“I will call it an error and presumption because I swerved from the accustomed  flowry path of female delicacy to walk upon the heroic precipice of  feminine perdition” – Deborah Sampson Gannett, 1802 

Liberty was both an ideal and a call to action to the New Englanders who fought for independence. Colonists likened their revolutionary actions to freeing themselves from an oppressive tyrant. Battlefields ranged from city streets and harbors to rural fields and farms and involved multiple nations, each with its own political agendas. For those who took part in the conflict, the American Revolution represented far more than a war against Britain. People joined the fight for personal reasons, whether to liberate themselves from slavery or prove their heroism. Some of those individuals recorded their experience of war in letters, journals, and engravings, which became cherished family heirlooms. New Englanders also preserved artifacts associated with historic battles as souvenirs of the revolution, such as the objects in this gallery.  

Timeline of Events

July 4, 1776 – Signing of the Declaration of Independence  

Congress unanimously votes to separate the 13 North American colonies from Great Britain and its Empire. This document is reputed to have inspired subsequent quests for liberty, most famously the French Revolution 

March 17, 1776 – British Evacuate Boston 

General William Howe evacuates Boston by ship after General George Washington assumes command of the American forces and seizes Dorchester Heights. The Siege of Boston ends.  

June 14, 1777 – The Flag Resolution 

The First Flag Resolution confirms the “Stars and Stripes” design as the official flag of the United States. The design is supposed to have originated via Elizabeth Griscom (Betsy Ross), but this claim cannot be verified. It is more likely to have come from Congressman Francis Hopkinson.  

February 5, 1778 – France and the US become Allies  

France and the US form the Franco-American Alliance which supplies the Colonists with much needed troops and supplies. In return, France is able to destabilize the British Empire and retaliate against their losses in the Seven Years’ War.  

September 28 – October 19, 1781 – Siege of Yorktown 

British troops are overstretched and demoralized, and parliament is worn thin between continental wars with France and Spain, and the American Revolution. General Charles Lord Cornwallis surrenders after French and American troops outnumber British forces in a three week siege at Yorktown. This battle is the last of the American Revolution. 

"He intended to Join the Army"

Born around 1754, Cicero spent his adolescence enslaved by Edward and Mary Emerson of Boston. Edward Emerson died in 1769, and a year later his widow married Jonathan Bowman, a member of the Hancock family. The couple brought Cicero to Pownalborough (Dresden), Maine. They lived on the banks of the Kennebec River in a home now owned by Historic New England. 

Jonathan Bowman was a staunch supporter of the revolutionary cause and Cicero was likely affected by his enslaver’s calls for liberty from oppression. On November 1, 1775, Cicero left Bowman 

House, effectively emancipating himself, and enlisted with an artillery company garrisoned near Kittery, Maine. Bowman placed a runaway ad in the newspaper and hired Reuben Colburn to capture Cicero. Colburn tracked Cicero to Cambridge, Massachusetts, apprehending him in December and returning him to Bowman House. It is unknown if Bowman punished Cicero, sold him, freed him, or if Cicero self-emancipated once more and reenlisted in the army.

Runaway ads are often the primary means by which historians recover information about enslaved people in New England. The ad for Cicero describes the attire he wore the night he fled Bowman House. Historic New England reimagined this outfit using historic garments and handmade reproductions. 

Deborah Sampson

In 1782, Deborah Sampson (1760-1827) disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the 4th Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Army as Robert Shurtleff. Sampson served for eighteen months before contracting yellow fever. Identity discovered, she received an honorable discharge in 1783. 

Sampson told her story to Herman Mann, who published The Female Review: or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady in 1797. Sampson later embarked on a lecture tour around the country, appearing on stage dressed in full military regalia. With support from Paul Revere, she became the first woman to receive a Federal military pension.  

Deborah Sampson’s only surviving garment is the dress worn for her marriage to Benjamin Gannett in 1785.  

“I will call it an error and presumption
because I swerved from the accustomed 
flowry path of female delicacy
to walk upon the heroic precipice of 
feminine perdition” 

– Deborah Sampson Gannett, 1802 

Behind the Exhibition

Written by Erica Lome and Mackenzie Landsittel

Historic New England’s collection includes the wedding dress Deborah Sampson wore when she married Benjamin Gannett in 1785. The dress was passed down in the Gannett family before arriving at Historic New England in 1998. Originally designed as an open robe, revealing the petticoat underneath, in the late eighteenth century the gown was altered into a round gown, with a skirt that closed across the front. It is interesting as a rare surviving example of a wedding dress from eighteenth-century New England, but it is also a tool with which to tell Sampson’s story. While it would have been powerful to display textiles representing Sampson as both a soldier and a wife and mother, her military uniform has been lost to history. When understood in the context of the supporting texts left by Sampson and others about her life and role in the American Revolution, her wedding dress prompts us to reconsider how she was remembered by the public and portrayed by historians in her own time and today.

Sampson walked a fine line between traditional womanhood as a mother and wife and the more masculine roles of war veteran and public lecturer. In the speech she gave across the country, likely written by her biographer Herman Mann, Sampson apologized for breaking from gender norms to disguise herself as a man to fight in the war. She also revealed herself to be a proponent of a set of beliefs that, in same year the United States celebrated its bicentennial, historian Linda Kerber labelled “Republican Motherhood”: The idea that women were responsible for cultivating morality and patriotic ideals in the next generation of American leaders, which afforded them political influence even without formal political power. “The rank you hold in the scales of beings is, in many respects, superior to that of man,” Sampson declared in her stump speech. “Nurses of his growth, and invariable models of his habits, he becomes a suppliant at your shrine, emulous to please, assiduous to cherish and support, to live and to die for you.”

Timothy Bigelow

“I am sensible it is a long time since I wrote to you. (I need not say.) It is not because I have forgot you or my dear children. I am greatly concerned for you, but have it not in my power at present to take any care of you, or even pay you a visit. There is very strict orders at present against the soldiers leaving the army to visit their home, and it will not do for officers to ask leave of absence when soldiers are denied.” 

– Timothy Bigelow to Anna Bigelow, July 30, 1775

Timothy Bigelow’s letters to his wife, Anna, describe the regimental life of Continental Army officers, from daily drills and exercise to building fortifications and mandatory public worship. He also relayed news of men deserting their posts and disease making its way through the camp. Despite these challenges, Bigelow assured his wife that the “Satisfaction of being engaged in my Country’s Cause” made his time in service “agreeable.”   

Bigelow’s letters also provide a glimpse into how colonial women managed their families and households during wartime. Anna Bigelow not only took in tenants while her husband was away but ran the farm in Worcester, Massachusetts, and conducted business with neighbors. In addition, she occupied her time making and sending clothing to her husband, whose letters include requests for garments such as linen breeches for the hot weather and something fine to wear for General Washington’s visit. He even requested that their son Andrew be “fitted out in as respectable a manner as other children in the neighborhood,” signaling his desire to maintain the family’s good reputation while he was away. 

Powder Horns

In the eighteenth century, colonists used hollowed-out vessels made from ox or cattle horns to carry their gunpowder for a flintlock musket. Fitted with a plug at the base and a stopper in the spout, the curved form of the powder horn fit around the waist of its user comfortably when worn with a long strap over the shoulder. 

Powder horns were often personalized, inscribed with the names of their owners along with designs ranging from geographic and military landmarks to whimsical creatures. Artisans working in military camps did much of the engraving, a decorative tradition beginning in the 1740s which lasted until the Continental Army began equipping soldiers with cartridge boxes for their gunpowder soon after the Siege of Boston began in 1775. 

After the American Revolution, veterans and their families preserved powder horns as souvenirs of military service.

Behind the Exhibition

In the eighteenth century, colonists used hollowed-out vessels made from ox or cattle horns to carry their gunpowder for a flintlock musket. Fitted with a plug at the base and a stopper in the spout, the curved form of the powder horn fit around the waist of its user comfortably when worn with a long strap over the shoulder.

Powder horns were also works of art, engraved with ornate designs and inscriptions made by their owners or professional artisans working in military camps as early as the 1740s. On the most basic level, decorated powder horns were a means of personal identification for soldiers. They also served as canvases for soldiers to document the world around them. Popular decorations ranged from geographic maps and military forts to animals and whimsical creatures. Horns carved during the Siege of Boston (1775-1777) depicted fortifications, city views, and encampments in Roxbury, Charlestown, and Cambridge; soldiers marching and engaged in battle; and plenty of patriotic imagery. This decorative tradition lasted until the Continental Army, led by George Washington, began equipping troops with cartridge boxes for loading gunpowder, diminishing the need to carry a horn.

Offin Boardman's Diary

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