The Redcoat Shot Me

When I was a small child, and nightmares were still a part of my life, I was plagued by a specific reoccurring nightmare. I had this nightmare several times a year, and it was so detailed and so familiar to me that whenever it started in my head I would think, “Oh no, here we go again.” But I was powerless to refuse it.

The dream would start with me standing in the center of a dirt road, with fields all around it. The road stretched far into the distance in front of me, and down it, I could see an army marching up the road. They marched in troop formations, at a slow, deliberate pace, with drums and whistles. The soldiers were so far away that they were the size of ants, but I felt dread wash over me upon seeing them coming closer.

I knew that they were coming to kill me.

I panicked, and could only think to hide. If I hid, they wouldn’t find me. I turned and ran toward a house, a large house, with a large staircase and many rooms inside. Other people were in there, running around and also trying to hide. Some were screaming and crying – clearly I wasn’t the only household member afraid to die at the hands of the advancing troops.

No matter what room I went into, I could never find a hiding spot that satisfied me. I knew that the soldiers would search the house, and there was nowhere I could hide that they wouldn’t think to look. Besides, I felt cornered in the house. It would be smarter to hide outside, where I had room to run.

I left the house from the back door. By this point, the troops were nearly up to the house. They were clearly visible now on the road, and I could see their shiny red coats and their guns. Bayonets.

I ran up the road and, following two other individuals, we ran into a copse of trees and up a small hill on the side of the road. We crouched down behind the tree trunks, and went quiet.

Eventually I could hear the soldiers passing below us on the road. Curious, and foolish, I peeked out from my tree. I could see their shiny red coats passing the tree trunks lining the dirt.

Somehow, I made a sound, perhaps a rock falling or a branch snapping. The sound alerted a passing soldier, who stopped midstride and looked up the hill, straight at me.

I froze, wide eyed.

He yelled at me. He lifted his musket and took aim.

There was a loud noise.

And the dream went black.

As a child, I would wake up in a sweat, and be quite grumpy the next day from the stress of this dream, for there was a lot of running around and agony over getting shot. I had this dream so much, that even as I ran around trying to hide, my head KNEW I was going to get shot anyway. The dream always started with me in the road, and the dream always ended with me getting shot by the redcoat soldier in the trees.

I had zero control over the dream’s outcome. Frustrating!

I often wondered why I had this reoccurring nightmare. It was so specific, and the time period of it was odd. I didn’t know about the Revolutionary War until I entered school – this dream I had as soon as I was old enough to remember my dreams and nightmares upon waking. Somehow, I had dreamed about redcoat soldiers before learning about them!

Now that I am older, I think this reoccurring dream was my remembrance of my most recent past-life. They say that children can sometimes remember their past-lives for a short time, often forgetting it as they grow older.

So here is what I have gathered about my most recent past-life based on this reoccurring dream.

I was a young girl living or working at a farm during the revolutionary war time. The house was of a good size, definitely not a poor farm, but neither was it a large operation. There were quite a few servants and individuals who called the farm home. In the dream, I was wearing a skirt, and I think I was a female as well because I was more inclined to hide – if I had been a man I would have been more conditioned to fight back or engage the redcoat troops. My reaction to hide and my mindset was very adolescent, not very mature. I think I was in my early teens when I died. I’m not really sure if I was a family member or just a house servant, but I was very familiar with the house and its rooms. The fact my first instinct was to hide in there makes me think I lived in the house.

While I can still remember the details of this dream to this day, I did stop having it after I got a little older. There came a time where I found myself standing in the road, watching the redcoat arming coming, and I thought to myself, “No. I do not want to do this. I am done with this.” And I left the dream, to wander in my subconscious to another, less stressful REM-adventure. I stopped obsessing over my previous death. And I never had that particular dream, of being shot by a redcoat soldier, ever again.

She had an abrupt death to be sure, and a very short life span. I wish I knew her name; it would be interesting to research and see if I could find any records. But alas, I have no other details to provide.

So far, I have written of 3 past lives that I know of: the boy, the drowned woman, and now the revolutionary girl. All of them interesting people who I do not regret having once been, as they seem to have lived ordinary lives as decent people of very few evils. If I met any of them today, I would be happy to shake their hand in welcome.

I have one more past life to share. My next post will be the story of one of my more intense and regrettable past lives, whom I name, “The General.”

– Ruth H. Curry