American Revolution Museum at Yorktown Part II

A continuation of yesterpost...

After visiting the indoor exhibits of the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown, we went outside. The two outdoor areas are the Continental Army Encampment and the Revolutionary-era Farm. Our first stop was the encampment since it was between the museum and the farm.

Just barely fortified encampment

The encampment has several tents for the soldiers. Nearby is the camp kitchen, a small earthen mound with cutouts for each tent to cook food. The person in charge of food dispensed rations for each tent and one of the tent's occupants had to cook the food for his tentmates. This arrangement kept fires from spreading in the sleeping area.

Kitchen for camp

An individual tent's fire

Barrels of supplies

A nearby laundry offered services for soldiers not interesting in washing their own clothes.

Laundry

The reenactors occasionally demonstrate firing muskets and cannons but we did not time our visit right. We proceeded to the Revolutionary-era farm.

Approaching the farm

The farmhouse was relatively large and well-to-do, with two rooms downstairs and an upstairs for storage and the children to sleep.

The main house

The bedroom

A busy desk

A few steps away is the kitchen, a separate building. Much like the encampment kitchen, this kitchen is separate to prevent fires in the sleeping area. Also, it keeps the house cooler in the summer.

Kitchen

Kitchen fireplace

Herbs drying

The kitchen includes a food safe. The safe is a spot to protect freshly-cooked food from flies and crawling bugs.

Food safe

Just outside the kitchen is a food garden. Since we visited in February, not much was growing.

Garden

Plants far from harvesting

An open-air workshop is ready to use. Without nearby neighbors, the farmer has no need to lock the garage!

Workshop

A sample slave quarters is also on this farm.

Slave quarters

Inside the slave quarters

A penned-in yard has chickens.

Chickens hanging out

Tobacco was the first cash crop (before cotton became more lucrative thanks to Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin invented in 1793). Tobacco barns were made to dry the leaves before they were sold or shipped out.

Tobacco drying

This museum has a nice blend of information, interaction, and entertainment. We enjoyed our visit.

American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, Part I

The American Revolution Museum at Yorktown is a privately-run museum about the American Revolution in general and the Battle of Yorktown in particular. The parking lot features flags from the original colonies as well as the belligerents in the Battle of Yorktown (the Americans, the British, and the French).

Colonial Flags

National flags

Museum entrance

The museum has a copy of Winged Victory, a famous Greek statue from the Hellenistic period depicting Nike, the goddess of victory. The original is on display at the Louvre in Paris.

Winged Victory

When we visited, the special exhibition gallery had a display on The Forgotten Soldier. The exhibit looks at the lives of Africans or descendants of Africans during the Revolutionary War period.

One display shows an engraving of the Boston Massacre made by Paul Revere. One of the three colonists who died was Crispus Attucks, a former slave then working as a sailor.

Crispus Attucks display

Closeup of the wounded man

Another display shows items found by archeologists excavating a slave quarters. Included are a shoe buckle, a plate, a bone comb, and half of a Spanish silver coin. They are all objects owned by both slaves and free people.

Items on display

Many groups of enslaved residents petitioned the Massachusetts government to free them, since slavery is incompatible with the freedom that was being fought for. The below petition was signed by Prince Hall in 1777. Slavery was not abolished in Massachusetts until 1783.

Petition for freedom

Another exhibit has a statue of Patrick Henry made by Lawrence Sully in 1795. Henry was famous for his "give me Liberty or give me death" speech at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia, on March 23, 1775.

Patrick Henry

The colonies traded with Europe, developing many industries and selling their products abroad.

Colony-crafted commodities

Many iron forges (including the ones at Valley Forge) provided raw materials for construction and local industries, as well as shipping back to the Old World.

Working in iron

One of the colonial protests was over stamps that had to be affixed to documents, effectively taxing the written word. My daughter tried out stamping a document. It's not as easy as it looks.

Stamping a book

Half a stamp meant half a tax?

King George III was not happy with the behavior of the colonies. The British had just financed the French and Indian War and expected the colonies to pay their due for their protection. The colonists did not feel the same way.

The king looking at the colonists

A life-sized diorama shows entrenched American and French forces repelling a British charge!

Defenders under cover

Redcoats not faring well

One hall is dedicated to the Declaration of Independence. Inside, Thomas Jefferson looks on his iconic work. The statue was made for the opening of the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Virginia, in 1895 by Edward Virginius Valentine.

Thomas Jefferson, looking stately

The exhibit also includes several weapons from the war.

Replicas of British uniforms and weapons

Cavalry equipment

In the back of the gallery, displays of different homes and outfits are found.

A middle-class home

An upper-class home

Clothing for women, children, and dolls

A fun interactive exhibit lets visitors answer questions to discover what sort of person they would be during the War for Independence.

Who was I?

The USS Raleigh was one of the thirteen original ships commissioned by the colonial government. It served the colonies well until it was grounded in 1778; the captain and crew abandoned the ship. The British were able to free the ship and relaunch it as HMS Raleigh. It was part of the fleet that captured Charleston, South Carolina.

USS/HMS Raleigh

The museum has a replica of a French siege gun used at Yorktown. The French army had 16- and 24-pound siege guns that blasted the British defenses at Yorktown. The gun was difficult to move because of its size and weight.

French siege gun

A highlight of the museum is a film about the Siege at Yorktown. The movie has an extra wide screen and simulates wind and smoke with blowing fans and mist machines. The enhancements give a heightened experience of what it was like for the Americans and French to capture two of the defensive redoubts in hand-to-hand combat on the night of October 14.

Not coming to a theater near you

The next part of the exhibit is a display on the Treaty of Paris which officially ended the war between the American colonies and the United Kingdom.

Treaty of Paris results

A nearby interactive table lets visitors refight various battles by changing formations of troops and tactics of the commanders. The idea is interesting but the execution is a little clunky. I am not sure what they were trying to convey, other than having another bit of fun technology in the museum.

Fighting the Battle of Cowpens

We then headed outside to the outdoor exhibits, the topic of our next post!

Yorktown Battlefield, Virginia--Part II

A continuation of yesterpost...

We went outside and did a driving tour of the Yorktown battlefield. Our first stop was the British Inner Defense Line, just outside the parking area for the visitor center.

Earthenworks created by the British to defend Yorktown

Further out is the Grand French Battery, part of the initial lines surrounding Yorktown.

French part of the battlefield

A bridge into the French area

Some of the guns are still outdoors. Field guns had a lower trajectory and were used to smash through enemy earthworks. During a battle, they could be loaded with grapeshot and fired at troops. Mortars shot explosive shells at high angles. The intent was to drop the bomb behind enemy fortifications for maximal damage. Howitzers fired lower velocity bombs at medium or high angles. The bombs would often bounce on the ground and go just over the earthworks to hit the troops just behind the defenses.

Mortar, howitzer, and field gun

Looking down the barrel!

View to Yorktown (not very visible, even in good weather)

Map of the battlefield

Next, we drove to where Redoubts #9 and #10 were located. The spots still have fortifications, though the #10 is so close to the river that it is fenced off. It does have a nice plaque commemorating the daring night attack on the redoubt by Alexander Hamilton and the Americans, armed with unloaded muskets and fixed bayonets.

By the English defenses

Americans storm Redoubt #10!

Redoubt #10

Plaque in the sidewalk

Closeup of the redoubt

Nearby is the Moore House, where representatives from both sides met to work out the surrender agreement. They negotiated terms of surrender which Washington altered slightly. The British wanted war honors, where they could march out with their battalion's flags unfurled and playing American songs in honor of the enemy's victory. Such honors were not accorded to the Americans at the siege of Charlestown, South Carolina. Washington wrote, "The same honors will be granted to the surrendering army as granted to the garrison of Charlestown." What goes around, comes around.

The farm was owned by Augustine Moore, who probably fled to Richmond with his family during the siege. The house changed hands a few times. During the American Civil War, the house (with its nice view of the York River) sustained considerable damage from shell fire and from soldiers in need of some wood for fires. The house was restored in 1881 for the centennial anniversary of the Yorktown battle.

Moore House with outer buildings

The Well

The front of the house

The privy and icehouse?

Back of the house

We didn't go to the surrender field or on the encampment tour (both driving). The kids were getting a little bored and (more importantly) hungry. Maybe next time!