Perhaps the most remarkable case of female enlistment and protracted service in the patriot army, was that of Deborah Samson. The career of this woman shows that her motive in adopting and following the career of a soldier was a praiseworthy one. The whole country was aglow with patriotic fervor, and in no section did the flame burn with a purer luster than in that where Deborah was nurtured. It was not idle curiosity nor mere love of roving, that incited her, in those straitlaced days, to abandon her home and join in the perilous fray where the standard of freedom was "full high advanced." She had evidently counted the cost of the extraordinary step which she was about to take, but found in the difficulties and dangers which it entailed nothing to obstruct or daunt her purpose. Her parents were in humble circumstances, and lived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where Deborah grew up with but slender advantages for anything more than a practical education; and yet such was her diligence in the acquisition of knowledge, that before she was eighteen she had shown herself competent to take charge of a district school, in which duty she displayed some of the same qualities which made her after-career remarkable. She seems for several months to have cherished the secret purpose of enlisting in the American army, and with that view laid aside a small sum from her scanty earnings as a school-teacher, with which she purchased a quantity of coarse fustian; out of this material, working at intervals and by stealth, she made a complete suit of men's clothes, concealing in a hay-stack each article as it was finished. When her preparations had been completed, she informed her friends that she was going in search of higher wages for her labor. Tieing her new suit of men's attire in a bundle, she took her departure. She probably availed herself of the nearest shelter for the purpose of assuming her disguise. Her stature was lofty for a woman, and her features, though finely proportioned, were of a masculine cast. When at a subsequent period she had donned the buff and blue regimentals and marched in the ranks of the patriot army, she is said to have looked every inch the soldier. Pursuing her way she presented herself at the camp of the American army as one of those patriotic young men who desired to assist in opposing the British, and securing the independence of their country. Her friends, supposing that she was engaged at service at some distant point, made little inquiry as to her whereabouts, knowing her self-reliance, and her ability to follow out her own career without the aid of their counsel or assistance. Those who were nearest to her appear to have never made such a search for her as would have led to her discovery.