School on a Bus (a.k.a. Radical Sabbatical)

While in Philly, we were able to park in a Wal-Mart right in the city and ride the city bus only a mile or so downtown. During our three days there, we visited Constitution Hall, Liberty Bell, and Franklin Court. The oldest U.S. Post Office still hand stamps all mail using the original postmark of “B. Free Franklin”.

Philadelphia is a city rich in colonial history. The highlight for me was Franklin Court. Ben Franklin’s numerous accomplishments as a scientist, inventor, diplomat, and writer, printer and publisher are described here. He was always working on multiple projects. He originally became independently wealthy as a printer, best known for Poor Richards Almanac. Some of his ideas include bifocals, swimming fins, the Franklin stove, the glass harmonica (or armonica), the lightening rod, the storage battery, the first library for loaning books, and the first volunteer fire company. He made 8 trans-Atlantic crossings on behalf of the fledgling union. During these travels, he became the first to chart the Gulf Stream. As postmaster general, he improved mail delivery between Philly and New York from an average of 3 weeks to 6 days. Always one ahead of his time, Franklin founded the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and was its first president.

Ben Franklin is another example of the amazing men who founded our country. As he himself said, “If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.”

P.S. There is a working armonica on display. Be sure to ask one of the Park Rangers to play a few tunes while you’re there.

Sarah: In the middle of December of 1777, the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, George Washington, marched his men into Valley Forge where they would stay for 6 months, coming out with fewer numbers, but stronger than when they had entered.

George Washington had decided on Valley Forge as a winter camp for several reasons, some being that it was close to supplies, easily defensible, and close enough to Philadelphia to keep an eye on the British. Washington tried to speed the building of shelters by offering a prize to the first cabin completed. 12,000 troops raced to complete the first cabin, which could hold 12 men. Simple log structures with bunk beds, a fireplace, and a plain dirt floor, they would house the men as the winter wind blew, the snow lay half a foot high outside, and as the weather slowly turned to the sunny, budding feeling of spring.

The supplies that Washington continually beseeched for from Congress did not arrive, mainly due to cold feelings to him from men set in charge of providing food and clothing. The soldiers lived in rags, mostly living on ‘firecake’, but hardly ever complained. The morale was high, as was their love and sense of loyalty to Washington.

General Washington, differing from General Lee of the Civil War, did not stay in a shelter but in a nearby farmhouse in the middle of the camp, as did many of the Brigadier Generals.

Baron Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian drill master, was set to oversee the drilling of the men, in a large, open field. He fell to the task wholeheartedly, drawing a manual on drill techniques and swearing at the soldiers in German. When the army marched from Valley Forge exactly 6 months later, June 19, 1778, they were more organized, bonded, and ready for the battles that would face them before the end of the war in 1783.

The Pennsylvania Quakers refused to choose sides, staying non-violent because of their religious beliefs. Because of this they were arrested by Americans, who considered them Tories.

Caleb: This was the site of the “deciding battle” of the revolutionary war and though the war would drag on for another year the outcome was decided at this town.  General Cornwallis had been warring around in the southern states with an army of 7,000 men, and now he was low on supplies, men, and morale after 2 years of fighting.  So he set an extraction point for his men at Yorktown where the British Royal Navy would swoop down and pick him up.  He was however in a vulnerable position to be sieged in Yorktown and this was just what General Washington, General Lafayette, and General Rochambeau did. The extraction that Cornwallis had hoped for would never happen since Admiral de Grasse had defeated the fleet sent to aid Cornwallis in Chesapeake. Then de Grasse sent 3,000 men to reinforce Washington, Lafayette and Rochambeau.  In short, Cornwallis got whipped. The allies dug some trenches, captured 2 redoubts and Cornwallis surrendered. This was actually not the end of the war since the outcome was still unclear. The British troops still controlled key ports such as New York City and Charleston, South Carolina.