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Deborah Sampson was born December 17, 1760 in Plympton, Massachusetts. She grew up as an indentured servant, and as a young woman, spent a few years as a schoolteacher. When she was 22, she decided to join the Continental Army and fight in the Revolutionary War. She dressed in men's clothing, and assumed the name Robert Shurtleff. Due to her lack of facial hair, her comrades in the 4th Massachusetts Regiment nicknamed her "Molly." She fought in several skirmishes, receiving both sword and musket wounds, until illness eventually uncovered her identity and led to her discharge in 1783.
In 1784-5 she married a Massachusetts farmer named Benjamin Gannett and the government gave her a small pension, recognizing her participation in their fight for freedom from Britain. She wrote her experiences in a book, The Female Review in 1797, and a few years began performing embellished lectures about her activites including performing the manual of arms dressed in soldier's clothing.
She is considered to be the first woman in the United States to lecture publicly, and possibly the first woman to serve in combat in United States Army. She died in Sharon, Massachusetts on April 29, 1827, and 11 years later Congress passed an act allowing her heirs to receive her full pension.
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