a prisoner
Speaker 1: of war after the battle. The Continental Congress awarded her
Speaker 1: a lifetime pension on July sixth, seventeen seventy nine, although
Speaker 1: at half the amount that men received. In her later years,
Speaker 1: Deborah Samson Ginnett seems to have wanted her family to
Speaker 1: know about and to remember her time as a soldier,
Speaker 1: but she really stepped away from the public spotlight. While
Speaker 1: her military service was described as exemplary, the idea of
Speaker 1: cross dressing was still really scandalous, and any association with
Speaker 1: the military could be seen as very suspicious for women.
Speaker 1: There were thousands of women in camp followers during the war,
Speaker 1: and even though a lot of them were doing absolutely
Speaker 1: necessary work like cooking and mending and caring for the sick,
Speaker 1: they were viewed with a lot of derision and suspicion,
Speaker 1: and this all fed into a lot of really salacious
Speaker 1: rumors that she seems to have found genuinely upsetting. Dembra Samson.
Speaker 1: Gannett died on April twenty ninth, eighteen twenty seven, at
Speaker 1: the age of sixty six. At the time, Herman Mann
Speaker 1: was working on a revised version of her memoir, one
Speaker 1: that was written in first person, in which she had
Speaker 1: given him permission to print only after her death. Mann
Speaker 1: got almost two hundred subscribers to fund this revised work,
Speaker 1: but he also died before getting it published. His son
Speaker 1: took up the project and made all kinds of revisions,
Speaker 1: but then he died as well. Overall, these revisions made
Speaker 1: the book more sensationalized and definitely not more accurate. Benjamin
Speaker 1: Gennett petitioned the government for a survivor's pension, one that
Speaker 1: typically would have been paid to a widow after the
Speaker 1: death of her veteran husband. Congress authorized this on July seventh,
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty eight, with a committee noting that the Revolution
Speaker 1: had quote furnished no other similar example of female heroism, fidelity,
Speaker 1: and courage. Benjamin Ginnett actually died about eighteen months before
Speaker 1: Congress finalized this payment, so in the end, it went
Speaker 1: to his attorney and his heirs. John A. Venon printed
Speaker 1: a new version of Herman Mann's biography of Deborah Samson
Speaker 1: Ganet in eighteen sixty six. It included lots of annotations
Speaker 1: and corrections, as well as new information. There were also
Speaker 1: lots of dime novels and other stories about her printed
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century. During World War II, a liberty
Speaker 1: ship was named the SS Deborah Gannett. In nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: Governor Michael Dukakis signed legislation naming Deborah Sampson the official
Speaker 1: heroine of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, with May twenty third
Speaker 1: being designated as Deborah Sampson Day. A life sized statue
Speaker 1: of her was unveiled at the Sharon, Massachusetts Public Library
Speaker 1: on Veterans Day nineteen eighty nine. In the late twenty teens,
Speaker 1: legislation known as the Deborah Sampson Act was introduced to
Speaker 1: in Congress a number of times, at one point passing
Speaker 1: the House but getting stalled in the Senate. This legislation
Speaker 1: was meant to improve women's access to care and benefits
Speaker 1: through the Department of Veterans Affairs, and to improve the
Speaker 1: quality of that care. The Bill's content was eventually folded
Speaker 1: into the Johnny Isaacson and David P. Row MD Veterans
Speaker 1: Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act of twenty twenty which was
Speaker 1: signed into law on January fifth, twenty twenty one. In
Speaker 1: this Act, title five, Deborah Sampson is subtitled Improving Access
Speaker 1: for Women Veterans to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Before
Speaker 1: we get to listener mail, something came up during research
Speaker 1: on this that would normally probably go into the Friday
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, but it seems like enough listeners might
Speaker 1: have heard it and be wondering that I wanted to
Speaker 1: go ahead and talk about it now. When I'm pulling
Speaker 1: together resources for episodes, one of the places I look
Speaker 1: is Gail databases that I have access to through the
Speaker 1: public library. Gail's first book result when I searched for
Speaker 1: Deborah Samson is from the nineteen ninety two book Notable
Speaker 1: Black American Women. I was immediately confused, since none of
Speaker 1: the material that I had gathered before that point suggested
Speaker 1: that Deborah Gannette was black, and the many references that
Speaker 1: I had seen to were ancestors being aboard the Mayflower
Speaker 1: without mentioning any other ancestors kind of implied that she
Speaker 1: was not. Sources from Gannette's lifetime don't mention her race
Speaker 1: at all. It wasn't typical for white writers to spell
Speaker 1: out another white person's race, but noting the race of
Speaker 1: black people was routine in everything from enlistment records to
Speaker 1: newspaper articles to personal journals. The idea that Deborah Samson
Speaker 1: was black seems to trace back to William's Nell's book
Speaker 1: Colored Patriots of the American Revolution that was published in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five. This book is noteworthy on its own
Speaker 1: William Coopernell was a journalist an abolitionist. This was one
Speaker 1: of the first books by a black person to document
Speaker 1: the contributions of other black people to the American Revolution.
Speaker 1: Nell also wrote books about black soldier's service in the
Speaker 1: War of eighteen twelve and on christ Path addics in
Speaker 1: the Boston Massacre. He is somebody who could be an
Speaker 1: episode subject of the show One Day. Colored Patriots of
Speaker 1: the American Revolution references Lemuel Burr, who was black and indigenous.
Speaker 1: Lemuell's grandfather, Samuel Burr, was friends with Jeremy Jonah and
Speaker 1: both served in the Revolutionary War. Burr was in Gannett's regiment,
Speaker 1: and Jonah was in another regiment that was also stationed
Speaker 1: in the Hudson Valley. To quote the book quote, Lemuel Burr,
Speaker 1: grandson of Seymour, a resident of Boston, often speaks of
Speaker 1: their reminiscences of Deborah Ganet. Nell then prints the text
Speaker 1: of the General Court of Massachusetts resolution awarding Debra Gannet
Speaker 1: thirty four pounds for services in the Continental Army. Multiple
Speaker 1: historians have traced the idea that Deborah Samson Gannet was
Speaker 1: black to this passage. People interpreted her inclusion in this
Speaker 1: book as meaning that she was black as well, although
Speaker 1: it's really not entirely clear if this was Nell's intent
Speaker 1: or not. From there, it made its way into other
Speaker 1: people's work. The earliest examples of this are primarily from
Speaker 1: black writers and speakers who were doing the important and
Speaker 1: necessary work of documenting and publicizing black people's participation in
Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War. For example, Lewis Hayden, who was enslaved
Speaker 1: from birth but liberated himself and became a prominent part
Speaker 1: of the underground railroad before the Civil War, gave an
Speaker 1: address during the US Centennial in eighteen seventy six. He
Speaker 1: was speaking to the Colored Ladies' Centennial Club in Boston,
Speaker 1: and he used Ganet as an example of black women's
Speaker 1: contributions to the war. The idea that Deborah Samson Genet
Speaker 1: was black became more widespread during the Civil Rights Movement,
Speaker 1: and it still comes up today, primarily in sources that
Speaker 1: are focused specifically on black people's achievements, like lists of
Speaker 1: facts for Black History Month and that nineteen ninety two
Speaker 1: book that we mentioned. To be totally clear, it is
Speaker 1: not impossible that Deborah Samson Gannet had African ancestry somewhere
Speaker 1: in her family tree. She had one grandmother and one
Speaker 1: great grandfather whose parents aren't clearly documented, and of course
Speaker 1: it's also possible that one of her ancestors had an
Speaker 1: affair of some sort that wouldn't be reflected in things
Speaker 1: like birth and marriage records. But beyond that, Deborah Samson
Speaker 1: Gannett's documented ancestors trace back to people who emigrated from
Speaker 1: Europe during the seventeenth century, nearly all of them from
Speaker 1: England during the Great Puritan Migration. It would have been
Speaker 1: a scandal for any of them who have had a
Speaker 1: child with somewhat of African descent, and there just hasn't
Speaker 1: been anything found to suggest that that kind of scandal happened.
Speaker 1: For folks who want more on Deborah Samson Gennett, one
Speaker 1: of the more recent books about her is titled Masquerade,
Speaker 1: The Life and Times of Deborah Samson Continental Soldier. That's
Speaker 1: by Alfred F. Young. There's also a recent novel titled
Speaker 1: Revolutionary by Alex Myers. Myers is a transgender man, so
Speaker 1: he brings a really unique perspective to telling this story. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is the second time in recent memory that there's
Speaker 1: been a novel that I started reading and did not finish.
Speaker 1: In this case, it's because there is a rape in
Speaker 1: the first chapter and I noped hard out of it
Speaker 1: at that point. I was just not up for reading
Speaker 1: a book that started out with a rape over the weekend.
Speaker 1: No not rest will way to spend your time now,
Speaker 1: would not say those aren't important stories. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's been extremely well reviewed. Yeah, I just I was
Speaker 1: not prepared and did not continue reading. There you go.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to send us a note, our email addresses
Speaker 1: History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can subscribe
Speaker 1: to the show on the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.