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Sun and Rain at Yorktown Battlefield
or, How a casual visitor learns several lessons for the future
by Caroline Miniscule
| The 225th Anniversary of the Victory at Yorktown was celebrated with four days of events, beginning on Thursday, October 19 and ending on Sunday, October 22, 2006. Events consisted of music and entertainment, parades, historical interpreters, thousands of reenactors (civilian and military) in encampments, battle re-enactments, and, on Sunday, a re-enactment of the British surrender. |
Article Links
October 21, 2006, Saturday
October 22, 2006, Sunday
My Photo gallery
The Anniversary events schedule
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I attended for a couple of hours on Saturday and Sunday, and below is my story.
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Saturday, October 21, 2006
I live a little less than ten miles from the town of Yorktown and Yorktown Battlefield...it's a straight shot north from my house on George Washington Memorial Blvd. (US Highway 17).
I hadn't intended to visit the battlefield on this day. The local paper, the Daily Press, had published an itinerary for events called the Waterfront Festival to be held over the course of these four days at Riverwalk Landing, in Yorktown, and I was taking my mother -- hard of hearing and walking -- to see the Tall Ships that were to be docked in the harbor, perhaps listen to a little bit of some singing that was to take place...and that was it. I would return on my own on Sunday to see the events scheduled for the battlefield.
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Demonstration of cannon firing. |
As I got closer and closer to our destination, however, and saw sign after sign along the road proclaiming "Yorktown Event" and "Event Parking" I began to suspect that the people who actually live in Yorktown were going to be cordoned off from any onslaught by visiting cars, and that indeed proved to be the case. The roads leading into the town proper had been blocked off, and cars were directed to park in the large fields on the other side of the road from the Yorktown Visitor Center. From there, visitors would have to walk to downtown (about a ten minute walk) or take the free trolley.
Gabriel Marquez, history buff, age 12. |
My mother and I discussed the situation, and she decided she felt mobile enough to walk around. So we decided that as long as we were at the battlefield, we might as well stay there...and we'd return on Sunday and take the trolley into downtown Yorktown for the Tall Ships.
We walked across the road to see what the crowd there was looking at - it turned out that several field pieces had been strung out in a row, and their gun crews, all in appropriate uniform, ready, willing and able to talk to visitors about their duties on the gun. As we arrived, they were just giving a demonstration of the firing. There were a couple of loud explosions as the cannons went off. A couple of young boys (aged three or four, I think) were taken by surprise and started crying...loudly.
Tip #1
If you're bringing children under the age of seven to an event in which there's going to be any kind of loud noise, make sure you bring ear plugs for them, or hold your hands over their ears at the appropriate moment. |
I started walked along the crowd, trying to find a spot between the people to get some good shots of the cannons and their crews, when I met young Gabriel Marquez. At age 12, he's a Revolutionary War enthusiast, and already knows what he wants to be when he grows up - a military lawyer. He hopes to get into the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). Gabriel was quite an articulate young man: I could tell he was dedicated and ambitious. I always find it a joy to talk to young people who have already "found themselves" and have goals for the future.
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| After I'd finished speaking with Gabriel and his parents, the crowds around the guns had dispersed, as might have been expected. There were now just a very knots of people chatting with the various gun crews, so I walked around taking a few shots. Then I spoke very briefly with Robin Reed and Ed Sanders, two park volunteers manning one of the pieces. Mr. Reed had played the part of a gunner, and Ed Sanders was the #6 man, the man who hands up the round to the #5 man who hands it on to #4 and so on.
The firing of a cannon involved five steps: 1) sponge [sponge dipped in water and then inserted into the cannon barrel to clean it and quench any remaining spark from a previous shot] 2) ram [Insert cartridge and powder and then ram it home] 3) in battery [run the cannon back into position to fire it] 4) point [gunner sights and men aim the barrel according to his orders] and 5) fire [priming powder poured into the vent hole, lanyard is pulled, cannon fires, recoil pushes it backwards.]
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Ed Sanders and Robin Reed |
It was at this point that I began to kick myself mentally. I have a small digital recorder, purchased just for this type of thing -- to interview these types of people -- but I hadn't brought it along because I wasn't expecting to talk to anybody today. I had brought a notebook in which to take notes, but it was simply too time consuming to ask the guys questions and try to write down answers with other people waiting around who wanted to ask their own questions. Anyway, Ed is in charge of the Black Powder Program at Richmond Battlefield...and I apparently didn't ask Robin anything about his park....either that or I didn't write it down.
Tip #2
Bring a digital or tape recorder with you to such events. Even if your interest in a subject is only cursory, why not have a record of what's said so that five, ten, even twenty years later, when you're ready for a walk down nostalgia lane, you can use these voice records as an aide de memoire. Also, if children or friends you meet in later life show an interest in the topic, you can share the recording with them. Always ask if you can record your conversation before you start recording. |
My mother and I then continued to walk toward the Yorktown Visitors' Center building. We were passed in both directions by all kinds of people, including re-enactors in costume - men (and some women) in various uniforms from various countries, and women dressed as civilians, either camp followers or society ladies. Some of them were going to take up their duties at certain points in the grounds, others were returning to the reenactors encampment.
 
On our left, across the road we'd driven in on, I noticed two white tents with lots of cars parked beside them. I'd seen these as I drove past in the other direction, of course. I figured they were tents selling drinks and perhaps food to hungry visitors. It turned out to be not so. On the way back to our car we walked past them on that side, and found out that they were Information tents, handing out brochures and detailed timetables of the events going on for each day. Well...at least now I know what's going to be happening on Sunday....
Wes Stone |
Just a few feet away from the Yorktown Visitors' Center building I stopped at a tent to talk with Wes Stone, a professional "Historical actor and interpreter." Mr. Stone has performed at parks and in other venues for over 20 years. (He also portrays such characters as Edwin Booth; William Yeatman, Lighthouse Keeper; and Robert Mills, Architect.)
His uniform was modeled after that of Alexander Sutherland, a Scottish engineer present at the siege of Yorktown, on the British side. (The British nobility - which of course comprised the officers in the Army, thinking engineering beneath them because it involved working with your hands, hired Scots to be their engineers.) There were three engineers from Scotland at Yorktown.
If I'd been kicking myself about my digital recorder earlier, I was pulling my hair out now. Stone was very knowledgeable, very friendly, ready and able to answer questions...and me with old-fashioned pen and paper that would take forever to use.... His uniform, by the way, was made by G. Gedney Godwin, who makes reproduction uniforms, men's and ladies apparel, weapons, money, and more.
I had started to walk away when another history enthusiast stopped to talk to Mr. Stone and called me back, as he wanted to talk about the methods of site planning that engineers did during this time period, and thought I might be interested also, as indeed I was. (I hadn't even noticed the small easel with the paperwork on it that was on the other side of the tent, until he brought it to my attention.)
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| The two men discussed the history of the engineer in the military. They commented in particular on Vauban (Sébastien Le Prestre, Seigneur de Vauban and later Marquis de Vauban (May 15, 1633 - March 30, 1707)). A Marshal of France, he was "the foremost military engineer of his age, famed for both his skill to design fortifications and to break through them."
They commented on his philosophy that had held true for decades after his death - there's no fortification that someone can't devise that someone else, given enough time, can't penetrate. The trick is to make that penetration so costly that the attempt to do it isn't made. "Armies cost money and they're all owned by one man, the king," to paraphrase Mr. Stone.
The siege of Yorktown was actually a very easy one, made so by Cornwallis' tactical mistakes. I won't go into that here -- see the links below for a detailed history of the Siege of Yorktown.
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Engineer's site plan |
Finally my mother and I walked down the road towards a mass of white tents we could view in the distance, on the way towards the Yorktown Victory Monument. It turned out these tents, set into one very large naturally barricaded area, were commercial enterprises - people selling everything from shoe leather to bolts of cloth to finished uniforms, authors selling and autographing their books - I saw Michael Cecere (In this Time of Extreme Danger: Northern Virgina in the American Revolution and They Are Indeed A Useful Corps: American Riflemen in the Revolutionary War) and James C. Nelson (non-fiction such as Benedict Arnold's Navy and fiction such as The Only Life That Mattered: The Short and Merry Lives of Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Calico Jack ).
Wandering around this area, I saw quite a few little children, both boys and girls, dressed in costume, and hoped this meant that the love of history is alive and well in at least some of the next generation.
There was much more to be seen, but my mother was tired and it time to return to the car and go home.
I've already said that there were two Information tents. We stopped by them as we were walking towards the car. I picked up the elaborate 10-page brochure, printed on glossy paper, which gave a history of the battle, the detailed itineraries for each day, and had a full-paged, simplified map of the city.
I also picked up the brochures from several Walking clubs. People, young and old, have formed clubs to go walking throughout all of Virginia - through battlefields and other historical areas, or just to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the countryside. I picked up flyers from Peninsula Pathfinders of Virginia, Virginia Vagabonds (formerly the Walking Scouts), and the Gator Volksmarch Club ( Charlie.horn2@verizon.net).
One of many groups of tents in the reenactors encampment |
On the way out of the parking lot, we were ordered to turn to the right, in the opposite direction from which we had come. Traffic direction getting into the battleground was excellent: lots of orange-jacketed people waving batons and ordering us where to go. On the way out: No more people. No signs.
I kept on driving...and driving. We soon came to two separate campgrounds on either side of the road, thronged with the white tents of the reenactors, who presumably occupied these overnight for the duration on the event.
Finally, the road I was on ended up at a pair of gates for the U.S. Coast Guard base. The guard there waved me forward - he'd probably been getting cars all the day long. He told me to turn around and gave me directions - something about taking the Moore's road exit. I turned around, I tried to follow his directions (following road directions is not one of my fortès), but ended up on the same road as before, but this time going in the other direction.
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Well, that's the way I'd wanted to go in the first place, so I just kept on going...and other cars were soon behind me. I passed the guy who'd directed me to turn in the other direction, and kept on going, got to my exit to get on Highway 17, and was soon on my way home. There's a Tip there somewhere, but I'm not sure what it is.
Please go to the Sunday, October 22, 2006 conclusion of this artice.
For more photos of reenactors - both horse and foot, see the Photo Page.
Suggested links:
www.britishbattles.com: Battle of Yorktown page.
Yorktown Visitor Center official site.
Revolutionary War Re-enactment groups
www.reenactor.net
Washington Times: Reenactors retrace march to Yorktown
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