The Weston diary is important as a source for several reasons. It is not a retrospective account; it is a contemporary document written at or near the time of the events it describes. It does not appear to have been written with any awareness that the woman in question would become a public figure. And its existence means that the earlier enlistment attempt is corroborated by at least one source that was not Deborah Sampson herself or Herman Mann, the ghostwriter of her 1797 biography.
After the Middleborough exposure, she tried again. This time, she traveled to Uxbridge, Massachusetts — away from the community where she was known — and enlisted under the name Robert Shurtliff.
## Enlistment as Robert Shurtliff: The 4th Massachusetts Regiment
On or about May 20, 1782, Deborah Sampson enlisted in the Continental Army as Robert Shurtliff at Uxbridge, Massachusetts. She was assigned to the 4th Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Line.
The spelling of the alias varies across sources — Shurtliff, Shurtleff, Shirtliff — and the variant spellings are a consistent feature of the historical record, reflecting the informal orthography of late-eighteenth-century record-keeping rather than any particular mystery about her identity or alias.
The 4th Massachusetts was among the units that remained in the field in 1782 as the war wound down after Yorktown. Peace negotiations were underway, but soldiers were still required. The army still needed to maintain presence, gather intelligence, secure territory, and manage the ongoing uncertainty of the post-Yorktown period when the formal treaty had not yet been signed.