FROM WORLD DEFENSE REVIEW : REPORTINGWAR.COM
Published 14 Jul 05
America's First Woman Warrior
By Alma H. Bond, Ph.D.
Special to World Defense Review

In the wake of the recently revived debate on women in combat, I am reminded of the first woman who "officially" served in the American army during the American Revolution. Destined to become a mother of four with a dozen grandchildren, she volunteered for service before she was 21-years-old, was wounded in action, and even captured. She was acknowledged as a soldier by the U.S. government and, through an act of Congress, was the first woman to be placed on the pension list. Unfortunately, few Americans then or now have ever heard of Deborah Sampson.

Though the exact date is not known, in early May of 1782, Deborah – who was then living in Middleborough, Massachusetts – slipped out of her dress and stepped into a man's suit. She was boarding at the home of Deacon Thomas on the outskirts of town. She had been supporting herself by teaching school in the summer and, in the winter, spinning wool at the homes of various Middleborough families. But she wanted much more.

Deborah had dark-blond hair, soft and fine, drawn straight behind her ears, hanging in thick curls to her waist in the feminine style of the day. She did not have a pretty face, but her features were regular, as shown in the portrait painted of her when she was forty. Her large, hazel eyes were tinctured with blue, her mouth was of generous size. Her nose had a noble, slight Romanesque cast. Her skin was white and soft in spite of years of lye soapings. Her voice was low and sweet.

Standing five feet, seven inches, Deborah was very tall for a woman in that time. Her figure was sturdy, stolid. Years of hard physical labor had given her strong arms and legs. Despite these qualities which usually are identified with men, her long blond curls, soft, white skin, and sweet, low voice make it difficult to think of her as having a masculine demeanor.

On the night she was to leave, Deborah took out a piece of white linen cloth three feet long and six inches wide and wound it tightly around her breasts. Then she took a pair of scissors and cut her curly blond locks to shoulder length, like a man's. She smoothed her hair to a masculine "flat top." Men at that time wore their hair long on the sides and, fortunately for Deborah, without sideburns.

Slipping into a man's ruffled shirt and the breeches, waistcoat, outer coat and hat, she stepped into her farm boots. She placed twelve dollars, all the money she possessed, in her whaleskin wallet. Then she sat by the window, impatiently listening for the closing of the bedroom door down the hall.

Deborah thought the owners of the house would be asleep by ten. When her silver watch showed that hour, she stealthily crept out of the house and headed for Taunton, ten miles west. Summoning her farmer's strength, she walked all night and came upon the Taunton green as the first rays of the sun lit the heavens. Suddenly, she heard footsteps. She felt her first sense of panic. A figure neared and she recognized a neighboring farmer. If he saw through her disguise, she was lost. Heart racing, she looked squarely into his eyes and waited. He stared at her as though she were a stranger.

Deborah had come through her first crisis beautifully. Thinking this deserved a celebration, she walked to a tavern that was kept open through the night for travelers. The man who took her order for bacon, eggs, biscuits and tea treated her like another man, calling her "sir." But she soon realized that people who looked at her saw not Deborah Sampson but a strange young man.

The next morning she reached New Bedford. She walked down the hill to the harbor, listened to the cry of gulls, breathed deeply of the salt air, tangy with the odor of freshly caught fish.

Deborah's father had been one of the adventurers who turned their backs on farming, sought their fortunes on the sea. Perhaps she also thought of her father's cousin, Captain Simeon Sampson, of Kingston, Massachusetts. After being held hostage on a Plymouth merchantman captured by the French during the French and Indian Wars, he had escaped by dressing as a woman. Since he received the first Continental Navy Commission in 1775, he was a hero in the eyes of the family, cross-dressing and all, and probably served as a role model for the young girl.

Captain Sampson was in command of the brigantine, Independence. Once when he visited her father, Deborah innocently asked to be his cabin boy. Despite his own attempts at cross-dressing, the captain was not sympathetic. He roared with laughter, said four and a half was too young for a cabin boy, and told her that no matter how old she became he would not bring her into his Navy because she was a girl.

Deborah was humiliated and remembered the incident for the rest her life.

When Deborah appeared before the enlisting officer, Captain Thorp, he lifted the Articles of Enlistment from a pile of papers on his desk. He slowly wrote the date, "May 20, 1782," and asked her to sign. She did. The many years of humiliation as a subservient female were avenged at last.

Her uniform included a deep blue regimental linen outer coat. The woman just inside the soldier's uniform surely must have been pleased that the blue of her coat highlighted the tinctured blue in her eyes. Waistcoat and overalls were made of white linen. The overalls were long trousers cut snug to the leg. Shaped to cover her ankles and shoe tops like a gaiter, they must have been flattering indeed to her long, slender legs. Wool stockings and black leather stout boots, made straight, no right or left, square-toed with shoe buckles completed the uniform, except for the light infantry cap she wore.

The change from her civilian suit into her uniform caused Deborah a moment of anxiety.

She kept her eyes on the ground, not daring to look at the men, though it would have been nothing new for her to look at the male body. Many were the times she had seen one of the Thomas boys race naked through the rooms on a summer's night on his way to the outhouse. She also had helped bathe and diaper the younger boys after they were born.

No, it was not the idea of seeing men nude that made her anxious. Rather, it was fear that her own body would be exposed and her disguise ripped away. Slowly, slowly she managed to take off her civilian suit and quickly slip on the uniform, adroitly keeping the giveaway area covered without revealing her secret. Then she happily stepped out of the heavy, mud-covered farm boots and tossed them onto the refuse pile.

Deborah was assigned to a tent with six other soldiers. There, she had to share a bed with another soldier. When she was boarding out in Middleborough, she often shared a bed with a woman servant. But now - because her bunkmate was a man - she placed her body precariously on the edge of her side of the bunk. Soon she became accustomed to sharing the bunk, both occupants so fatigued each night they probably were unaware of their bed partner. Fortunately for Deborah, they all slept in their clothes.

Deborah must have wondered how she would be able to conceal her sex when she had to go to the toilet. But this proved not to be much of a problem as she observed the men wandering off into the privacy of the woods when they felt the need to relieve themselves. She did the same.

The men taunted her, but kindly, as "Molly" and "smock-face," referring to her lack of a beard, implying she was the age of a boy-child dressed in a smock. An older man said to her one night, "Wait until you've smelt a little gunfire and tasted soldier's food a few years. You'll go home with a beard and whiskers as large as a brush-heap."

Living among young men who might discover Deborah's true gender was an ever-present hazard. She lived in perpetual fear that, if discovered, she would be court-martialed and shot for deceiving the Army of the United States.

Deborah managed to conceal her sex for eighteen dangerous months. In one instance, she was hit in the thigh by a musket ball, but fearful of having her identity discovered, she removed the ball herself. Another time, she was captured by Indians, and almost drowned during a gale in the Hudson River. Later, she fell ill of fever, and was sent to a Philadelphia hospital where her army career soon came to a halt. A physician, on checking her heartbeat in the hospital, discovered her secret. But Deborah was not executed for her deception; she was given an honorable discharge.

Years later, the former soldier married Benjamin Gannett, Jr., gave birth to three children, raised one foster child, and became the grandmother of 12. America's first woman warrior, died at the age of sixty-eight.



Dr. Alma H. Bond, who served as a Naval officer during World War II, is a retired psychoanalyst and the author of 11 books, including The Courage of Deborah Sampson, The Autobiography of Maria Callas, and Who Killed Virginia Woolf? She is the widow of Broadway and screen actor, Rudy Bond.

Dr. Bond's website can be found at alma_bond.tripod.com

Ellie