Life of Washington Tour -Day 6

Posted by Gabrielle

Our sixth and final day of the Washington Tour began at Historic Yorktown and the Yorktown Battlefield.

Entering historic Yorktown, we were greeted by this beautifully decorated sign

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Tobias and friend Nathan spend time discussing the canons in the Yorktown Battlefield Museum

After a whirlwind tour through the museum, we marched out to the actual battlefield. After Mr. Horn gave a talk on the actual events of the battle at Yorktown, Mr. Vestal led the boys in a reenactment of the charge on the Yorktown battlefield.

The boys learning how to stand in a soldierly position

Benaiah and his friend Lise. Did I mention already that Benaiah made a new friend on the trip? Now, he talks about her often and is looking forward to seeing her again sometime soon!

Charge!

The meeting of the troops on Yorktown Battlefield. Thankfully, no soldiers were injured in the clash! :)

Our next stop was Surrender Battlefield. The buses dropped us off at the wrong place, so we had a long walk to the battlefield. We were very glad that someone went to get them and bring them to pick us up again at the right place. :)

Walking up to Surrender Battlefield

At Surrender Battlefield, Mr. Horn gave a short talk on the military genius of Washington and the character traits that made him able to accomplish what he did.

• George Washington is also known as America's Favius. He adopted the strategy of Favius, a famous Roman general, and used his army to control the position of the other army without bringing on an open engagement.
• Washington was an aggressive general, but he was also willing to admit when he may have been wrong and let the circumstances dictate what he should do. He was ready to take risks when he could not predict what would happen.
• Washington was persevering. Yes, he lost battle after battle, but none of them stopped him from pressing on. The ones who persevere through adversity are the ones who are successful.
• Washington was an orderly man. He was a Christian with an orderly spiritual life. This enabled him to lead an orderly physical life and lead an orderly army. We see his orderliness in three specific places in his spiritual life: his personal holiness, his holiness in prayer, and in his private and family worship.

Surrender Battlefield was a bittersweet final stop as it concluded our amazing week. With two bus-loads of hungry people, we concluded the trip with lunch at the Golden Corral and the prize-giving for the winners of the treasure hunt. All week we had been working on decoding coded clues in a treasure hunt.

Benaiah happy to be tickled. :)

Timothy, who led Arianne and me who were on his team, won first place! The prize was an amazing collection of pewter medals.