The most famous of the female soldiers was Deborah Sampson, a twenty-one-year-old woman from rural Massachusetts who had been a teacher and weaver in civilian life. She entered the army as “Robert Shurtliff” early in 1782 and served for seventeen months, fighting in two engagements in the Hudson Highlands. She was wounded twice though, incredibly, her gender went undetected by the physicians who treated her. When she was finally discovered in the summer of 1783 while being treated for camp disease, the army treated her leniently, probably because the war was nearly over and she had served with
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