YORKTOWN, Va. — First, we did the Pledge of Allegiance. Then, “America the Beautiful” and then “God Bless America.” A person is struck with such impulses standing on the edge of the Yorktown battlefield.
Nearby Williamsburg has its moments, of course, full of the historic footprints of Thomas Jefferson and the other patriot-revolutionaries who trod its streets more than 200 years ago. (“Trod,” I know. I’m feeling very colonial.) But for the tingle that reminds Americans what it all meant, and the sacrifice made to win glorious freedom, Yorktown is the place.
Standing on that field, beside a replica of a cannon, we were struck by what it must have been like in the fall of 1781.
The expanse of field before us was green and lush. It was far from silent on this summer day, with the tourist season well underway. On the wide York River, everything from 18th-century-style ships to those little power- ski machines, backgrounded with the usual sounds of automobiles, the laughter of visitors and their children.
Looking over the Yorktown battlefield, though, allowed a silence in the mind so imagination could transport us back to October 1781. The American Revolution, in progress since 1775, was still two years from a final settlement, but here, with the defeat of the British in the last major battle of the Revolution, the outcome became all but certain.
Up until then, the outcome was decidedly uncertain. Early on, it wasn’t even clear what we were fighting for.
Even after the guns had been fired in 1775, the Revolution was not yet really a revolution, at least not in name. Debate was intense among the leaders in the American colonies as to whether their revolt would be an attempt to win concessions from the British motherland, or turn into a campaign for independence.
Leaders were careful in their choice of words, knowing a decision to seek independence would mean no turning back from confrontation with King George III. (My source for this bit of history is “1776,” David McCullough’s masterpiece.)
But standing on this green field, one thinks mainly of the soldiers who somehow endured near-starvation, standing in fields flooded to their waists, burning under the sun in summer and going months in winter without ever being warm.
The Americans were known early on in the war for their ability to build fortifications quickly, to adapt to changing conditions, for fearlessness. George Washington, for his part, would accept no less, and his tolerance of cowardice was nonexistent.
Yorktown today has shopping and restaurants and hotels — all the makings of a tourist stop.
Its spot in history should not get lost in all the hubbub. This is where the end of the Revolutionary War, and true independence, began.
And for our annual celebration of freedom on July Fourth, we can gain a profound feeling of what that means and what was done to accomplish it not by film or lecture or fireworks, but by recalling the sense of pride that embraced us on that field.
Jim Jenkins is the deputy editorial page editor of the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. He can be reached at jjenkins@newsobserver.com.
