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 The World Turned Upside Down
I spent a couple hours at Jamestown, then I hit the Colonial Parkway bound for Yorktown, nervously glancing at my watch the whole way. I left Jamestown at 5:25 p.m. and I knew the Yorktown Visitor Center closed at 6:00 p.m., so I had to hustle. I zipped past the turnoff to Williamsburg without a regret and made it to Yorktown five minutes before it closed, just enough time to stamp my National Park passport book and run through the life-size, 18th century warship there.
Yorktown, of course, was the site of the last battle in the American Revolutionary war. By 1781, the English Redcoat army had been battling George Washington's Continental Army for six years, first in the northern colonies and then in the south, but without much success. In the fall of 1781, the arrogant English commander, Lord Cornwallis, was being chased across Virginia by the pesky American and French armies. He decided to move his Redcoats down the York Peninsula, where he was expecting to be rescued by the British fleet. The British fleet, though, was having its own problems and was turned back by the French fleet off of Cape Henry, 40 miles away.
After a brief siege in the village of Yorktown, Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington. The British army had been humiliated by what they considered to be a vastly-inferior foe, so during the surrender ceremony, Cornwallis ordered his band to play the song "The World Turned Upside Down," an English ballad that described scenes of chaos and confusion. Everyone, including King George, realized that the war was over, although the official treaty between England and the newly-formed United States wasn't signed for another two years.
Even though I got kicked out of the Yorktown Visitor Center (much as the British had gotten kicked out of Yorktown two centuries earlier), I greatly enjoyed it, then I spent an hour outside walking around the entrenchments. At 7 p.m., it was time to get back in the truck and, once again, hit the road.
Above left: This is a cool ship inside the Visitor Center at Yorktown National Battlefield. It's cool because it's air-conditioned. Above right: A French howitzer on the siege lines at Yorktown.
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