Events of Saturday, November 27, 2010

          Some people are T.P.ed, others are egged, but have you ever been silly stringed? It sounds pretty weird, but we awoke this morning to find that our front windshield was covered with a nice work of art, but, instead of paint, the artist used silly string. It wasn’t too bad, but it seemed like a lot at first. However, when we exited the RV to use the bathroom in Walmart, after breakfast and getting dressed, we found that we had lucked out. Someone had strung silly string on all of the signs, sidewalks, and streets, and there were custodians walking up and down the sidewalks trying to clean it up. We used the restrooms, went back to the RV, packed up, and drove a short drive to the Brandywine Battlefield. When we arrived there, it had just opened and we bought our tickets and began touring the Brandywine Battlefield. It just happened that every Saturday following Thanksgiving is Patriot’s Day at the Brandywine Battlefield. During Patriot’s Day everybody dresses up in Revolutionary and Colonial garb and it’s full of activities.

          We began by watching the orientation movie, and learned that the Battle of the Brandywine was the largest and longest land battle of the Revolutionary War. In an attempt to protect Philadelphia, General George Washington split his troops throughout three fords, or shallow places in the river where British could cross, in order to protect the land beyond the Brandywine River. He was pretty sure that the British would cross at Chadds Ford, for it was where the major road from Baltimore to Philadelphia crossed the Brandywine River. As a result, Washington put the majority of his troops there. However, the British also divided, sending the majority of their forces to Chadds Ford, sent a small group to another ford, and sent another group to cross the Brandywine far upstream, and circle around so as to attack the rebel forces from behind. On September 11, 1777, the British attacked at Chadds Ford. The battle lasted for a full day, and fifteen percent of the British forces, close to 2,000 men, were killed or wounded. The patriots had lost 5,000 men. The British had won the battle, but the American soldiers were not despaired by their loss. They blamed the defeat on unfamiliar territory, not on their inadequate skills as soldiers. Two weeks later, the British entered Philadelphia with no further resistance.

          After the movie, we walked through the museum, and learned more details about the battle. Branching off of the gift shop was a long corridor, and a room off the corridor revealed some more 18th century activity. A man was there, dressed in colonial clothes and he welcomed us into the room. Soon after, a woman arrived, and she showed us her craft, rug hooking. It was very interesting to me and I was able to try it. However, the man said to be careful, I might get hooked with rug hooking. I obviously wasn’t careful enough, for I was hooked and like rug hooking a lot. Someday, hopefully, I might be able to hook my own rug. As I hooked, the man began to talk about the real meaning of nursery rhymes. For the next half an hour, we listened to him recite the different rhymes and tell how they related to history in England. I’m not going to tell you all about each rhyme, but suggest you look it up on the internet or something. It’s really interesting. We said good-bye to the man and the woman at around eleven o’clock, and headed outside into the bitter cold to see the musket firing.

          The musket men were not yet ready, so we wandered around the different exhibits. People were showing off soldier’s artist kits, rifles, clothing, and, my favorite, cooking. The man interpreting the cooking of the day was cooking cured ham, beef, and a sausage mix over a fire. The sausage mix was the best looking. The man told us his recipe. It sounded pretty yummy; you might want to try it someday. First, he chopped up two coils of sage sausage and put it in a pan over the fire. After it browned a little, the sausage was taken off, and four chopped up granny smith apples were sautéed with four onions in the extra sausage grease. Then the sausages were put back in the pan and it was stirred. Then about four cups of apple cider were poured on top of the mix, and, when the cider was boiling, it was nearly done. We left at this part, but I can believe that they served it up and ate it soon after. He was also roasting beets, with olive oil, salt, butter, and pepper. I would have loved to join him for lunch.

          I also met up with a baker from the time period. She told me all about the different types of bread that they baked back in the day. I also had the opportunity to sample a ginger nut. It was very hard on the outside and, when I tried to bite it, it hurt my teeth. Then the baker lady told me that I was supposed to suck the ginger nut, so I put it in my mouth and sucked. It was delicious. It tasted like gingerbread, but you could taste every single ingredient. I asked a lot of questions and she was very eager to answer them. Meanwhile, the rest of my family watched the musket firing demonstration. State law now forbids re-enactments at battlefields which most of the re-enactors are pretty upset about. Dad talked to one man for quite a while trying to understand why the state would put a stop to something so historically educational. Although we were not able to see an actual re-enactment of the battle, we still enjoyed ourselves immensely despite the bitter cold.

          But, before we had lunch, we planned to tour Washington’s headquarters. When we entered the house, we were welcomed by a lady who guided us through the parlor. There she shared stories of the Quaker family that had owned the house at the time of the battle. The house had served as Washington’s headquarters, but he never slept there. Apparently he didn’t believe in putting families with women and children out in the cold. But he did use the parlor for some war planning meetings with his officers. Then we were sent over to the office of the master of the house and a man there talked to us about the office. He explained that the owner of the house, Benjamin Ring, was quite well off and owned 160 acres. He farmed about 120 of the acres and also ran three mills – a grist mill, a fulling mill and a lumber mill. A fulling mill is where a woven piece of cloth is placed in a hot water and wooden hammers, driven by the water-powered mill would pound it to cleanse and soften it. This makes it pliable and easily made into clothes or blankets. By operating these unique mills, Benjamin Ring was able to maintain his highly regarded position in the community.

          Next we were ushered to the dining room, where a re-enactor playing George Washington was talking to a group of people about himself. What was hilarious about this gentleman was that he went off on crazy tangents and he kept forgetting, and then suddenly remembering, that he was George Washington, so it was quite funny to listen to him. However he did have some very interesting points. He shared that George Washington is the only President to be elected twice by a completely unanimous vote. He spoke of how George Washington was revered and viewed by the American people, then and now. And then he asked us why this was so and why no other president since has had the same reputation. This gentleman’s conclusion was that this was and is so because George Washington was a Christian man who fully lived out his faith. He then went on to give examples from George Washington’s life about how he began each day with an hour of Bible reading and prayer and often quoted Scripture in his correspondence. He also shared that George Washington was a very humble man, accrediting God for any success he had in battle or in life.

          After listening to George Washington for a while, we went into the kitchen. A woman was there with many interesting old-fashioned medical instruments on a table. She explained to us what they were. Doctors in those days believed that people had two more pints of blood than they actually had. So, if you were sick, injured, or just felt bad, they would try to get as many “liquid humors” from you as possible. First they would get blood from one of the 302 places where blood could be gotten from a person’s body. They had a special instrument for nicking an artery and a specially shaped cup to catch the draining blood. Then they would feed the person ipecac to induce vomiting and then drink harsh, caustic teas causing the person to have diarrhea. Next, they would heat an open ended glass bottle in the fire until it was red hot, and put it on the patient’s back. This produced a blister where they could drain pus, yet another liquid humor. You can imagine that this didn’t make the sick person feel much better. As the lady was finishing telling us this part, we heard a crash, and we turned to see Caitlin falling backward into the wall, bringing down pots and pans as she fell. At first we thought she had just stepped back on something and lost her footing. But Mom, seeing her eyes still open and unfocused, quickly realized that she had fainted. (She has done this before when blood and needles were being discussed.) Caitlin slid down the wall into a sitting position and it took a few seconds for her to recognize Mom. Mom had Caitlin place her head between her knees and she revived fairly quickly – quickly enough to become embarrassed and ask if we could leave. But the lady interpreter didn’t want her walking just yet, so we took her over to a bed (in the kitchen, I know, weird), and, soon, she was back to normal. In deference to Caitlin’s delicate state, the lady stopped talking about the doctoring of the day (as her next topic was amputations) and began talking about the cooking.

          She explained that in a typical Quaker household, Thursday was baking day, the one day of the week where all the bread for the week to feed the entire family had to be baked. It just so happened that the Battle of the Brandywine happened on a Thursday. As the day dawned, the Quakers started baking bread like crazy, for that is what they did, every Thursday, making over 40 loaves of bread. The British soldiers and officers thought they were crazy, because they just kept on doing everything like it was normal, even going into the woods to get wood for the fire. Fortunately, none of them were hurt. And the British spoke of being driven nearly mad by the delicious smell of baking bread as they were famished and fighting. After a few more explanations of the cooking tools of the day, we were on our way again.

          We hiked back to the RV and prepared a lunch of croque monsieur, hot chocolate or apple cider and oranges. Then we said good-bye to the visitor center and drove over to the blacksmith shop, where the blacksmith was talking about shodding horses. We listened to him for a while, and learned about nail-making, iron, bellows, and some more about the Quakers. He told us a story of a Quaker man who owned a tavern. One day, some British soldiers came to his tavern. The British soldiers that all Quakers were stupid, and this made the owner of the tavern angry. When he looked out the window and saw one of his Quaker friends coming towards the tavern. He said to his visitors that the next man that came into the tavern could talk to them in any language they knew. Sure enough, he entered, and they talked to him in French, Spanish, German, and even Portuguese. This smart Quaker astounded the soldiers, and, when he went out the door, he said good-bye to them in Latin, as he was well versed in many languages. After that little aside, the blacksmith told us some more about blacksmithing and we were able to try to pump the bellows. Finished with all the activities we headed back to the RV and drove on to Wilmington, Delaware, our next destination.

          Dad had found a campsite in Wilmington that was open all year. However, once we found it and discovered that it did not have any restrooms or showers, we decided against it. Not finding any other campgrounds, Daddy started looking for hotels, and found a Quality Inn & Suites. We drove there, and found that it was a nice central location. From there, we had easy access to The Charcoal Pit, where we went for dinner, and many of our other planned visit locations. We moved into our hotel room and then drove to Charcoal Pit.

          As you may know, my mom grew up in Wilmington, Delaware. She remembered going to the Charcoal Pit when she was a kid, so she looked it up online and was pleased to find it still in existence. When we arrived at the Charcoal Pit, we went inside, and, after a short wait, we were seated, although it took two booths to accommodate the six of us. A quick look at the menu told us that they had good food, for cheap prices. After each deciding what we wanted, the kids colored, drew and played games on the placemats while the parents talked. Our food arrived after a short wait, and we started to eat. The food was delicious, but the desserts were even better. Mom got a huge hot fudge sundae, and Dad got Charcoal Pit’s Homemade Hot Fudge Cake, and which Lindsey and Caitlin ordered as well and split between them. I decided on the Jumbo Ice Cream Soda, and found out that jumbo was the word to describe it. The glass was about a foot tall, filled with chocolate soda and vanilla ice cream, with tons of homemade whipped cream piled on top. It was delicious! Filled with good food, we headed to the hotel for showers and a long, restful sleep indoors in real beds!