Several sources that would ideally be consulted directly were not available: the amrevmuseum.org website was inaccessible through the research environment used to prepare this article, and the Mount Vernon encyclopedia’s injury account is described here based on secondary reference to it rather than direct access. The 1802 lecture diary at the Boston Public Library is described based on scholarly accounts of its contents rather than direct examination.
The Mann biography’s specific claims are treated throughout this article as requiring independent corroboration rather than as reliable primary evidence, consistent with the Museum of the American Revolution’s explicit guidance. Claims that appear only in the Mann biography and are not corroborated by independent sources are identified as such or omitted.
Alfred Young’s Masquerade (2004) is the foundational modern scholarly account of the source-critical problems in the Deborah Sampson story. Readers who want to engage more deeply with the distinction between documented history and legend should consult Young’s work directly, as it provides the kind of sustained primary-source analysis that an article cannot replicate.
The goal throughout has been to represent the documented record accurately while being honest about its gaps. The story that the documentation supports is genuinely significant; it does not require embellishment to be worth telling.
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## Source Notes
**American Revolution Museum (amrevmuseum.org)**
Press release on Abner Weston diary and Deborah Sampson research (accessed via Smithsonian coverage); collection biography page with warning about Herman Mann’s The Female Review. Not directly fetched due to allowlist restrictions; details accessed through Smithsonian Magazine secondary reporting.