You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart radio and Grimm and Mild

from Erin Manky.

Deborah couldn't be seen.

Being found out would be worse than being shot, a calculation made in real time as her

blood began to spill.

Her comrades rushed to her, but as more blood and more bodies began to fall around them,

she managed to slip away.

Deborah secluded herself out of sight.

Grabbing her knife, she parted the gash in her thigh and dug out a musket ball.

The second one was too deep for her searching fingers, and it would stay there for the rest

of her life, long past the end of the Revolutionary War.

They say clothes can make the woman.

And sometimes they can make a woman into someone else.

For Deborah Samson, this meant she could become anyone she wanted.

And in 1782, what she wanted was to become a soldier.

So she became Timothy Fayer.

Her stint as Timothy Fayer though would be short-lived.

Deborah was outed shortly after enlisting in Middleboro, Massachusetts, and she was promptly

discharged.

But she then made a second go of it, joining rank with the light infantry company of the

fourth Massachusetts regiment under the name Robert Schurtliffe.

And there she fell in step with the rest of the troops.

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