The Hudson River Valley was one of the theaters where that continuing work happened. The British still held New York City. The southern portion of what is now Westchester County — sometimes called the Neutral Ground in the era — was a contested zone between British-held New York and the Patriot-controlled interior. DeLancey’s Brigade, a Loyalist unit led by Colonel James DeLancey, operated in this zone and was responsible for raids, foraging expeditions, and the kind of irregular warfare that does not feature in broad histories of the Revolution but was genuinely dangerous to the communities involved and genuinely demanding on the Continental forces tasked with suppressing it.
The 4th Massachusetts Regiment, and specifically the Light Infantry Company to which Sampson was assigned, was engaged in this kind of work: patrolling, screening, responding to Loyalist incursions, and maintaining a presence that gave Patriot communities some degree of security. It was not the grand strategic work of earlier years, but it was real soldiering.
The light infantry designation mattered for more than tactical reasons. Light infantry units operated with more autonomy than line infantry. They moved in smaller groups, in terrain that limited the coordination of larger formations. They were selected for stamina and alertness. The close-quarters surveillance of garrison life that might have made maintaining a disguise more difficult was less constant in a light infantry assignment than in some other roles. This does not mean her disguise was easy to maintain — seventeen months is a sustained effort under any circumstances — but the unit assignment may have been one of the factors that allowed it to persist.