Whenever I am visiting the Williamsburg area, I try to visit one of the many many museums that are in the area. I recently attended the Williamsburg Muster, so it was time to see another museum. The one I picked was the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown. It is a new museum that replaced an older state run location.
The new building is quite impressive in its size. It includes interior museum displays, visiting display section, gift shop, cafe, small movie theater and an external living history area. We showed up after lunch and started with the outside living history area. This had a set up of an encampment with a couple of reinactors talking about camp life. It was a bit chilly, so we did not spend too much time outside. One of my buddies even quipped that he did not realize we were visiting Valley Forge!
We walked around a bit and checked out the visiting display, which was six mock up uniforms. We then went to the main theater and watched the museum film. It was rather generic and focused on individual multicultural stories. We then finished up with that and headed t the main museum.
The display areas started from the initial pre-war period and followed through the conflict. There were a decent amount of artifacts and a tone of narrative displays. In the center is a very impressive 16lb siege artillery piece. Near that was another movie in a half circle cyclorama style. In briefly went over the initial decision to fight the battle and the fight itself. There is one part were you are sitting in the naval Battle of the Capes. There are cannon balls coming right at you, with some air being pushed through. The immersion is great.
With that, we finished our visit and headed out for the long trip home. I was able to mark this museum off the bucket list. Now I just have to decide what my next trip will include….
- Manteuffel