BCSD Field Turned Into A Revolutionary War Campground

Students assumed the persona of a soldier as they set up camp, cooked a meal, erected tents, drilled, and marched for C.V. Starr’s Annual Revolutionary Encampment Day. The day is designed to give students the opportunity to experience, firsthand, the difficulties and hardships Revolutionary soldiers encountered in the War for Independence. 

Although it was a blustery day, parent volunteers stoked a fire as students collected dry leaves and sticks, a tripod with a hanging cauldron stood astride the fire, filled with simmering “soldier soup.”

“It’s what the soldiers ate,“said one student, “soup and apple crisp.”

Students, staff and parent volunteers also made cup holders–it's what the soldiers made to keep their cups clean–two v-shaped sticks in the ground with one long stick balanced across–like a clothes line for pewter mugs.

The field was divided into zones of Revolutionary War activity with students pitching tents and raising flags, peeling apples and cutting vegetables, and marching in uniform with tricorne hats and personalized felt haversacks.

Beforehand, students partook in a Colonial Medicine Workshop taught by Daria Pascale, a former Brewster Central School District teacher who was "Dr. Rush,'' who dressed and acted the part. When she demonstrated how a doctor would have fixed a wound, she showed students a rusty scalpel and bandaged the wound with a previously used rag. 

“More soldiers died under the knife than out on the battlefield,” Pascale explained.

This event, which has been going on for about 20 years, is organized by fourth grade teachers Michelle Marzziotti, Frank LaMorte, Kathryn Marchionno and Jazmin Pryce and is a continuation of live learning instruction and enrichment that includes a field trip to The Institute For American Indian Studies Museum & Research Center, Colonial Fair, Maple Sugaring, and a Pancake Breakfast.