Customer Reviews

Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Excellent book for anyone who is interested in a woman of Revolutionary War times who is mentioned in student history books and for whom there has been very little research previously published. I found Youngs discussion of how he arrived at his conclusions very interesting and I am not a history major. For someone who is not interested in that type of detail it would be easy to skim those sections and just find out about her life. It would also give people who have previously read other books or articles about Deborah Samson an opportunity to evaluate the accuracy of that material. I also would not be surprised if some of those who think they are not interested in historical research methods might find after reading the book they are more interested than they thought.

"The heroism of the females of the Revolution has gone from memory", said John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, in a eulogy to Deborah Sampson Gannett, the nearly forgotten female soldier who is the subject of this excellent biography.

(Indeed! How many Americans know that quite a number of women disguised themselves as men to fight in the War of Independence, as well as the American Civil War?)

In this thoroughly researched, highly readable account, Professor Alfred F. Young ferrets through myth, slander, and forgotten facts to recreate Deborah Sampson Gannett; a young woman who, disguised as a man, served in the Light Infantry Company of the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, and as a waiter to General John Patterson. (She later married, bore three children, adopted a fourth, and was her family's primary breadwinner!)

While I expect an Emeritus Professor of History at Northern Illinois University (and a Senior Research Fellow at the Newberry Library in Chicago) to be thorough and attentive to detail, what kept me reading this book from cover to cover was the way he brought Deborah to life, imagining her out of an enormous pile of fact and hearsay. He has also portrayed enriching details of post-colonial New England that round out the biography.

Initially, I ordered this book as background research for my novels. It surpassed my expectations on many levels, and I refer to it often. If you enjoy American History and/or Women's Studies, Young's "Masquerade" is an obvious choice.

But what relevance does it have for the average reader in today's world? The author sums it up when describing the import and effect of the Deborah Sampson statue outside the public library in Sharon, Massachusetts.

"Do you have to disguise yourself as someone other than who you are, to do what you want to do in life? Do you have to pretend in order to cross a forbidden boundary?"

Happily, most 21st century Americans can answer no. But Deborah Sampson Gannett, who fought in the war for our independence could not say the same. And neither can millions of women living in other parts of the world.

We've come a long way, baby. But somehow, I can't relax.


Star-Crossed

Deborah Sampson was not the only female who passed as a male and served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionay War, but her ruse was the most successful, and she bacame the most celebrated female soldier of the era. In this book, Young masterfully presents Sampson's story, peeling away the layers of mythology (many constructed by Sampson hersef) to reveal the truly remarkable life beneath. Young's engagement with the sources and deep knowledge of the historical and social context of Sampson's masquerade(s) make this a model of the historian's craft. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in the craft of history, or in Revolutionary America generally.

Masquerade is structured like a lawyer's brief, but reads like a mystery. Young peels back the layers of mythology, shows how a real historian assesses information, then describes his findings in an engaging way, never going beyond the evidence (don't you hate historians, who, trying to gain an audience, fill their writing with undocumented assumptions and adjectives). I found myself wanting to keep turning the pages to find out what next nugget Young discovers in separating truth from fiction. This isn't just a book for feminist historians; it's a book for anyone who likes a well-written mystery. A wonderful, absorbing book, with meticulous endnotes.