A little bit of War of Independence

On our way to the naval museums near Norfolk we visited Yorktown.  The British were left cut off in the fortress after the French won a rare naval victory in Chesapeake Bay.  Washington's army was also supported by French infantry, artillery & engineers.  Cornwallis surrendered his army to pretty well hand the Americans victory in the war.  Some of the earthworks remain, but it's hard to tell how much is original or restoration.

On our way from Washington to Philadelphia to drop off our hire car, we stopped off at Brandywine Creek.  In 1777 Washington's army stood on the banks of the Brandywine covering the fords to block a British advance on Philadelphia.

The river is mostly deep & uncrossable, but had frequent fords.  The Brits very sensibly scouted out fords upstream of the American defences, posted their Hessians to threaten the fords in front of the Americans & sent their main force on a 16 mile flank march.  They hit the American flank in the late afternoon.   The Americans tried to deploy to meet it as the Hessians attacked their front, but Washington had been well & truly outsmarted by Howe & they had no hope. 

Dusk & the British lack of cavalry saved the Americans from a complete disaster.  The memorial plaque tried to put a good spin on it by exaggerating the British numerical superiority (other sources put the numbers involved at nearly equal).

The battlefield was not a great one to visit.  Being a decisive defeat, it is not a battle the Americans like to make much of.  There was a visitor's centre, but it was closed on Mondays when we were there.   The only part of the battlefield made a park was a small part around Washington's HQ & there were no information panels or leaflets.  For once we had to rely on Googled maps & GPS to find our way around the battlefield.  The main part of the field is covered with subdivisions of McMansions & it is impossible to tell what the original pattern of woods & fields were.  You can only see that it was rolling countryside & that the battle was all about the fords.

So ended our road trip through the battlefields of the US.  In just under 4 weeks, Chris drove us nearly 4,000 miles (6,300 km) on the wrong side of the road without mishap while I became pretty efficient at car sat nav.  We visited over 30 battlefields plus many forts.  Along the way we saw a great cross section of the US countryside, warts & all.  Battlefield to battlefield is a great way to choose a route, we saw everything we intended to see & a whole lot more discovered by serendipity on the way.  We'd both wanted to do this for a long time & enjoyed every day of it.