As we remember the thousands lost on 9/11, and the tough, terrible sacrifices made by U.S. service members in the years to follow, 230 years ago people in our area were making terrible sacrifices of their own.
In 1781 the American Revolution was in its sixth year. By this time in September, General George Washington and his French counterpart, General Rochambeau, had just left Mount Vernon for Yorktown, where they hoped to lay siege to British and Hessian forces encamped there.
Losses suffered by the Americans during the Revolution were proportionately staggering. Approximately 25,000 men had died while serving in the Continental Army. That was equivalent to one percent of the total population of the original 13 states. Another 25,000 troops had been wounded.
By way of comparison, we have lost less than one-thousandth of one percent of our population to combat deaths since 9/11.
Great swaths of the American countryside lay in utter ruin at this point in the Revolution. This was especially true in the south, where the Carolinas and Virginia had seen some of the heaviest fighting. It is hard for us to imagine such widespread destruction in these areas today.
This past weekend, the Mount Vernon Estate sought to bring some of these events to life for a 21st Century audience. On two perfect late summer days, George Washington’s home hosted Revolutionary War re-enactors from across America. Visitors from around the world could see for themselves what a Revolutionary War encampment looked like.
Continental soldiers drilled and executed authentic combat maneuvers. Cavalrymen spurred their horses over hills and the infantry, dressed in blue as well as in multi-colored uniforms, fired muskets at an unseen enemy. The cannon fire of the artillery mingled with the reports of the muskets to produce sharp, unnerving echoes. At times, smoke engulfed the mock battlefield. The sounds, sights, and smells of the re-enactment could only hint at the din and confusion of a true Revolutionary War battlefield, yet they made it possible for us to begin to imagine what it must have been like for the earliest American patriots to stand before the British Redcoats and defy the power they represented.
What is most striking about the American Revolutionary campaign is the degree of uncertainty that confronted Washington and his troops. Neither they nor their French allies had any idea how their march to Yorktown would turn out. Yet they took the risk and embarked on an arduous journey that ended in a decisive victory at Yorktown and led, two years later, to Great Britain recognizing the United States as a free and independent country.
Yorktown proved to be the decisive turning point for General Washington’s army. That victory helped unify the country after the arduous struggles of the American Revolution.
We glimpsed that same spirit of American unity this past weekend, when our nation honored the memory of those who died on 9/11. Let us hope that moment is not a fleeting one.
Cedric Leighton lives in Lorton and is the Founder and President of Cedric Leighton Associates, a Washington area strategic risk and management consultancy.
