Yorktown VA to.... Yorktown VA
We spent the overnight in the Anchorage just east of Yorktown in front of the monument shown yesterday on my blog.
Today we moved over to the marina so we could get our bikes off and do some exploring of the area, and so that we could avoid the wind that is coming from the Northeast.
We are getting bounced around fairly good even in the protected section of the marina. I'm glad we have concrete knocking the waves down on the other side of the dock.
The river here moves pretty fast either in or out depending on tide. It's also really deep. The water under my boat is greater than 50 ft deep in the marina. I've never been in a marina in such deep water....
Total distance in the boat.... 0.3 miles...
We did many more miles on the bikes, however... It's good to have my e-bike back working so we can explore places that we visit.
The first place we visited today was the Revolutionary War Museum.
It is a worthwhile tour if you're ever in the area. There were many things I did not understand about the interactions of England and the colonies prior to the war. It was also interesting to see the internal dynamics at play in our country.
I, for one, didn't realize how many native Americans and African Americans fought for England under the promise they would be treated better. Its sad to see that neither side really treated either group well.
There is far too much detail to the timeline to blog about but suffice it to say it was way more complicated than our history books tell us. It was also interesting to realize how long the war went on. When we celebrate Independence on July 4 we look back to 1776 but the Revolutionary War didn't end until September 3, 1783. Within a year of that ending the majority of the states had already banned slavery. Of course some states did not and we fought another war almost 80 years later over that subject.
I'm sure I heard it in history classes but I didn't realize the details of the first agreement and government put in place in the United States. Washington wasn't elected the first president until 1789. For a number of years the nation really had very little power as a unit and the states had all of the power. Each day kind of ran as it's own little fiefdom....small nations with rules against each other that didn't agree on much.
I also didn't realize the influence France had on our independence. The US forces had been defeated over and over again until France joined them here to defeat the British in Yorktown. Because it was very expensive to defend and or fight with the US eventually the politics in England caused them to bend to our will. It wasn't just fighting that won our freedom. Politics in England made it untenable to continue as it was very unpopular and expensive to fund a war in the colonies in 1776. Much like our wars today are becoming increasingly a problem both in damage to our reputation and in cost to our nation.
Okay enough politics.... Suffice it to say Americans like protest and disagreement. It's almost fitting since we are like that today....
We got to see re-creations of Revolutionary War tents for enlisted men, leaders and senior leaders. They were all tents but not all the same...
We also saw how they cooked
And how they did medical care. The thing that looks like a tire iron in the middle was used to bore a hole in the skull of people who had a head injury and pressure on the brain. Yes.. in 1776. Before knowledge of germs and sterile anything. Believe it or not it has a 40-60% success rate. Wow.
We visited some of the fields where they dug bunkers to fight behind. They are still here..
And visited the graves of some of the American soldiers that died here. Some from the Revolutionary War and some from the Union fighting to free the slaves.
The farms of the age still grew tobacco as a cash crop and hung it to dry before placing it in barrels.
After the revolutionary war museum we visited the Waterman Museum. It was interesting because it was all about boat building and boat history.
The model builder was there who built most of the models in the museum.
We had a great talk together with our mutual love of wood and boats and faith etc. A really nice man who is seriously into models.
Upon return to the boat we cooked ribs on the grill and corn souffle' in the oven. It was awesome.
One thing we are getting used to in this area is seeing military. It seems like there's always a boat going by or a plane flying over with some kind of military insignia. This is the first time I've seen a military hovercraft in person though. These things are pretty cool... They make bigger waves than you think they would though and rocked us each time they went by..
Tomorrow we intend to cross the lower Chesapeake Bay and migrate quite a ways north to Tangier Island.
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