The Army Of Two Saves Scituate

                             

Not a lot of people know that Scituate was the target of a major British invasion in September of 1814 aimed at destroying the town. The reason that not a lot of people know about it is that the attack was turned back. They were met by a hastily assembled and unarmed American army. No damage was done to the town or her shipping, and John Bull ran off to have some tea and crumpets with his British tail between his legs.

Pretty good story, right? It gets better. The "American army" mentioned above consisted of two teenage girls. 

Rebecca and Abigail Bates squared up with 200 British marines. If they lost, Scituate would have been razed, they most certainly would have been raped and perhaps even hung as spies. Naturally, when fighting 200 marines, the girls chose Fear as a weapon. 

Some background, if I may.

The newly formed USA and their former UK masters had fought a war 35 years ago, and- lo and behold- they decided to have another crack at it in 1812. The war went rough for the Americans, and they even saw the White House get the torch. 

Another area that the British planned to burn was a small fishing town in Massachusetts known as Scituate. The British, who owned the world's best Navy, turned up off the shores of Scituate in 1814. They demanded provisions, and did so while threatening the town with destruction if they did not come correct. Instead, the Americans assembled a militia. 

The Brits had already been chased from Boston by militia before, and had even been kicked out of neighboring Marshfield. They wanted no part of coming ashore under fire, especially fire from strange country people who had to shoot their own food a lot.

The British left, but promised to return. Eventually, the militia left. The British, most likely via a spy from somewhat loyalist Marshfield, became aware that the militia had dispersed. They dispatched a warship- La Hogue- to punish Scituate for all that Get Lost stuff earlier in the summer.

The first people in Scituate to become aware of the raid were the people who lived at what is now called Old Scituate Light. To make matters worse, the lighthouse keeper was away at the time. This left the problem in the hands of Abigail and Rebecca Bates, the daughters of the lighthouse keeper.

The girls were in a tough spot. They lived in the lighthouse, which was invaluable to local shipping and would most likely be the first thing that the Limey Poofters would torch once they got the matches out. Rebecca and Abigail would also be the first girls that 200 marauding sailors had seen after months and maybe years at sea, which is a good thing if you are Jasmine St. Clair and a bad thing for the rest of the world.

Rebecca and Abigail then had what must have been the coolest teen girl conversation ever, and decided that this less musical British Invasion would be getting no further than them. They needed a plan, and they thought up a doozy.

The girls grabbed a fife and drum, hid behind the dunes, and started making a racket. I could not ascertain which girl played which instrument, but I do know that they played Yankee Doodle over and over. Other than a peek over the top of the dunes now and then, they stuck with their plan and hoped for the best.

As the British got closer, they could hear the sound of the girls' music over the waves. Fife and drums meant "militia," and militia changed the game for John Bull. Landing boats on a rocky shoreline while hillbillies hidden in the hills and shot at them sounded very much like the setup for another Bunker Hill. The British turned the boats around, and Scituate was saved.

War stories sometimes get overblown, especially in towns where there are a lot of fishermen. However, at least one of the girls lived to old age, and would tell her story to anyone who gave her a dime. It is tough to argue with a living, breathing Primary Source, especially when the journals of some of the British officers on La Hogue mention an aborted raid on Scituate.

Alvin York captured a German machine gun nest pretty much by himself, but he had a machine gun and even a tank if you ignore history and just go by what the movies showed. He took out 132 Germans. Rambo, at the end of his Burma adventures, had killed 81 people with a number of weapons that included a big machine gun. Scarface killed 16 in his final scene, using a machine gun and a rocket launcher. John Wick is up to 128 murders, but it took him 3 movies to do so and they killed his dog first.

They were wimps.

Holding no plot armor at all, the Bates sisters stepped up to 200 (the numbers are sketchy, and I made up 200 based on scholarship of a similar raid in the same war on nearby Wareham) British marines, no worries. They chose tactics that were mirrored by the rebels in the Civil War, the Chinese in the Korean War and the Vietcong during the Vietnam War. The Bates sisters ended the day in possession of the battlefield. They have a sign to prove it.

The Bates sisters should be far, far more famous than they are. 

The big names to come out of that war were Francis Scott Key, who wrote the Star Spangled Banner, and Andrew Jackson. Key never lifted a finger to defend America, and his poem is still sung before every sporting event. Jackson, who defended New Orleans with 5700 men, later became President, and is still sort of on our $20 bill.

Rebecca and Abigail grew old in obscurity, and most likely died in poverty. They deserve a movie, although Hollywood would probably have cast the Olsen Twins as them, or had the Bates sisters shooting M-16s and karate kicking three Brits in the face at once. The real story, which is equally remarkable, has faded into myth. It's how the world spins, kids, and don't hate the messenger.

Still, if you yourself ever get into a tough jam and need some inspiration, perhaps spare a thought to the odds faced by the Bates sisters, and the sheer sit-on-your-own-balls audacity of the action that they took to save Scituate.