I was recently given the honor of participating in Revolutionary Weekend at Mount Vernon, VA, as a member of the legendary Black Watch Highlanders Royal Foot Regiment (yep, the bad guys). How can you turn down learning how to put on and wear a proper kilt, (fun fact, you lay it on the ground like a tartan picnic blanket, lay down on it and wrap it around your waist), fire a black powder musket (a 17-pound Brown Bess, as they’re called) at some ungrateful rebels and literally sleep in George Washington’s back yard?
The photo on the far right was one I took at 5:30 on a foggy dawn after waking up in my canvas tent on that beautiful estate. I momentarily had the place to myself that morning, enveloped in an eerie mist taking me back in time. I half expected to see the General himself come out on his porch, stretch and mount up to start his rounds of the plantation.
As any historical reenactor will tell you, it’s a privilege to see history from this perspective. True, life was simpler, but it was harder, more uncomfortable (and heavier!) than it is today. But human contact was unfiltered then as well, and direct and real. It takes a full 24 hours to slow down your senses, disconnect the 21st century and reconnect to 250 years earlier. Pewter mugs, wooden spoons, campfires all around brought life to the interaction with my kindred spirits from both sides of the war. Some boys in colonial garb, young scaliwags belonging to those damned rebels, no doubt, would harass me in my Highlander regalia (it’s a kilt, not a skirt, laddie) and I would reply in my best Scottish brogue that they should show some respect for His Majesty’s trooops [sic].
As this country starts its warm up to its 250th birthday party, I hope you get that chance to unplug and reflect on the hard road taken and sacrifices made by men like Washington who “pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor” for a cause. To have it all, land, money, aristocratic luxury as Washington did, it would have been simple, almost logical, to not risk any of it and back King George. Instead, hardship, danger, unorganized chaos, blood, gore and a very uncertain outcome lay in his future…and he knew it. There was no guarantee, if he even survived the war being either shot in battle or hanged as a traitor, that he would get his home back. Instead, he put it all on the line and won this country for us.
This temporary Loyalist to the Crown salutes you, General. Happy Fourth!! -JF
By Jim Fryer, Inside Towers Managing Editor
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