The Female Review: Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier in the War of Revolution; With an Introduction and Notes

by Herman Mann, John Adams Vinton (Introduction, Notes)

Excerpt from The Female Review: Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier in the War of Revolution; With an Introduction and Notes
The American Revolution was a great event. Thirteen feeble colonies, scattered along more than a thousand miles of seacoast, and vulnerable at every point, dared to resist the colossal power of one of the oldest and strongest monarchies of the world. Without adequate preparation, without a general government, without a revenue, without a navy, and almost without an army, or the means of keeping an army together, they entered the fearful struggle, and, by the help of God, prevailed. All well-authenticated facts, even the most minute, connected with this great struggle, possess a deep and an enduring interest. Every individual history included in that great drama serves to help out and enlarge our idea of what was then transacted.
Viewed in this light, the story of Deborah Sampson will be found worthy of attentive consideration. It is sufficiently romantic in itself; but, considered as a tale of Revolutionary times, it is entitled to special regard. It affords, to some extent, a picture of those times, and opens before us scenes of trial and hardship, of patriotism and fortitude, that enable us better to conceive of that great conflict.
The general credit of the facts recorded in this volume cannot be shaken.
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Genres: Nonfiction

263 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

1771-1833

Reviews

[Lígia Maria Mendes]

The legacy of Deborah Sampson is a reminder that every day thousands of real-life Mulan fight not only society’s battles, but also their own. It must be really terrifying for a man to acknowledge that women are as strong and equal as them. Imagine if a woman learned that she can fight back or she can defend herself. It is no mystery that the real reason why men didn’t want to give women guns and an armor is because they feared what they might do. And Harnn was just one of those men. He wrote about her life as if he was observing a wild animal in the zoo, he exalted Sampson’s fierceness, but by choice decided to keep her behind bars because he feared her strength.

[Deborah Cleaves]

Classic.

The language is archaic and stilted and the author has a disheartening tendency to oration, but the story is still compellingly told. There are details here missing from other histories: the general shot in the back of the head who had time only to place a hand on the wound before dying; Washington astride a horse weeping as the captured British army marched before him. The heroine of the tale is a war hero, wounded in battle, performing surgery on herself to conceal her sex, meeting the doctor who discovered and preserved her secret until she was willing to disclose it.

[Stephanie Abney]

Herman Mann stretched the truth beyond belief and maligned one of my favorite heroines of all time.

[Minosh]

I read the Just Teach One edition available free online with an extremely helpful introduction by Jodi Schorb. It's hard to give a text like this a rating because it's neither historically accurate nor is it particularly positive about women or gender nonconformity (let alone transness). HOWEVER, taken as a peculiar literary collaboration that had the specific and simultaneous goals of "get Deborah Sampson a pension" and "make sure no other young women decide to copy this," it's pretty fascinating. Mann ties himself in knots at times to explain how respectable Sampson is while also depicting the fascinating adventures they had as Robert Shurtliff - he gets SO flustered every time the topic of Shurtliff's flirtations with women come up. From a trans perspective, this is also very worth reading specifically to see how scenes of transition (chest binding, adapting to masc behavior, outing oneself and being outed) are depicted. The book is kind of slow to start but it gets much more interesting as you progress.

[isobel]

as animal love, on her part, was out of the question

or WAS IT

[Samantha]

This book had an interesting story to tell but presented it so dry that it became uninteresting. I think more description and dialogue would have benefitted the plot and kept the reader more engaged.