Yorktown

After lunch we drove over to Yorktown and moved from the colonial period to the revolutionary period.  The most exciting thing was the cannon demonstration!  We got to look through the encampment and through the soldier's tents and talk to the camp surgeon (all I can say about the surgeon and doctoring in general during the war was EEWWWW!).  The kitchen was dug down into a trench in the dirt to keep the wind from the flames, and keep the flames from the tents.  A hole was dug into the side of the trench, and a chimney was dug from the top.  The pot was set over the chimney to cook whatever food there was (there often was none).

 

While sometimes errant soldiers were punished by being made to wear signs that advertised their offense, most often they were just lashed with a whip if they committed offenses.  We didn't test that out.

 

We then got to check out the Yorktown Tobacco farm, were the living history people actually work the farm and tend the flocks of chickens, turkeys, ducks and guineas.  If the farm was profitable enough, they had a separate kitchen and store house, where the food was kept and smoked, stored and prepared.  It was also where the female slaves slept.  The male slaves would have slept in the tobacco house. The lady farmer told us that if our girls lived on that farm, one of their jobs would have been picking the worms off the tobacco crop... they were the only pesticide.

 

Before heading back to camp, we drove down to where the York River meets Chesapeake Bay, and the Atlantic... we actually made it to the East Coast!

 

Tomorrow we will spend the day back in the colonial period in Colonial Williamsburg!