Extreme Field Trip Day Three: Yorktown

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Day three of our field trip finds us at the Yorktown Victory Center. Here we find an indoor gallery exhibit and outdoors, a re-created Continental Army encampment, where historical interpreters describe and depict daily life of American soldiers at the end of the war. A re-created 1780s farm, complete with a house, kitchen, tobacco barn, crop fields, and herb and vegetable garden, shows how many Americans lived during the Revolutionary era.

On October 19, 1781, the decisive military campaign of the American Revolution culminated with the British surrender to combined American and French forces under the command of George Washington. The Siege of Yorktown effectively ended the six-year struggle of the Revolutionary War and set the stage for a new government and nation.

Here are some pictures from the camp. As you can see, Ben enjoyed dressing up in the military uniform :). The first single tent you see is where the soldiers (privates) slept 6 to a tent, on the ground. These tents are about the size of our 2-person pup tent Ben plays in at home. The other tents are of the officers, secretary, camp Dr. and other important men.

One of the most enjoyable parts for me was visiting with the camp Dr. He did a great job of telling us about the common diseases and injuries of the time, and how they were treated. The top 3 diseases were dysentery (flux), typhoid, and malaria. Interestingly, small pox was almost unheard of in General Washington’s army because the soldiers were all inoculated. How were they inoculated, you ask? Well, they cut a slit in one of the sores of a person recovering from small pox, and ran a thread through the sore. Then they cut a slit in the arm of the person to be inoculated, and ran the thread from the ill man through the slit. Crazy, huh? Well, not in the 18th century. This practice prevented a wide-scale small pox epidemic in General Washington’s army.

It was also fun to see how surgery was performed (with a bite stick for pain management, and vinegar for cleaning wounds), primitive forceps or maybe your ungloved finger to dig out the offending musket ball (the most common cause of injury). I also found what medicines and linnaments were used quite amazing. Castor oil was popular to treat diarrhea (lets just speed up the process and get it all cleaned out!), and a salve made with sulfur was used for “the itch” (scabies), which everyone had in these living conditions. Can you imagine the smells?

After visiting the Dr., we headed over for a canon demonstration, where was able to participate by “measuring the angle.”

Our final stop in Yorktown was at the farm. Here we found a beautiful garden, tobacco barn, kitchen, and free-range chickens and turkeys. We even got to taste one of the beans growing in the garden and it was yummy!

As we were leaving, we drove through historic Yorktown, which is very beautiful. There’s a gorgeous beach on the river, where many families were having a great time. We also spotted Victory Monument.