She did a wonderful job of recreating the awful reality of that winter. It was especially poignant for me as I read the book in the opening days of January as I was "suffering" the weather also.
I created an exhibit in my library to try to extend that cold reality here. I created a tape outline of one of the huts that were built by those soldiers.
I composed a facsimile "general order" by George Washington that framed their situation and then commanded their assignment:
General Order Number 1As students encounter the display, I point to a hillside out our window that is a half-mile away and help them imagine dragging logs that distance: in that weather, in their condition. We even located a live-weight log calculator to anchor some of that imagination in hard numbers (a 16" oak log 16 feet long weighs 1469 lbs.!).
I am sorry that you have been sleeping out side during most of this late December and early January.
I am sorry also that most of you are without shoes, coats, or blankets to shield you from the snow and cold each hour of the day and night.
I am also sorry that there are still no provisions to feed you other than coarse flour and water for your stone-fried “firecakes.”
Nonetheless, this army must build an encampment of 1000 huts in readiness for war and winter alike.
Therefore, you are ordered to build log huts, each 16 feet long by 14 feet wide by 6 feet tall. The doorway must face south, the direction of our enemy. A hearth should be placed on the north wall; each hut to accommodate 12 soldiers.
You will harvest trees from yonder hill (one mile away), cut the logs to length, drag them to this location, and construct your hut without nails. I will provide each group with but one tool; an ax.
Thank you for your service to the cause of freedom. Begin.
George Washington
Commander
It has been an effort to illustrate the transforming power of historical fiction; that a "story", rooted in fact, can and should urge us to examine our collective and personal experience.
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