The call it the Siege of Boston.  George Washington, newly appointed by the Second Continental Congress to be the commander-in-chief, wanted to attack the British army who had occupied Boston.  Knowing the price of such an attack would be the loss of a major town, the loss of property, and the loss of innocent lives, Washington consulted his military leaders before making decisions.  It wasn't the first time he sought advice from experts.

Ultimately, Washington was at the mercy of his resources and Congressional permission.  In this case, with his troops waiting outside of the city, wisdom prevailed.  In a impressively short stretch of time, Washington assigned his troops to dig in and fortify their position, constructing defensive blockades and trenches in the time that impressed British leadership; they imagined he had used every member of his team, working without breaks or sleep.

He knew the British had a choice:  attack the continental army outside the city before they got too strong or retreat from the city.  Unbelievably, the Redcoats evacuated the and headed for New York City.  Boston belonged to the Colonials.

General Washington was disappointed.  He had envisioned making an explosive impression on the enemy.  He didn't want them to leave without incident; he wanted to scare them so they would run out with their tails tucked.  Of course, he took the victory - and even took credit for getting the job done without spilling blood on either side - but he was a military leader, and ready for more action.  Thankfully, he chose not to make the decision on his own to attack the British in Boston; wisely, he took the advisement of respectable peers and melded it with his own plans.

What that means for those of us camped out in the fourth grade:

• Do you have the answers to every big decision you need to make?  Doubtful.
• Make your own decisions, but seek wisdom from other wise people.
• Don't isolate yourself.
• Be ready to work hard, but hope for peace.
• Give credit where credit is due.
• If you don't have what it takes, fake it.

When reading Memoir of a Revolutionary Soldier, it helps that I can think of my late grandfather in the role of Joseph Plumb Martin.  Time and again, the cadence of Martin's writing, along with the events of his account of the Revolution remind me of my "old grandsire" (as Martin puts it).

In his first enlistment, Martin was serving on guard duty.  On two occasions, he learned important lessons.  The first time occurred on a particularly dark night.  Martin approached another guard during that night.  Hidden in the darkness, the other guard did not know who was approaching.  He yelled out a few times before panicking and discharging his weapon.  As one could imagine, the entire battalion fell out in response.  Joseph Martin never confessed (until he published his memoir), and no one ever knew the event was his fault.

The second occasion was one in which a senior officer tested camp sentries.  Every guard, it seems, failed his test:  he approached each, and none of them asked for the call sign.  Approaching Joseph, he was finally asked for the call sign.  Later, Joseph overheard the man telling his commanding officer about finally finding a real man.  In his next breath, however, he related that the guard then relaxed his firearm.  He had passed easily through every guard.  Martin was quickly moved from immense pride for asking a superior officer for the call sign to humility for reacting to the call sign by relaxing his defenses.  Once again, no one knew that Martin was the soldier in the officer's evaluation.

While at Mount Vernon, Virginia, this reenactor portrayed Tobias Lear, including great details in his presentation. He was clearly familiar with every aspect of Lear's life.  He had read several primary documents to make his presentation and to be able to answer random questions.

Teachers were told that in order to be a reenactor at George Washington's Mount Vernon, a person must, after being employed, study for 40 hours a week for at least a month.  All reeactors must pass great scrutiny before being allowed in front of the public.

Concerning the Lear presentation, I found interest in another unexpected area - the changes in fashion due to the Revolution and limited access to Britain's clothiers.  "Lear" told us about the changes in materials and styles that grew from necessity - the adjustments made by even the highbrow of society.

We use the Seesaw app for this.  This is an amazing portfolio program in which students can publish writings, photographs, videos, and drawings.  Once there, other students can like and comment on their work.

We have some guidelines for the blog.  They are simple rules, but they are in place for student safety.  With this in mind, I ask them not to publish their last names or any other personal information like phone numbers or addresses.  Since I have to approve items before they are made public, this should not be a problem anyway, but I'd like for my students to get used to thinking about what they are making public.  We also do not talk about plans for the weekend and the like.  Finally, I allow students to use some emojis.  Emojis are not my favorite thing in the world, but they can be fun, and they do express things that aren't more easily expressed in words.  I limit the number of emojis to exactly one per post or comment.  We might be able to loosen the ropes on this one a little bit in the future, but I do not want Hoggatteers to spend more time choosing just the right emoji when they should be concentrating on the quality and contents of their writings.

So there you have it.  They're excited to get started.  Check out the Bloggatteer Experience from time to time to get another glimpse into our classroom - this time from the fourth grader's point of view.

As Joseph Plumb Martin approaches his first "action" in the Revolution, he likens it to music. His first reaction to cannon and musket fire is not one of fear.

I understand his intrigue.  It's a romantic emotion to hear music in the sounds of war.  I've felt similarly as I have listened to fireworks.  I've been known to lie on my back in the driveway on Independence Day, close my eyes, and listen to the fireworks.  I smell the gunpowder in the air, and I think about what the Revolution must have been like.  Martin is right:  it does have a musical effect.

But Martin's experience quickly goes further.  Early on, he finds himself dragging dead bodies out of the water, amazed by the sight of so much blood.  It must be shocking for any soldier in battle.  We have to empathize with every veteran who returns home with such memories.

So, here it is, sitting off to the side of the mansion, just off of the lower garden:  Washington's privy.  It's quite pretty on the outside (pictures on the left), isn't it?  Take a step closer to peer inside, and you'll notice there are three, um, seats, positioned in a semi-circle.  That's when you start to wonder if all three seats were in use at the same time, or if George had a favorite.  Why have three if only one was in use at a time?  Was restroom culture different in the 18th century?

Circle around the back of the privy, and there is a small door at the back.  This door is below the level of the seats, and inside sit the boxes where all of the "stuff" drops.  Presumably, some enslaved person's job was to cart the boxes down the hill and across the lane to the dung repository, or empty them somewhere else.

At any rate, for some reason the privy interests me.  Using the restroom is a very private and intimate act, and in observing this particular one, we can be reminded that George and Martha Washington, and any number of their VIP guests, were really just human beings.  George Washington put his pants on one leg at a time.  He was bitten by mosquitoes just like we are.  And, yes, from time to time he pooped.  Even the greatest among us today - the richest, the strongest, the brightest, the most politically savvy, the most Scripturally knowledgable - is reduced to a state of humanity by this simple act.  It is a great leveler in a world where a level playing field is seldom a reality.

A morning hike to the farm area at George Washington's Mount Vernon introduced us to some of the innovative and thoughtful farming techniques that the father of our nation initiated.  There was something of a scientist in this man who had very little formal education.  This little demonstration farm is not original to the plantation, but the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association wanted a location patrons could visit on the property where they could see an important part of Washington's life.

Here, we can interact with heritage animals - pigs, sheep, chickens, and cattle.  Here, view a reproduction of a slave house.  Here, we find a rebuilt 16-sided barn, built to George Washington's expectations.

The barn is unique and industrious, built for a specific purpose - the threshing of wheat.  Piles of raw wheat sit in the shed nearby, ready to be spread in the upper story of the nearly-round barn.  Horses are then introduced to the upper room, where they thresh the grain by running around in a circle.  The important, usable parts of the grain drop through the exactly-calculated cracks in the floor, while the rest remains.  Some of the pictures below show the barn before the process begins.

Washington had a number of farms on his 8,000 acres, so these processes may have been spread around to many areas.

While that's obviously not an appealing title for the signage, it is what it says it is, and yet, with a modicum of interest, one discovers that our first president was a cutting-edge agricultural engineer.  Not only did he survey the land and lay out his gardens in virtual symmetry, Washington was the original composter.  He experimented with various manures and mixtures of such to find the optimal combinations for use in his gardens and on his crops.

Not only this, but Washington was the first to transform his plantation from tobacco to wheat.  He knew, through personal study, that tobacco was depleting the soil.  He rotated his crops.  He allowed certain acreages to lie fallow for a season before replanting.  Yes, I would say that Washington was a farmer.

The evidence of such, today, can be found in his upper and lower gardens.

In the upper garden, as pictured above, there is great beauty.  The flowers and fruits of the garden lend one to contemplate his place in the world, his place among the creation.  The colors absorb a visitor's attention.  And all it looked over by an important brick building - the greenhouse.  The building is heated from behind by a sunken fire pit and vents that transport the heat under the floor.

Destroyed by fire in the 19th century, the greenhouse was rebuilt with an interesting building material.  When Missouri's own Harry Truman was president, he ordered the White House to be rebuilt.  Keeping the outer walls intact, the house was gutted and reconstructed.  During this time, colonial brick from the original structure was rounded up and offered to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association.  Colonial brick, from the People's House, from before the British burned it, was relocated to Mount Vernon and used in the walls of a rebuilt greenhouse.

The plantings in these gardens are reported to be heritage plants, meaning they are the same plants, unaltered by genetic studies, etc., that Washington would have planted.

One such tree had a carving from over 150 years ago, still visible.  Seen in the blurry close-ups below, these carvings depicted a cross-shape and a five-pointed star.  It is known that these tree engravings were completed by the hands of Civil War soldiers (believed to be part of Sherman's army) who visited the neutral grounds of Mount Vernon during the war.  While there, some even "signed the guest book" by engraving their names and initials on the Washington tomb (as discussed in a previous post).

I had the opportunity to be one of the last people to see one of these trees and its engravings.  Recently fallen due to a storm, the tree rested horizontally near the road, and if a person knew where to look, more of the carvings could be found in its bark.  In the couple of weeks following my visit, the tree was cut up to be used for special projects at Mount Vernon.  The star and cross carvings were rescued to be preserved.

According to one article, the fallen tree is one of three that were known to carry these carvings, with only one still standing - presumably the one in my blurry photos in the lower left corner of this set:

Dean Norton, the director of horticulture at the estate, took the time to count the rings, estimating that it dates as far back as 1778.  For more information take at gander at the information on Mount Vernon's website.

Also on our little exhibition through the humid Virginia air, we stood on the outskirts of the behind-the-scenes operations at Mount Vernon.  In the midst of greenhouses, equipment storage, and a brickyard, stands the tree in the lower right corner of the photos above.  Norton informed some of our group that this tree is from 1706 (That information is hearsay for me, but it didn't stop me from taking a picture before the sky grew to dark.).

The far-away view of the mansion from the West Gate is similar to the same view visitors would have encountered when visiting the Washingtons.  Pictures do not do justice to the distance at which they have been taken. Washington gave great thought to the view when designing the driveway approaching it and trimming the vegetation just so.  There is little doubt that he wanted every step of the approach to evoke feelings of superior status to visitors. 

David Hildebrand was one of the scholars who presented to our small teacher group at George Washington's Mount Vernon, during the first week of August.  Dr. Hildebrand displayed and demonstrated a number of musical instruments from the 18th century.  He also explained about the metamorphosis of songs during the period.

What a delightful hour!  Dr. Hildebrand has degrees in musicology and has studied extensively about his subject, and yet he is highly personable.  I had the pleasure of sharing a dinner table with him, and he continued to answer our questions about the music that George Washington may have enjoyed.  Especially interesting were his offerings of Yankee Doodle and his opinions about the history of our national anthem.

The library at Mount Vernon is a work of art, comprising of beautiful, sophisticated areas in which scholars (and the rest of us) can conduct research using the actual papers of George Washington.  Most of our 35 hours of professional development (administered by 25 scholars from many places) were spent inside these halls.

Another "inner" part of the vault was only visible from the doorway.  In this wooden-shelved room, surrounding a relief of Washington's family crest, lies the library of George Washington.  In the center of this is displayed a book containing the text of the Constitution, complete with notes and underlinings by our first president himself.  The book was acquired at auction by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association at roughly the same time as the library was built.  The book on display isn't even the original; it is a replica.  It seems the original is kept out of sight due to its immense rarity and value.

Some of the most powerful moments at Mount Vernon were at the Slave Memorial and the Washington Tomb on our last morning.

Hearing about some of the slaves that lived at the estate and listening to the fife at the site of many of their unmarked graves is a truly moving part of the Teachers' Institute.

The old tomb, where George Washington was first interred, is still on the property, but the bodies of the first president and his relatives were moved to the new tomb when it was built - as designated in George's will.

Our class watched a live broadcast from the George Washington's cellar, towards the end of the last school year, so it was interesting to see the space in person.  Normally, the cellar is a special tour at Mount Vernon - mostly du to the popularity of the second National Treasure movie.

There is, in fact, a corner stone in the basement that bears the initials of George Washington's older half-brother Lawrence.  In the movie, the center of the corner stone has an arrowhead, while in reality it resembles more of a heart shape.  Of course, in the movie, the stone is at the end of a short tunnel, and the Secret Service destroys it with sledge hammers in order to find the newly "kidnapped" modern day president.

That leaves just two other sites (other than the lawn facing the Potomac) that were used in the movie.  First (pictured below left) is the ice house.  The ice house was used as the exit to the mysterious tunnel.  This door is where the president and Ben Gates (played by Nicholas Cage) emerged and we learned the location and secret codes for finding the so-called president's book.

The last location is a small beachhead found near the wharf.  Shown in the dark, here is where Ben Gates emerges from the Potomac in his wet suit before crashing the party for the president's birthday.

A few years ago, I drove my family to South Dakota to see the Shrine of American Democracy on Mount Rushmore.  This, of course, provided part of the backdrop to other crucial scenes in National Treasure 2.  At a nearby lake (pictured below left, but not in the immediate vicinity of Rushmore) was where Nicholas Cage "surrendered" his hand and opened the entrance to the City of Gold, strangely masked by the four presidents carved in the mountain (one of whom, appropriately, is George Washington, lower right).