DeborahSampson

== __DEBORAH SAMPSON __ == =Deborah Sampson was born in Plympton, Massachusetts, on December 17, 1760 as the oldest of three daughters and three sons. Deborah's childhood was spent in povety as her Father left the family and went off to sea. Her Mother of poor health and could not support the children, so she sent them off to live with various neighbors and relatives. On May 20, 1782, when she was twenty-one, Sampson signed up in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Army at Bellingham as a man named Robert Shurtleff. She was the first American women to be known to impersonate a man in order to join the army and take part in combat. Deborah also performed her duties as well as any other man. Sampson was sent with her regiment to West Point, New York, where she apparently was wounded in the leg in a battle near Tarrytown. As she healed from her injuries a physician discovered she was a women which ended her career but Sampson was honorably discharged from the army at West Point on October 25, 1783 by General Henry Knox. The returned home and then a year later, she married a farmer named Benjamin Gannett, and had three children toger. Later in the years Deborah found a new career and began teaching and was awarded a pension from the state of Massachusetts in the amount of thirty-four pounds in a lump payment. Then on April 29, 1827 in Sharon, Massachusetts, at the age of 60 Deborah Sampon died.=

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