Battle of Yorktown

On Saturday Amy and I headed east on I-64.  For veterans day weekend all National Parks that normally charge admission were free to enter.  Incidentally I think it is a wonderful program.  The National Park system in this country is amazing, and I don't really begrudge them entrance fees (it should mean lower taxes, ;-)), but encouraging people to visit with free days is a wonderful idea.  I think it will encourage many local people to visit parks they might otherwise normally ignore due to their closeness.

We started off the day at the Yorktown Battlefield.  It had been many years since I'd been to a battlefield, and all those I've been to were from the Civil War (or as those who grew up in my wife's state might say, the War of Northern Aggression, ;-)).  I was quite eager to explore the battlefield, and we ended up spending more time there than Amy thought we would.  We started out with a tour through the visitor's center and its exhibits.  They have several artifacts from Washington's campaign tent and a 1/4 scale replica of part the HMS Charon, one of Cornwallis' ships that was sunk during the battle.

We bought an indispensable guide before we started out on the driving tour:

An audio tour of the 7-mile Battlefield Auto Tour Road is available for purchase in the sales shop. The cost of the audio tour is $4.95 for CD. It takes one hour and 15 minutes to complete.

If you're going to Yorktown then this is definitely worth the investment.  It was informative and filled in much information about each stop on the tour (despite a few annoying "come to a complete stop at the stop sign" instructions).  It also let you know every turn that you needed to take along the route.  Along with this, the map, and the signs (left) it would have been quite difficult to get lost.

We started out learning about the first allied siege lines, which were started under cover of rain clouds--which also made the digging much easier.

The "Grand French Battery" stood at one end of the line and ended up being one of the chief sources of the shells that pounded the British over the ensuing siege.

Soon after these first lines were established the troops started working on getting more trenches dug and earthworks erected even closer to the British Lines.

One of the crucial steps involved in setting up this second set of defenses were the taking of two outlying British fortifications, redoubts 9 and 10.  One was taken by a group of 400 crack French troops and the other by 400 veteran Americans.

The tour next took us into the woods where we saw the former location of the American supply depot, the Deposit.

Terrain was a key component of the battle.

I thought it was fascinating that this pond was in existence when the battle was fought:

We next took a slight detour (not from the tour, but from the fairly direct path up to this point) to drive to the Moore House.  This was where the surrender negotiations took place.  Apparently it is open some of the time, but wasn't the day we visited.  The Americans insisted on rather strict terms, that the British weren't allowed full military honors.  This was largely in retaliation for an American surrender earlier in the year at Charleston where they weren't accorded full honors by the British.

The fall scenery was really beautiful along the route.

And I enjoyed the plethora of signs, :-).

Though the visitor's center does provide a nice brochure, and we had the audio tour, I think we would have gotten a good amount of information even if we had only read the signs.

Over the course of the day we learned about how the fortifications were constructed, using wooden supports of various types to keep the earthenworks in position.  I imagine that it must have been difficult to move each gun into position, especially those siege guns that weren't on wheeled carriages.

As the sign at the left indicates, "Washington described in his diary the work done behind the scenes prior to the construction fo the First Allied Siege Line: 'Much diligence was used in debarking and transporting the Stores, Cannon, & Ca. from Trebells Landing (distant 6 Miles) on James River.  To camp; which for want of Teams went on heavily and in preparing Fascines, GAbions & ca. for the Siege...' "

Surrender Field was the last stop.  We could have continued onto a wider tour of the allied fortifications, but while some sources indicated there was an audio tour for this section, I never saw it.  We also knew that we wanted to see the rest of Jamestowne and a bit of Williamsburg before the end of the day.  Therefore it seemed as though this was the best place to end the tour before we drove off.  There was a a structure overlooking the field, where we could push a button to listen to a narration that explained about that day so many years ago.

Here is a video of the end of that narration and some views of the field itself:


~Matt