3. TIL about Deborah Sampson, who disguised herself as a man to serve during the Am...

TIL about Deborah Sampson, who disguised herself as a man to serve during the American War of Independence. Shot in the thigh, she removed the bullet herself with a penknife and needle, to keep her identity secret.

"Sampson fought in several skirmishes as 'Robert Shurtliff' in 1782.

During her first battle, she took two balls in her thigh and sustained a cut on her forehead. She begged her fellow soldiers not to take her to a doctor out of fear her sex would be discovered, but a soldier put her on his horse and took her to a hospital. A doctor treated her head wound, but she left the hospital before he could attend to her leg. She removed one of the balls herself with a penknife and needle, but the other was too deep for her to reach. She carried it in her leg for the rest of her life.

During the summer of 1783, Sampson became ill in Philadelphia and was cared for by Doctor Barnabas Binney. He removed her clothes to treat her and discovered the cloth she used to bind her breasts. Without revealing his discovery to army authorities, he took her to his house, where his wife, daughters, and a nurse took care of her.

When Dr. Binney asked Sampson to deliver a note to General Paterson, she correctly assumed that it would reveal her sex. In other cases, women who pretended to be men to serve in the army were reprimanded, but Paterson gave her a discharge, a note with some words of advice, and enough money to travel home.

She was honorably discharged in 1783, after a year and a half of service."

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