ence of Washington. The great man said not a word, but handed her in silence a discharge from the service, putting into her hand at the same time a notice containing advice and a sum of money sufficient to bear her expenses to some place where she might find a home. The delicacy and forbearance thus observed affected her sensibly. "How thankful," she is said to have often explained, "was I to that great and good man who so kindly spared my feelings. He saw me ready to sink from shame; one word from him at that moment would have crushed me to the earth. But he spoke no word, and I blessed him for it." This is an interesting sidelight on the character of Washington, wherein he is shown to have had the fine instinct of tact and sympathy even in his warrior days.
After the war had ended, Deborah Samson married Benjamin Gannett, of Sharon, and when Washington was President she received a letter inviting "Robert Shircliffe," or Mrs. Gannett, to visit the seat of the government. Congress was then in session, and during her stay in the Capital a bill was passed granting, her a pension in addition to certain lands which she was to receive, as an acknowledgment of her services to the country in a military capacity. She was invited to the houses of several of the officers and to parties given in the city, attentions which manifested the high esteem in which she was held.
Deborah Samson-Gannett, in the capacity of wife and mother, lived to a comfortable old age, and finally yielded up her soul as any prosaic and worthy matron might, with no hint of mystery nor adventure in her past.
It has been well said: "Though not comparable, certainly, to the 'Prophetess' in whom France triumphed — for the dignity with which the zeal of a chivalrous age and the wonderful success of her mission invested her — yet it cannot be denied that this romantic girl exhibited something of the same spirit of the lowly herdmaid who. even in the round of her humble duties,
