A Loyal Little Red-Coat: A Story of Child-Life, by Fannie Ogden Ide
Reviewed by Stephen Davidson, UE
There are many ways to interact with loyalist history. One can research one’s loyalist ancestors, read loyalist history books, became a historic re-enactor, visit significant landmarks in loyalist history, or read novels dealing with Loyalists.
It would be easy to fill a library shelf with loyalist fiction ranging from Thomas Raddall’s 1942 classic His Majesty’s Yankees to Lawrence Hill’s 2007 The Book of Negroes – as well as dozens more.
Children and young adults also have their own subset of loyalist fiction to enjoy. But what is the oldest book in this genre?
A recent discovery in a local thrift store suggests that the oldest loyalist novel for a younger audience was published in 1890 by Fannie Ogden Ide (1853 -1927). Under the pen name of Ruth Ogden, this New York author contributed stories and poems to magazines of the era as well as writing a number of popular children’s books. Two of these were historical fiction works, acquainting young readers with the events of the American Civil War and the American Revolution.
Ogden’s A Loyal Little Red-Coat: A Story of Child-Life in New York is remarkable for the fact that an American author decided to write a book about the War of Independence from the perspective of a loyalist girl rather than from that of a Patriot boy. Rather than scandalizing the readers of the day, the book was popular enough to be reprinted at least four times, indicating that it was well received.
At a distance of over a century from the events of the American Revolution, Ogden drew on what she described as “those rare and quaint old volumes, carefully treasured by our historical societies, which make possible the faithful recounting of the story of bygone days.” She was quite certain that some of the key incidents that she included in the book were based on actual events, but cautioned her readers that in her “attempt to reproduce the child-life of a time so far removed, I have probably been guilty of some anachronisms“. (Anyone who has attempted to write a historical novel would echo the same sentiments.)
In the 19th chapter of the book, Ogden shares her philosophy of writing historical fiction for children. “Some people think that children’s books ought to be cheery and bright from cover to cover, and so they ought—that is, for the very little children; but when they have gotten beyond the days of rhymes and jingles and colored pictures, and have wit enough and appreciation enough to enjoy a chaptered story, then I, for one, think the stories should be true to life. … Then one certainly does not need to be, say, more than seven years old to get at least an inkling of the truth, that the real things of life are not always bright things.”
However, one needs to remember that Ogden was writing for children raised on Huckleberry Finn, Little Women, and Alice in Wonderland. Her approach to “real things” included neither the gritty the horrific, nor the violent. Her novel had its sad moments when she introduced her young readers to the conditions on prison ships, the cruelty of Patriots toward their loyalist neighbours, and the painful divisions among families at the end of the revolution. If one can imagine the stories of loyalist evacuations told in a Shirley Temple movie of the 1930s, one would get a better feel for the tone of Ogden’s book.
The “loyal little red-coat” of the book’s title is Hazel Boniface, a ten year-old child who lived on the outskirts of New York City in the fall of 1783. When she was born, writes Ogden, “Hazel’s gray eyes first saw the light, and they no sooner saw the light than they saw a wonderful red coat, and just as soon as she was able to understand it, she learned that that red coat belonged to her papa, and that her papa belonged to King George’s army. So, after all, you see it was but natural that she should have been a little Loyalist from the start, and quite to have been expected that she should, grow more and more staunch with every year.” As the girl in the Grimm’s Fairy Tale was known as Little Red Riding Hood for her favourite cloak, Hazel became known in her neighbourhood as “Little Red Coat” for her favourite jacket.
The other characters in the book include Hazel’s 14 year-old Patriot friend Job Starlight, Job’s spinster aunt, Hazel’s parents, two sisters, a Patriot veteran named Harry Avery, a neutral Dutch family, a fictitious British officer, and the very real Alexander Hamilton.
The character who constantly threatens to steal the spotlight from Hazel as one reads the book is Arthur “Flutters” Wainwright, a boy of mixed racial heritage who had run away from home to join a British circus that toured the American colonies. However, Ogden’s references to him are far too racist for the book to be considered reading material for today’s children. The use of terms such as “mulatto”, “savage”, “woolly head”, and “darkey” throughout the book overshadow what could have been important observations, one being: “Hazel had an idea as, sadly enough, many far older and wiser than she had in those days—and, indeed, for long years afterward—that negroes were little better than cattle, and that it was quite right to buy and sell them in the same fashion.”
Contained in 26 chapters, the book’s plot is a series of incidents that trace the decline in Loyalists’ fortunes as British troops prepare to leave New York City. Hazel advocates for a Patriot woman to get her house back from a Loyalist; she and Starlight rescue Flutters from the circus, and put on a show to raise money to buy him clothes. There is a “dancing assembly” at which Hazel’s family is insulted; her father later receives a threatening letter from Patriots and succumbs to a stroke. The children watch the British troops march out of New York. Sustained by a prayer book, Flutters learns his father in England has died and so he remains with the Boniface family as a servant. Hazel’s family leave for England after her older sister marries a Patriot.
No doubt the children who had this book read to them felt some degree of sympathy for the plight of Little Red-Coat and her family, which would have been a major departure from the feelings elicited by most of the era’s books about the American Revolution. Both Patriot and Loyalist/British excesses are described, and the Loyalists are never demonized or belittled for their political beliefs.
Ruth Ogden expressed the hope that if “I have woven a page of history into a story that, by any chance, shall interest the children, for whom it has been a delight to me to write it, I shall be sincerely grateful.”
The fact that her loyalist novel went through at least four printings indicates that it found an audience and was popular in its day. While the political beliefs that divided a nation are treated with objectivity, the novel comes up short by failing to affirm the equality of all peoples, with its repetitions of racist notions of white superiority and its belittlement of people of colour. Helping children recognize that all lives matter is important now more than ever.
Editor’s note:
A Loyal Little Red-Coat: A Story of Child-Life in New York can be read online in its entirety, with its original illustrations, from Gutenberg.org.