A Girl Called Samson

Samson loves her job as General Paterson’s aide because it allows her to bathe regularly, have her own room, and access Moore House’s extensive library. She adores the general even more than the privacy and protection from the cold, and she considers him “the finest man, in every way, that [she] had ever known” (189). The general is often plagued by troubled thoughts and sleeps very little. One night, he asks Samson to read to him, and she is “filled with more peace than [she’d] ever known” (192) when her voice soothes him to sleep.

At first, Agrippa Hull pulls pranks on her, but he stops after he borrows Colonel Kosciuszo’s uniform for a costume party and she ensures that he isn’t caught. In March, Samson and Agrippa join the general and the colonel on a survey of the fortifications along the Hudson. Colonel Sproat informs the general that a cavern full of the Continental Army’s missing supplies has been discovered, and Paterson begins strategizing how to reclaim the stolen goods from DeLancey.