A Female Review, Detail

A recently recovered diary from Massachusetts corporal Abner Weston further complicates Sampson’s story, as Weston recorded “a uncommon affair” in January 1782 in which Sampson “dress her self in mens Cloths and hired her self to Isreal Wood to go into the three years Servis. But Being found out returnd the hire and Paid the Damages &c.” This first failed attempt at enlisting as a man was omitted from Sampson’s biography.

The Female Review: or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady Herman Mann, Dedham, [MA]: printed by Nathaniel and Benjamin Heaton, 1797. Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society