"Revolutionary Rebecca" - A Book Review

With the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence coming up in just under two years, there is some renewed interest in the history of The American Revolution. And in

"Revolutionary Rebecca" we have an energizing and delightful historical fiction novel based on the true story of Rebecca Motte, a Patriot during the British occupation of South Carolina during the American War of Independence.

The historical novel opens with two cousins in 1812 tiring of having to stitch their samplers in the South Carolina summer heat. A sampler being a piece of embroidery that was heavily

emphasized in the colonial period as an item demonstrating a young girl's skill in sewing. And before long, they notice that their grandmother doesn't keep her balls of yarn in a basket like most people, but rather she keeps them in a quiver. A quiver being a case for storing arrows.

When they inquire as to why their grandmother does so, they and the reader are graced with a fascinating story about Rebecca Motte during the American Revolution.

Rebecca Motte was living in her townhouse in Charleston, South Carolina when the British laid siege to the city for six weeks in 1780. With the residents of Charleston tiring of food shortages and the pains of hunger gnawing at their stomachs, they begged the Patriot, General Lincoln, to surrender. Which he reluctantly did after the British bombarded the city with some heated shots

on May 12th, 1780. Victorious in his siege of the city, the British commander then triumphantly chooses Rebecca Motte's house for his headquarters in Charlestown. And feeling confident in his plans to win the Southern colonies for the King, General Henry Clinton freely discusses military matters with his soldiers in the presence of Rebecca.

However, in an example of what the German's call "Glück im Unglück", or a blessing in disguise, "The Swamp Fox", as the Patriot General Francis Marion came to be called, was not captured during the siege of Charleston due to being laid up at home with a broken ankle. And after his convalescence and the surrender of Charleston, Francis Marion promptly returns to his Patriot activities by organizing a group of farmers, Native Americans, men freed from the bounds of involuntary servitude, and some soldiers who had managed to escape from the siege into a group of patriots serving the Continental Army without pay.

General Marion would then hide out in the swamps with his group of "Marion's Men" and disrupt the British supply and communication lines with surprise, hit-and-run attacks, only to disappear back into the swamps. Confounding the disciplined British army with his mastery of guerilla warfare. A hero of the American Revolution, the city of Marion, Alabama is named after him.

As is the Marion Military Institute. And with the redcoat general housing himself in Rebecca Motte's home in 1780, Motte proceeds to spy on behalf of Francis Marion.

When a rumor surfaces that the British were going to seize the homes of those who refuse to take an oath of loyalty to the British Crown, Rebecca Motte thinks twice about remaining in her Charleston townhome. After all, her daughter is expecting, and she thinks a place free from the comings and goings of British soldiers at all hours is best. So, Rebecca makes the decision to move her family to her plantation home on the Congaree River, far removed from the city. And when she does so, she leaves all of her valuables at the mercy of the British soldiers, but she takes the most important item with her, her late brother's quiver full of arrows from East India. With these arrows being of a special kind that were designed to light upon impact.

However, as the Scottish author, Robert Burns expressed in his poem "To a Mouse", "The best-laid plans of mice and men oft' go awry" and before long, the safety and solitude that Rebecca Motte was seeking in her plantation home is interrupted by the arrival of a troop of British soldiers. Troops who promptly relegated her and her family to a few rooms in her house at first.

And eventually to a small farmhouse that sat high on a ridge nearby while they built fortifications and turned her home into the British stronghold of Fort Motte.

Not wanting to yield the Southern colonies to the British, in spite of their impressive victories thus far, the patriot General Greene sends some troops to capture the British forts along the

Congaree River, including Fort Motte. And in a show of gallantry of the time period, the Patriot Colonel Lee, then asks Mrs. Motte for permission to set her house on fire. That is to say, Fort Motte. As they need to force the British to surrender before reinforcements arrive from Lord Rawdon.

A loyal Patriot to the core, Rebecca Motte, not only freely grants the Patriots permission to burn her home to force the redcoats to surrender, but recalling her quiver full of East India arrows, tells them how.

The third installment in "The Liberty Belles Series" written by Tracy Lawson, this inspiring account is aimed at readers from ages 7 to 15. But, with such a fascinating history as its topic

and at only 51 pages long, "Revolutionary Rebecca" is suitable for a lovely Sunday afternoon read for anybody with an interest in early American history.