Woman Fought for Liberty

Woman Fought for Liberty

1900

Deborah Sampson, who enlisted in the continental army as Robert Shurtleff, was one of the most dashing and bravest fighters for the cause of liberty. She enlisted in a Massachusetts regiment and served three years before it was known that the brave soldier was a woman.

She was taken ill in Philadelphia and the hospital nurse had pronounced her dead, but a slight gurgling attracted the doctor's attention. He placed his hand over her heart, and finding, to his surprise, an inner waistcoat tightly compressing her breast, ripped it open. She was immediately removed to the matron's apartments, where everything was done for her comfort.

The commanding officer, upon learning that his aid was a woman, granted her an honorable discharge and presented her with a letter from Washington commending her services. The humble soldier stood before him with shining eyes filled with tears and thanked him many times, begging him to ask that her fellow soldiers be told and that he ask them to tell him if she had done aught that was unbecoming a woman. This was done and her comrades and officers declared their respect for her was unbounded.

Upon her honorable discharge from the army she returned to her mother's home, striving to escape the calumny which followed her singular career. After Gen. Washington became president he wrote a most cordial letter to Mrs. Gannett (Deborah Sampson — she having married in the meantime), inviting "Robert Shurtleff" to visit him. She accepted and was treated with the greatest honors by the president and residents of Washington. — Ladies' Home Journal.


Too Early In The Day

When Sir Frederick Carrington was in South Africa before with the Bechanaland border police a new recruit wanted to join. He was questioned with martial-like severity, winding up with the question: "Do you drink?" As there was a syphon of soda and something suspiciously like whisky near it, the would-be recruit conceived the idea that he had been invited to partake. Nevertheless he answered the colonel's question with a modest, "No, thank you, sir; It's rather too early in the day for me."