Unable to seek proper medical treatment without revealing her true gender, she allegedly left the bullet in her shoulder and continued her duty as a soldier. Sampson served undetected until she fell unconscious with a high fever while on a mission in Philadelphia during the summer of The attending physician, Dr. He revealed her identity to General Paterson through a letter. Sampson was honorably discharged at West Point on October 25, After the war ended, Sampson returned to Massachusetts and married a farmer, Benjamin Gannett, in They had three children and adopted a fourth.
In , she petitioned Congress, claiming disability for the shoulder wound she received during the war. Her petition ultimately failed. She was the first woman in America to do so. She made this journey alone and was often ill.
After the lecture tour, Sampson petitioned Congress again. This time, her petition succeeded. On March 11, , she was placed on the pension list for disabled veterans.
In , back in Massachusetts, Sampson married a farmer, Benjamin Gannett; she gave birth to three children: Earl, Mary, and Patience. Sampson's Intimacies with Women Several suggestive and curious passages in this work refer to Sampson's romantic, though allegedly chaste liaisons with other women, while posing as a male. Quite apart from any accuracy these tales may have, their very existence in a book subscribed to by respectable New Englanders in the late s is of interest.
Sampson's cross-dressing and the nominally "pure," asexual character of her romances no doubt made these stories seem acceptable at the time. Baltimore woman Sampson's more extended and detailed romance with a rich and beautiful young woman from Baltimore is said to be intensely felt by both women. In the process of explicitly denying any erotic aspect to this romance, Mann manages to detail enough of what did not happen to lend his volume a certain sexually suggestive character; it must have been a spicy book for its day.
Here, her free conduct with women causes her biographer to comment:. Finally, Mann denies the gossip "that Mrs. Sampson's Public Lecture, After the original publication of Mann's biographical narrative in , he then prepared a romanticized "Address" about her adventures, which Deborah Sampson Gannett first presented at a public lecture in Boston in , then toured to various New England and New York towns. Pensions and Honors For her Revolutionary War services, Deborah Sampson Gannett received a pension from the state of Massachusetts and later, on the petition of Paul Revere, another pension from the United States government.
She was hired out as an indentured servant to the family of Jeremiah Thomas in Middleborough. Upon gaining independence at age eighteen, she worked as a weaver and briefly as a schoolteacher, earning recognition for her skills and strength. In , after one unsuccessful attempt, Sampson disguised herself in men's clothing and enlisted in the Continental Army under the name "Robert Shurtliff" also spelled Shurtlieff.
Mustered on 23 May in Worcester, Sampson was deployed to the Hudson Valley, where she saw action as a light infantryman and was wounded twice. Her masquerade was uncovered while being treated for a near-fatal fever in Philadelphia, but she received an honorable discharge from General Henry Knox in October Upon returning to Massachusetts, Sampson married Benjamin Gannett of Sharon, and bore three children.
She won acclaim with the publication of a romanticized memoir -- The Female Review: or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady -- and a public speaking tour, during which she dressed in uniform and performed the soldier's manual exercise of arms. Although the circumstances of her enlistment and military service were unusual, like many rank-and-file soldiers in the Continental Army, Deborah Sampson Gannett encountered difficulty in obtaining a pension.
In she began a long campaign to secure a pension, gaining the support of eminent public figures, including silversmith and patriot Paul Revere. In , Revere visited Gannett at her farm in Sharon and wrote to William Eustis, the congressman for her district, on her behalf, asserting that he found her "much more deserving than hundreds to whom Congress have been generous.
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