Product Description
The remarkable story of the woman who fought in the American Revolution as Robert Shurtliff–and got away with it.

Serving for seventeen months during the period between the British surrender at Yorktown and the signing of the final treaty, a time when peace was far from secure, Deborah Sampson accomplished her deception by becoming an outstanding soldier. Alfred Young shows us why she did it and exactly how she carried it off. He meticulously reconstructs her early life as an indentured servant; her young adulthood as a weaver, teacher, and religious rebel; and her military career in the light infantry–consisting of dangerous patrols and small-party encounters, duty that demanded constant vigilance–followed by service as an orderly to a general at West Point.

Young also examines her postwar life as a wife–Mrs. Benjamin Gannett–and mother on a hardscrabble farm in southeastern Massachusetts, her collaboration with Herman Mann on the book that made her a celebrity and sent her on a pathbreaking yearlong lecture tour through New England and New York in 1802—03, and her relentless and partially successful quest for veterans’ benefits. He looks, too, at how Americans have dealt with Sampson in public memory and have appropriated her for a number of causes over the past two hundred years.

Throughout we are aware of the historian as detective, as Young carefully sifts through layers of fact and fiction to reveal a fascinating, complex, and unusual woman who lived in an era that both opened opportunities to and imposed limitations on women.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 2 reviews)

An historian with both intellect and heart.

"The heroism of the females of the Revolution has gone from memory", said John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, in a eulogy to Deborah Sampson Gannett, the nearly forgotten female soldier who is the subject of this excellent biography.

(Indeed! How many Americans know that quite a number of women disguised themselves as men to fight in the War of Independence, as well as the American Civil War?)

In this thoroughly researched, highly readable account, Professor Alfred F. Young ferrets through myth, slander, and forgotten facts to recreate Deborah Sampson Gannett; a young woman who, disguised as a man, served in the Light Infantry Company of the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, and as a waiter to General John Patterson. (She later married, bore three children, adopted a fourth, and was her family's primary breadwinner!)

While I expect an Emeritus Professor of History at Northern Illinois University (and a Senior Research Fellow at the Newberry Library in Chicago) to be thorough and attentive to detail, what kept me reading this book from cover to cover was the way he brought Deborah to life, imagining her out of an enormous pile of fact and hearsay. He has also portrayed enriching details of post-colonial New England that round out the biography.

Initially, I ordered this book as background research for my novels. It surpassed my expectations on many levels, and I refer to it often. If you enjoy American History and/or Women's Studies, Young's "Masquerade" is an obvious choice.

But what relevance does it have for the average reader in today's world? The author sums it up when describing the import and effect of the Deborah Sampson statue outside the public library in Sharon, Massachusetts.

"Do you have to disguise yourself as someone other than who you are, to do what you want to do in life? Do you have to pretend in order to cross a forbidden boundary?"

Happily, most 21st century Americans can answer no. But Deborah Sampson Gannett, who fought in the war for our independence could not say the same. And neither can millions of women living in other parts of the world.

We've come a long way, baby. But somehow, I can't relax.

Star-Crossed
July 19, 2007

Well researched interesting biography

Excellent book for anyone who is interested in a woman of Revolutionary War times who is mentioned in student history books and for whom there has been very little research previously published. I found Youngs discussion of how he arrived at his conclusions very interesting and I am not a history major. For someone who is not interested in that type of detail it would be easy to skim those sections and just find out about her life. It would also give people who have previously read other books or articles about Deborah Samson an opportunity to evaluate the accuracy of that material. I also would not be surprised if some of those who think they are not interested in historical research methods might find after reading the book they are more interested than they thought.
July 16, 2005

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