I’m Deborah Sampson

In October 1783, Private Robert Shurtlieff was honorably discharged from the Continental Army, commended by his officers for his bravery and good conduct. Unbeknownst to everyone, “Private Shurtlieff” was in truth a young woman named Deborah Sampson. Based on the true story of a Massachusetts woman who disguised herself as a man in order to serve in the Revolutionary War, I’m Deborah Sampson is a classic work of historical young adult fiction from one of the most popular writers of the genre.

Patricia Clapp (1912 – 2003) was an American writer of fiction for children and young adults. Her first novel, Constance: A Story of Early Plymouth (1968) is based on the life of her forbear Constance Hopkins, a passenger on the Mayflower. It was nominated for the National Book Award in 1969. Her second book, Jane-Emily (1969) was described by the New York Times nearly fifty years after its publication as “one of the great children’s ghost stories, featuring a nasty little dead girl who is not at all pleased when a good little living girl comes to stay in her old house.” Most of Clapp’s novels were written as fictionalized accounts of historical events. I’m Deborah Sampson: A Soldier in the War of the Revolution (1977) is loosely based on the life of Deborah Sampson, a young woman who disguised herself as a man and served in the 4th Massachusetts Regiment during the Revolutionary War. Witches’ Children: A Story of Salem (1982) and The Tamarack Tree: A Novel of the Siege of Vicksburg (1986) explore the history of the Salem Witch trials and the Siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War, respectively.