This week we took a time off from our usual history studies to focus on "Yorktown" through Colonial Williamsburg's award winning Electronic Field Trip series.  I have been yearning to have my kids partake in these for years, but the expense made them cost prohibitive.  They are now made affordable to homeschoolers by homeschool buyer's co-op. 

     Yorktown was the last major battle of the American Revolution.  Numerous events miraculously fell into place for the badly beleaguered Continental Army to finally become victorious.  Over the course of six years, this was only the second major defeat of the British (the first being Saratoga), but it was enough to cause England to withdraw from efforts to dominate America.  Within the next two years, King George III finally recognized America as being "...free, sovereign and indepedent states."

     One of the story lines was about Lt. Col. John Laurens who not only helped to capture Redoubt 10 at Yorktown, but also negotiated the terms of surrender with the British.  Laurens' story on the screen piqued our curiousity, so we dug deeper to discover more about this fascinating indivudual who fought for liberty for all, even slaves. His personal story came to the surrender table and, following General Washington's orders, he firmly resisted British pleas to lighten the terms of surrender.  Washington strictly ordered that as the British dishonored General Lincoln in Charleston in 1780, so would the British be treated the same at this surrender ceremony.  Denied the honors of war, they could neither fly their flags nor play a song of the victor. The kids and I agreed this was contrary to our way of thinking.  We cannot imagine a conquered group wanting to play a song of the victor.  As I told the kids, we have to put ourselves into their shoes.  For the conquered, to play the music of the victor is a sign that they fought honorably.    

     Col. Laurens spoke some French in the movie and that intrigued us.  Why would an American officer speak French?  Further research answered this question and helped us to more fully understand his story.  Since we don't speak French, we felt we were missing out on that part of the story. Therefore we went through the script and found the French parts.  I had the kids look for words they recognized that relate to English, like "courage".  Other words are similar to the Latin we are now studying. My son recognized one word immediately, "hommes" which was also part of the name of John Paul Jones' ship, he reminded us.  My daughter knew the actual meaning from her Latin. The rest we put through a French/English translator.  This was not easy but it was fun. We were surprised by the translations!  It definitely brought more meaning to our understanding of the story.     

     The on-line activities provided at the EFT website were enjoyed by my kids.  One, in particular, assigned them the duty to become an amabassador and tour Europe seeking aid for the American cause.  That was not as easy as it sounded.  They were sent back a few times to seek more aid. They were quickly feeling the fatigue of the real life ambassadors they had studied.

 There was also an interactive timeline of events leading up to Yorktown.  

     The Teacher Resources included informative diagrams on how earthworks were built, by means of gabions and fascines.  There were also diagrams of the inside of a cannon and how it was loaded to fire.  We have been to numerous cannon loading and firing demonstrations on our trips to Virginia.  The diagrams clarified, for me anyway, the precise process. 

     Additionally, there were diagrams of the 4 types of artillery used and their differences in trajectory, mobility and type of shot.  This has prompted much discussion around here.  In fact, my husband shakes his head in disbelief at what we have learned about artillery!

     Of course artillery is right up my son's alley, a real guy's topic.  My daughter and I, who are girlie-girls, were surprisingly able to get into this topic as well, because of the positively engaging field trip!  While evaluating the different types of artillery, many questions arose.  We did some extra digging for details at some extra websites.  Since my kids had the opportunity to e-mail General George Washington this week, they decided to ask him for burning details!

     My son was insistent that bombs could be shot from a field cannon which has a straight trajectory.  I figured they could, but I didn't think it was practical.  Not satisfied with my explanation, he e-mailed General Washington about it that night. In the morning my son asked if I had checked the e-mail yet and had General Washington replied?  Well, no.  I told him that the general was an hour ahead of us and probably was thinking about bed the night before.  My son piped up and said the general might have e-mailed early this morning.  I suggested he let the general eat his breakfast first!  It wasn't even 7am our time!  Shortly before the morning's live broadcast of "Yorktown", the e-mail to my son arrived!  General Washington seemed a bit surprised at the idea of using a bomb in a field cannon.  The trajectory is all wrong to use it effectively.  Of course he was extremely patient and polite in his explanation, which he signed, "Your most obedient servant, G. Washington."  Thank you General Washington for answering my son's imaginative question!

     Wed night my daughter e-mailed General Washington "What were the advantages you had with the field and garrison cannons, as opposed to the howitzer and the mortar?  Which ones were often preferred for use in battle?"  After the morning's EFT live broadcast, we found the reply in the e-mail and we were pleasingly surprised!  General Washington wrote an entire page to answer her questions in fascinating detail.  Thank you General Washington for taking the time to answer her questions so completely!  I gave each of my kids printed copies of their e-mails for souvenirs. My kids were elated to have had this exchange from the busy general, whom they got to meet a few months ago!  

     Over lunch, we started talking about artillery.  (Doesn't everyone?)  My son was still asking questions about all the various possibilities of how bombs could be used in the 18th century, none of which were practically done. It finally dawned on me that my son is approaching this like a 21st century boy who has lots of time and imagination to fiddle with all of the possibilities of an item, because he lives in a free society and doesn't have to worry about an enemy marching down our street and pillaging our home.  I told him that warfare is life or death.  The soldiers use proven methods. They look at their objectives and use the means that will attain the best possibility of arriving at their goals with the least amount of work in the shortest amount of time.  (This sort of made sense to him, due to all of the GA Henty books we read.)  We went through what seemed a million scenarios for him to figure this out. Through this discourse, I also realized he kept thinking of a bomb as a missile.  Once I mentioned that, everything seemed to fall into place for him. Whew!  By George, I think he's got it now! 

     This week, we've listened to Colonial Williamsburg podcasts from different people involved in the Battle of Yorktown: General Washington, General Lafayette, James Armistead, and the Rhode Island Regiment. There is also one about when "Yorktown" premiered in October 2006. The podcasts for this week and the next are about how the Colonial Williamsburg blacksmiths are recreating an 18th century 3# cannon.  They even have a special blog about the ongoing process, which my son is avidly reading! 

     The day before the live broadcast, we previewed the "Yorktown" video and watched the Q&As from the 2006 broadcast.  One of our favorite questions answered then was "Why did the British wear red uniforms?"  Col. Laurens gave a fantastic answer that we understood completely.  It goes all the way back to the fierce Spartan soldiers whom the British wanted to emulate.  Even my son  wanted to recreate their fierceness when we studied them a few years ago!

     Before the live presentation of the field trip started, I ran the live stream which had period music from a harpsichord in the background. I played that softly, while I shared some interesting tidbits of information from a recent book I had read, Victory at Yorktown: The Campgaign that Won the Revolution.  The various scenarios prompted lots of discussion and we started digging into other sources until the music ended and the field trip began. 

     This year's Q&A featured Colonel Laurens, a loyalist, a historian from the Yorktown National Park Service, and a historian from Colonial Williamsburg in charge of the African American program.  As in the 2006 program Q&A on the Yorktown website, we not only learned from the excellent answers given, but also thoroughly enjoyed Col. Laurens and the loyalist being respectfully rude to each other!  lol We could easily imagine how they would act if they were real people instead of actors.  Representing different viewpoints of the war, neither one of them liked the other's answers! My kids greatly enjoyed the field trip and I've already called in an order for a DVD.

     My kids each chose a different activity from the Teacher's Guide to work on. There are many from which to choose for various ages and from writing to art.  I wanted my 13yos and 15yod to do a three page writing assignment from the CW EFT.  They each chose the one they liked the best, then worked diligently on it to present to their dad on the weekend.

     We had read 4 different accounts of the Battle of Yorktown, from different points of view.  Using the perspective of one of these accounts, my daughter decided to write a letter to a friend about the seige on Yorktown.  She chose the perspective of a German soldier, who was in the French army, fighting for America.  (Isn't that an interesting combination?!)   Since my daughter already had a colonial dress that she wore for our "American Revolution Celebration" and to Colonial Williamsburg last summer, I suggested that she dress up for the part.  Here she is reenacting the letter writing.  She typed her paper into her computer, changed the font to a fancy script, then we printed it out on parchment.  She began her little skit by finishing the letter with her quill.  Then she read the entire letter aloud to us.  This writing assignment was an excellent challenge for her, since she needed to stay within the parameters of the viewpoint of the Continental Army instead of telling the British viewpoint of being stuck in that defenseless position.  It was also a challenge for her to stay within the 1781 mindset in predicting the impact of Yorktown.  She had some excellent ideas and had fun with the assignment.   She also used some information we learned from Col. Laurens during the Q&A.  She represented "baggage" (what a term) or non-combatants who followed the army to do laundry and cooking.

     My son chose one of the historical figures we had studied during Yorktown.  He had to write a speech about the seige of Yorktown from the perspective of this person and tell what happened to them after Yorktown.  Then he was to dress up and play the part!  Hmmmm, we do this type of thing all the time, so I wasn't surprised that he picked this activity.  He decided to be the Marquis de Lafayette.  He met Lafayette last summer in Williamsburg. (Lafayette happens to be played by the same actor who played Lt. Col. Laurens.)

     While in Williamsburg, we only got to hear the events of the Marquis' life up to Yorktown.  Now my son had to include perspective during Yorktown.  During our research, we learned that Col. Laurens was under Lafayette's command.  Also we learned that Lafayette made the decision for the method of attack made on redoubt ten. 

     Here is Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. (My son and I both had fun learning how to pronounce that in French.  And yes, we do have it memorized! Can you imagine his mother calling him that when he was in trouble as a little boy? lol)  My son was ecstatic to finally have a General Lafayette costume! He already had parts of the costume from other occasions. While I sewed the vest and coat in the last couple of days, he worked industriously on his speech. He described Lafayette's involvement and impressions at Yorktown.  Then he told about his life afterwards during the French Revolution, the era of Napoleon and his Grand Tour of America. Then he finished with what America and independence meant to him.

     They finished their presentation with a joint Q&A session where they went into more detail about artillery, fortifications and anything else enquiring minds might want to know. Actually, one question my husband asked we could have never answered had it not been for Col. Laurens answering the very same question during the live broadcast's Q&A.  How high can earthworks be?  During the course of explaining the method and importance of cleaning out a cannon before loading, we got a new question.  How does one safely load hot shot into a cannon?  We can't e-mail General Washington, as he is no longer available.  But my son can load that question onto the Yorktown message board where it will be answered by a CW historian. 

     While answering questions, they used illustrations from some of their sources.  The binder in the top left of the photo has all of the CW EFT resources provided for "Yorktown."

     Because of this electronic field trip, I think our Yorktown experience has almost come full circle. Four years ago we had been to the Yorktown Victory Center, which is a hands-on area for kids (young and old) next door to the actual battlefield. 

     When we were in Williamsburg last summer, I had suggested that we see the actual battlefield. Two weeks go quickly when a wish list is long, and my children simply could not imagine a day at a battlefield where nothing was happening. They thought it would be boring, so we did not go.  Since then, I have been looking for something to give us enough background information to make a future trip to Yorktown interesting for them.  Well, this EFT on Yorktown was the ticket!  Hopefully we can make a future trip back to Yorktown (and Colonial Williamsburg).  While walking the quiet fields of Yorktown, I trust that we will be able to look upon the cannons, seige lines and earthworks that are still in place (albeit some from the Civil War) and have some imagination recreating the historic events in our minds.  Until then, we are thankful for these Electronic Field Trips from Colonial Williamsburg which boost our knowledge and imaginations!  Huzzah!