Hanging on to What We GotJun 17, 2009
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The Army Cares for Its Own
History Lesson
Good thing She is short!
| Hurrah! For the Red, White and Blue!! Yorktown Battlefield, VA. As you can see, Fort Monroe takes good care of its wildlife! The Yorktown Battlefield is remarkably well preserved for being earthwork defenses. A National Park Ranger takes you on a tour of the area pointing out the natural and manmade defenses and describing the battle as it took place in 1781 between the Colonists and the British. It is the battle that turned the tide of the war. The French had recently sided with the Colonists since they had been fighting the English for seven years. Their fleet had just turned back a fleet of ships that were on their way with supplies for Yorktown and their army of 17,000 was marching south with Gen. Washington. Cornwallis fortified Yorktown with earthen embankments. Gen. Washington set up a siege line around Cornwallis’ defenses. During the night his men dug a siege trench, then bombarded Cornwallis. A couple nights later they dug another trench beyond their first, managed to take out 2 redoubts at one end, and the next morning Cornwallis decided he was in too deep a fix and had better surrender. So, 2 senior officers from each side met in the nearby Moore House and hammered out the surrender terms, which were not very favorable to Cornwallis. And, it was the beginning of the end of the Revolution. It took a couple more years before the British finally went home and left us to our own devices. Unbeknownst to the protagonists at Yorktown that week, the British had lost a major battle up north a few days before the battle of Yorktown which also helped expedite the beginning of the end for the British. The battlefield today is pretty well intact – except for damage done during the Civil War when it was used again to host a battle between the North and the South. A National Parks Visitors Center/Museum has been built in one of the sheltered areas. A Park Ranger conducts tours of the battlefield giving a very good explanation of the lay of the land and how it played a part in the tactics of the opposing sides. It is a beautiful area and you can almost picture the armies going about their duties |
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