[image description: a scan of two old-looking pages. On one side is all illustration of Deborah Sampson. On the other side is the title page “The Female Review: Or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady” with further description below it.]

homosexualityandcivilization:

(Image courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society)

Deborah Sampson Gannett was born in 1760 outside Plymouth, Massachusetts. In May 1782, dressed as a man, she enrolled in the Continental Army under the name Robert Shurtliff. She fought in several battles until she was discovered, after being wounded in 1783, to be a woman. She received an honorable discharge and in 1785 married Robert Gannett.

Sampson Gannett was relatively unknown until 1797 when, in conjunction with the writer Herman Mann, she published a narrative of her time as a cross-dressed Revolutionary soldier. It was titled The Female Review: or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady, Whose Life and Character Are Particularly Distinguished - Being a Continental Soldier, for Nearly Three Years, in the Late American War.

The work was a straightforward tale that touched on the author’s homosexuality through descriptions of titillating, affectionate interactions with women. Sampson Gannett’s intention in publishing the narrative was to gain public attention for her attempt to be awarded a military pension. In 1802 Sampson Gannett commenced a series of public lectures about her life. Near the end of the presentations, she left the stage, returned dressed in her Army uniform, and executed complicated and physically taxing military drills.

Her presentation was extremely popular in Boston, and she repeated it in other New England cities. In 1816, after years of petitioning and with help from Paul Revere, Sampson Gannett was finally awarded the full pensions she deserved by both the state of Massachusetts and Congress.

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    Always reblog for cross-dressing female soldiers.

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