The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-09

sions for a statement of the facts in the
case as they appeared of record in his Of
fee, and he wrote:
on the 18th of September, 1913. the said
Deborah made her declaration, under oath,
that she served as a private soldier, under
the name of Robert Shurtleff in the war
of the revolution. upwards of two years IN
manner following: Enlisted in April llSl,
in a company commanded by Capt. George
Webb, in the Massachusetts regiment COM
manded by Colonel Shepherd, afterwards by
Col. Henry Jackson; that she served IN
Massachusetts and New York, until NO
Vember, 1888, when she was honorapIy dis-
charged in writing; which discharge she
mad lost. she was at the capture Vi 1oLn-
TO the date of her declaration, she had re-
ceived a pension therefor.
The reason of her making this declara-
ton in 1918 was that the papers on which
her original pension was granted were
burned in 1914, when the British invaded
Washington and destroyed the War Office
and its contents. From 1903 to 1916 she re-
ceived a pension of S4S a year. In 1916
it was increased to $3.50 a year, and from
1918 till the time of her death in 1927 she
drew SIS a year. In 1854 she had married
a man named Gannett, and in 1897, ten years
after death, her surviving husband, who
was not in the revolutionary army, applied
for a special pension on the ground that
his deceased wife had been a soldier. The
committee on pensions reported favorably
on the application, saying:
The committee are aware that there is
no act of Congress which provides Tor any
case like the present. The said Gannett
was married after the termination OF the
war of the revolution, and therefore does
not come within the spirit of the third sec
ton of the act of 4th of July, 1886, granting
pensions to widows in certain cases; and
We're there nothing peculiar in this appli-
cation which distinguishes 1t from all other
applications for pension, the m
would at once reject the claim. But they
believe they. are warranted IN saying that
the whole history of the American revolu-
ton records no case like this, and furnishes
no other, similar example of female hero
ism, fidelity and courage The petitioner
does not allege that he served in the war of
the revolution, and it does not appear by
any evidence in the case that such was the
fact. 1t is not, however, to be presumed
that a female, who took up arms in defense
of her country, who served as q common
soldier for nearly three years, and fought
and bled for human liberty, would, imme-
diately after the termination of the war,
connect herself for life with a Tory or with
a traitor. He, indeed. was honored by be-
ing the husband of such a wife; and as he
has proved himself worthy of her. as he has
sustained her through a long life of sick
ness and suffering, and as that sickness and
suffering was occasioned by the wounds
she received and the hardshipS she endured
in defense Of the country, and as there can
not be a parallel case in all time to come,
the committee does not hesitate to grant
relief. They report a bill granting to the
petitioner a pension of $50 per year, from
the 4th day of March, 1881, for and during
his natural life.
The widower died before the report was
made, and of course the pension was not
granted. But the woman's works lived
after her, for on July Z, 1888, President Van
Buren, signed AN act for the relief of the
heirs of Deborah Gannett, a soldier of the
revolution, deceased which granted to
said heirs ''the sum Of s466.66, being an
equivalent for a full pension of $50 per
annum, from the 4th day of March, 1881, to
the decease of Benjamin Gannett, in Janu-
airy, 1887" Deborah Sampson was not a