ABSTRACT
Deborah Sampson Gannett was the first North American woman to serve as a soldier. She twice enlisted in the Continental Army; the first time she was caught and discharged, but the second time she managed to fool everyone around her. Because many of the recruits were teenage boys with no beards and because Deborah was tall for a woman at the time (58), she was able to pass for a young man. She enlisted in 1782, using the name Robert Shurtleff, and served in the army for 18 months. She fought in several battles until she was wounded in Tarrytown, New York. It was in the hospital that her true identity was revealed, and she was dismissed from the army in 1783.
