October 20, 2006

We made another trip over to Yorktown on Saturday, accompanied by our friend Erica. This time we got to take the tour of the Godspeed. Pretty little "life size" reconstruction. The photo here pretty well says it all. Can you imagine crossing the Atlantic in this tub, crammed down in the hold with all the makings of a colony including the pigs and chickens. The crossing took almost 5 months.

After the tour we went up to the area around the National Park visitor center. I was prepared to see vendors there, but not quite the variety I saw. I know that I certainly had no idea that there were so many little businesses that cater to historical re-enactors. Old fashioned clothes for sale. Tailors that would make them for you. Bulk cloth, yarn, etc. Shoes. Hats. All of it for both men and women. Assorted weaponry, both personal and to service artillery.

I realize that it doesn't take much to fill the little market area they had, but I have to assume these people are set up to follow the reenactments around, battle to battle, and presumably war-to-war as this was (mostly) Revolutionary stuff. (I saw a couple of costumes that I think would have more in place in, say, 1870 rather than 1780.)

Just as we got up there, too, the troops were assembling in their ranks. "Hey, a British Major General is going to come by an inspect us in a couple minutes." "Yeah? Which one is he playing?" "No! A real British Major General!"

The one really dissonant item is that all the reienactors are about twice the age of the real soldiers back then. Joseph Plumb Martin, who I quoted repeatedly in the history of the siege, was 21 years old when he arrived in Yorktown, and had been in the army for 5 years.

We topped of our day by returning to the modern setting of VIMS, and the annual pig roast. These parties at VIMS take place inside the reconstructed Civil War fort, which more or less sits on top of the site of Banistre Tarleton's encampment, yards from the old Gloucester Town. Remnants of the settlements turn up here every time someone digs a new foundation. I wonder down there some times, how many British, French, and American dead lie under our feet? For all I know some of them rest, even now, in my front yard.