In Masquerade, Alfred F. Young scrapes through layers of fiction and myth to uncover the story of Deborah Sampson, a Massachusetts woman who passed as a man and fought as a soldier for seventeen months toward the end of the American Revolution. Deborah Sampson was not the only woman to pose as a male and fight in the war, but she was certainly one of the most successful and celebrated. She managed to fight in combat and earn the respect of her officers and peers, and in later years she toured the country lecturing about her experiences and was partially successful in obtaining veterans’ benefits. Her full story, however, was buried underneath exaggeration and myth (some of which she may have created herself), becoming another sort of masquerade. Young takes the reader with him through his painstaking efforts to reveal the real Deborah Sampson in a work of history that is as spellbinding as the best detective fiction.

In the 1700s, women's responsibilities were primarily child rearing and household duties. But Deborah Sampson wanted more from life. She wanted to read, to travel—and to fight for her country's independence. When the colonies went to war with the British in 1775, Deborah was intent on being part of the action. Seeing no other option, she disguised herself in a man's uniform and served in the Continental army for more than a year, her identity hidden from her fellow soldiers. Accomplished writer Sheila Solomon Klass creates a gripping firstperson account of an extraordinary woman who lived a life full of danger, adventure, and intrigue.

“A remarkable novel” (The New York Times) about America’s first female soldier, Deborah Sampson Gannett, who ran away from home in 1782, successfully disguised herself as a man, and fought valiantly in the Revolutionary War. At a time when rigid societal norms seemed absolute, Deborah Sampson risked everything in search of something better. Revolutionary, Alex Myers’s richly imagined and carefully researched debut novel, tells the story of a fierce-tempered young woman turned celebrated solider and the remarkable courage, hope, fear, and heartbreak that shaped her odyssey during the birth of a nation. After years of indentured servitude in a sleepy Massachusetts town, Deborah chafes under the oppression of colonial society and cannot always hide her discontent. When a sudden crisis forces her hand, she decides to escape the only way she can, rejecting her place in the community in favor of the perilous unknown. Cutting her hair, binding her chest, and donning men’s clothes stolen from a neighbor, Deborah sheds her name and her home, beginning her identity-shaking transformation into the imaginary “Robert Shurtliff”—a desperate and dangerous masquerade that grows more serious when “Robert” joins the Continental Army. What follows is a journey through America’s War of Independence like no other—an unlikely march through cold winters across bloody battlefields, the nightmare of combat and the cruelty of betrayal, the elation of true love and the tragedy of heartbreak. As The Boston Globe raves, “Revolutionary succeeds on a number of levels, as a great historical-military adventure story, as an exploration of gender identity, and as a page-turning description of the fascinating life of the revolutionary Deborah Sampson.”

Deborah Sampson, a true hero of the American Revolutionary War, is the only woman in early American history thought to serve as a soldier without being discovered. Her patriotic zeal leads the young woman to disguise herself as a man, and to enlist as a soldier in Washington's Continental Army. At West Point her officers choose her for membership in an elite corps, The Light Infantrymen. The military action and episodes of Deborah's story are based on real events. After the war, Deborah became the first American woman to set out alone to tour as a speaker for compensation, and the first to receive a full pension as a soldier for serving in the army. The actions she took enabled her to live life by her own lights in a society that appeared hostile to the value of women-for they had no legal rights. Their voices and plight were ignored, except for those whose husbands, or fathers, were more enlightened and compassionate. Deborah's story shows that courage and bravery know no gender, and calls us to empathy, and to a wider vision of the world as we stand in someone else's shoes, if only as reader. Deborah's journey is one in which men, women and children actively participated in the shaping of our nation, and that physical, spiritual and psychological freedoms are the right of both genders. This is a look at the far past, which in many ways is not so different from our modern era. The struggle to individualize and to find a place where one can live and thrive is a challenge all of us have faced, or are facing. Each man, woman and child must find within themselves the courage to stand up, to live a life of integrity with the kind of grit, tenacity and care for others that life requires. Deborah's life is a testament to the difficulties of that challenge and of their resolution-or at the least how to live well in spite of life's often unasked for trials and hardships.

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Biography of Deborah Sampson, the only woman soldier to fight in the American Revolutionary War.

A biography of the woman who served in the army during the Revolutionary War under the name Robert Shurtleff and who later lectured about her experiences.

A biography of a young woman who, disguised as a man, served in the army during the American Revolution.

Biography of Deborah Sampson Gannett, a young woman who, disguised as a man, served in the army during the American Revolution.

A famous female soldier of the Revolutionary War There have been few notable women who have joined their nations colours to fight in its causes on the battlefield. Fewer still have actually donned the uniform of a soldier and in the guise of men fought in in the ranks. Several nations have notable examples. The English have their 'Mother Ross' who fought as a dragoon during Marlborough's campaigns and there are several examples from both sides of the American Civil War. Deborah Sampson also felt her nation's call, in her case the emergent United States of America at the time when the young country rose to shake off the shackles of colonialism. In 1778, aged just 18 years old, young Deborah disguised herself in male attire and attempted to join the ranks of Washington's Continental Army. Fearful she had been discovered she failed to report for duty; but in 1782 under the name of her late brother, Robert Shurtliff Sampson, she finally achieved her objective. She found herself posted to the distinctively uniformed ranks of the light company of the 4th Massachusetts Regiment. Deborah fought in several skirmishes before her first battlefield engagement at Tarrytown during which she was wounded in the thigh and cut about the head. Afraid of discovery, she treated herself with penknife and twine. Her gender was discovered in 1783 by a doctor who was treating her for a fever though he did not reveal his discovery. Deborah Sampson's true identity was never formally acknowledged right up to the point she was honourably discharged in October 1783. This book was originally published under the title The Female Review. Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier in the War of the Revolution. Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands.