Final Battle of American Revolution

[digitS']

Map of troop movements leading up to the Battle of Yorktown (link).

October 19, 1781 - Cornwallis surrenders with nearly 8,000 men of his army taken prisoner.

Steve

 

[Smart Red]

A great day with the help of the French!

 

[freedhardwoods]

That kind of info is interesting to me. The History Channel is one of my favorites on tv.

 

[Smart Red]

Trying to make History interesting for the students, I had a play that told the story of the Battle of Yorktown. It was one of three historical plays we put on during the lunch period for the other classes.

One might forget the date, but no one will forget seeing George Washington accepting the sword of surrender from Cornwallis over chicken ala king and chocolate milk.

This was many years ago and getting General Washington's army armed was a real PITA! We had toy and BB rifles brought in to the office by parents and stored there except for rehearsals.

 

[digitS']

The Spanish in Cuba sent pieces of eight by the barrel full to pay the foot soldiers of the Continental Army.

The British didn't have too many friends at that moment in time.

Benedict Arnold wasn't happy about the foreign help but with that kind of thinking, he managed to choose the losing side.

Steve

 

[seedcorn]

Red, wonder in today's PC, if toy (especially BB) guns would be allowed? Today,kids would carry a 8" X 11" sheet of paper saying picture of potentially hazardess weapon.

 

[Smart Red]

@seedcorn, it would really depend upon the social structure of the community. In some places a picture of a weapon would be banned. In a community such as mine, where over 50% of high schoolers (and many of their grade school siblings) miss the three days prior to Thanksgiving because they are deer hunting, the rules are a bit muddier.

This was pre-Columbine era, but it was still difficult to persuade the school leadership to allow the 'toy' weapons. That the students followed all the rules, were well-behaved and attended to the business of the play set minds to rest after the fact.

Nope, in most schools I would probably have been reprimanded for even suggesting the props. Every other teacher stuck to reading the text. I tried to find as many ways as possible to get my students active in history.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah, times have changed. When I was in high school those many decades ago it was not that unusual for the few kids that drove to have a gun in their car out in the school parking lot. They were used for small game, squirrel, rabbits, and quail mostly. We did not have any deer in that part of the country then, they are all over there now. Sometimes they'd go to the garbage dump after school when the workers had gone home (it was not a landfill then, just the county dump) and plink rats.

One of my classmates in the senior class play had the part of sheriff. He not only supplied his own real revolver and holster, he wore it to school the day of the play. As long as he wore it out in the open and not concealed he was legal. No ammunition of course.

A few years ago that school made national news. The son of one of my classmates took a gun to high school and killed a teacher. He also wounded two other teachers. I did not know the teacher that was killed but one of the wounded was a classmate. The other one wounded was in the class ahead of me. They found out the kid had a gun and took it away from him. No students were harmed.

I forgot to mention one irony in this. The English 4 teacher that put in that play was father to one of the teachers wounded decades later.

My son and his wife teach in a rural school way down south in south Louisiana, about as far south as you can go. Kindergarten through high school are all on the same campus. It's a small school. Her 1st grade class is 16 kids. He is the high school math department, teaching all the math classes. I'd not be surprised to find that a lot of the kids that drive have guns hidden in their cars out in the school parking lot. It's a hunting and fishing area with a lot of the parents making their living fishing, crabbing, or oystering and maybe a little alligator hunting on the side. The kids grow up helping the family business plus hunting food for the table on the side.

 

[bobm]

When I was in high school ...most of the boys owned a car ( including my hard earned one )and most were modified or hot rod types, had their own gun together with friends' guns with ammunition in plain view so that we could go dove, pheasant, duck, goose or rabbit hunting ( no deer for many miles around ) before and/ or after school. Most of the teachers too ! This was the norm . Our high school was within about 14 miles of the State Capital building in Sacramento, Cal. .

 

[digitS']

My grandfather's great grandfather was the son of a Revolutionary War veteran. Somehow, describing the relationship like that makes him feel a little closer .

Anyway, that grandfather enlisted three times. He was in Massachusetts, on Staten Island and, back home in Maryland, joined in the siege of Yorktown. I don't know what weapons he carried.

After surrendering, Cornwallis and other officers boarded a ship and sailed back to Britain. The 8,000 of his troops remaining captive were important bargaining chips in the Treaty of Paris that ended the war 2 years later.

Steve