Valley Forge: Fragments

Valley Forge. Some things were supposed to come together here. We've been assembling fragments of history, fragments of the American Revolution, a sketch of the British occupation of Charleston, a glimpse of George Washington as farmer living and dying at Mount Vernon, artifacts at Yorktown. I am not sure why, but I thought Valley Forge, where Washington's army lived through its darkest hour, where 2000 men died of disease, cold, and starvation, where officers left because they could and soldiers stayed because they couldn't, would complete the puzzle somehow.

But on a glorious day it is hard to imagine the misery suffered by men in these cabins they built themselves. Washington offered a $12 prize to the team of twelve men in each regiment who first completed a well-constructed cabin.

There were more cannons.

And there were cousins. Cousins definitely raised the day above the run of the mill. It was great to see the girls share the knowledge with their cousins.

And have fun with their cousins. But the place was falling short of my expectations.
Until.
Until we arrived at General Washington's Headquarters.
This is the original building.

I was excited about the Commander's flag flying out front. We learned at Mt. Vernon that this was Washington's flag and it was flown when Washington was visiting a camp. Seeing it out front of the headquarters made me feel like I would find Washington inside and he would help us put it all together.

I did not find Washington in.
Instead we found a dig going on.

Clem is holding a pot shard still cold from more than 200 years in the ground. The last person to hold that pot was there in that winter of 1777-1778 when the British, happily occupying Philadelphia, thought the Continental Army could not hold out long.

Initially the archaeologists said that kids had to be 14 and older to participate in the dig. But we hung around and after a while the kids, with their enthusiasm and knowledge insinuated themselves into the groups surrounding four screens on saw horses. Each screen was for a marked off quadrant of the dig.

The kids pressed the dirt through the screen and when they found lumps they asked what each was. It wasn't long before they were identfying things themselves. I joined in late because I was taking photographs. I'd show them what I found and they'd say, "oh, that's just brick" or mortar or "klinker", a byproduct of smelting.

The kind archeologists put Greta in charge of saving earthworms.

I was so glad that my mom got to share this amazing experience. It was her last day with us.

Just like that our day was transformed from ho hum to highlight. And digging in the dirt, finding old nails and pot shards and pipe stems and glass, the broken remnants of the lives of Washington and his men, made me realize that I had been looking for the wrong thing.

History is not a puzzle to be assembled into one final picture, but a mosaic of unfixed fragments that we can arrange and rearrange and add to endlessly.