THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 



509 



One of these, Levi Oakes, was the youngest son of a 

 family that furnished five sons for the Revolutionary 

 War. It is said that the mother, being left a widow during 

 the war, applied for the release of one of her sons, 

 that she might have some one to help her in her bereave- 

 ment. 



In December of 1780 there were nine more men to be 

 procured to serve in the Continental army "for three 

 years or during the present war " ; but there is no men- 

 tion of success in getting them, nor can any government 

 rolls be found telling who the men were. 



The next year, 1781, in August, seven more soldiers 

 were requested to be sent to Rhode Island ; for along the 

 coast of Connecticut the traitor Benedict Arnold was now 

 leading a British force to harass the patriots, foolishly 

 thinking to draw Washington from his great stratagem in 

 cornering Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. 



But the great strategist, our beloved Washington, was 

 already upon the enemy ; before the end of September 

 the Continental army with its French allies had sur- 

 rounded Cornwallis upon that peninsula and had sprung 

 the mousetrap. Cornwallis and his powerful army of 

 British soldiers were helpless. On October 19 the 

 British general placed his sword into the hand of Gen. 

 Benjamin Lincoln of Hingham, and the army marched 

 through our ranks — prisoners ! 



The long, weary struggle was ended. With heavy bur- 

 dens of debt, families broken by the war, and industries 

 paralyzed, our town began its life under a free flag. The 

 story of its recuperation is more agreeable than the sor- 

 rows of its long war period ; but we need never to be 

 ashamed of the long, suffering patriotism of our town 

 that sent more than one hundred and twenty men from 

 its population of one hundred and sixty-five polls into the 

 ranks of that glorious war. 



