This week we returned to Yorktown, this time to visit the Victory Center and discuss the ideologies of the war rather than a battle. The museum at the Victory center was very well done. I enjoyed the facts that as you progressed through time and cultures the stories of different individuals were told. It helped to shift my mindset from battle strategy to a cultural one. My favorite exhibit though was the one depicting the sunken British ship the Betsy. It felt like walking through a cool child's exhibit and learning how archeologists tackled preserving the ship was very interesting. One of the most telling exhibits was the displays of the three swords: one French, one British and one American.

For our second week in Yorktown, we went to the Victory Center. This is a pretty neat museum with several interactive displays containing information about Yorktown during the
American Revolution. Especially interesting to me was the display about the excavation of the British supply ship Betsy. This indoor display and partial reconstruction showed how the underwater archaeologists excavated the ship and many of the ship's contents were on display. This was one of the many ships that Cornwallis sank just off shore during the siege at Yorktown.
Unfortunately the weather cut our trip a little short, the driving rain stopping us from seeing most of the Victory Center's outdoor displays.

The concept of southern honor is intricate and complex. To protect and maintain their honor, men were taught to defend their beliefs, image, and reputation whenever threatened. In his article, Robert Pace explains that honor played a vital role in the transition from childhood to adulthood: men were taught that in order to be adults they had to prove their "manhood." In times of war, this was a straightforward process; boys would fight for their cause, and when they came home they would be accepted by the community as men. They tested their strength against others' and came back the better for having survived the challenge.

Our first trip to Yorktown included visits to the Visitor's Center and the battlefield. We were studying this area mostly in relation to the Battle of Yorktown fought during the American Revolution. From Ch. 1-5 of John O. Sands' book "Yorktown's Captive Fleet," we read beforehand about the campaign that turned out to be such a loss for the British. Most kids who were born and raised in this area have proudly been told by their parents or teachers about the time when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown and Yorktown is right down the street, you know. But reading about this battle and seeing the actual site made the concept so much more real for me. It was no longer a childhood story, but a real historical event.

On our trip to Yorktown this week, both the reading and the various earthworks and artillery served as a crash course to the military history of the time period. From all of the various sources, the clearest causes of Cornwallis' surrender seem to be the inability of the English army and navy to cooperate and the timely presence and cooperation between the American and French troops. Although Clinton stubbornly entrenched himself in New York, seemingly of the mind set that the American Revolution was solely in New England, Lord George Germain was able to shift the focus back to the Chesapeake. Germain must have recognized the power that Virginia held; it was the largest and the wealthiest colony, in part due to its cash crop, tobacco.

Today we stood in the center of one of the most important battlefields of the Revolutionary War, Yorktown. It was here that Washington, with the help of Rochambeau, defeated Cornwallis in a siege and forced him to surrender. The outcome is somewhat surprising when one considers the track record of Washington- after all he had won a total of one important battle thus far in the war, Saratoga. So how did this victory occur? Much like in the case of Jamestown, they succeeded through a combination of luck, talent, and English failure. Had certain events not unfolded in the pattern that they did, then it is very doubtful the same outcome would have occurred.

The siege of Yorktown, and the subsequent surrender of British forces to the revolutionists, seems almost accidental in light of all the events that had to happen at this precise battle to ensure Cornwallis' defeat. To be fair, some of what happened was due to sheer folly. For example, he slaughtered his own horses to avoid feeding them on the assumption that British ships would be available to take him back home (and I think we all know the saying about assumptions). He also sank his own ships in an attempt to block the revolutionists from advancing upriver. This maneuver confused me the most as you would think someone attempting to sail back to England would want to hold on to his ships.