The students opened their eyes with a start to the rap-tap-tap of a drummer’s call. Peter Cutul, a visiting educator from Fort Montgomery State Historic Site, had asked the fourth graders to pretend they were sleeping in a tent or in barracks during the winter of 1776. He stood before them in dressed as a foot soldier in the American Revolution—wearing a linen waistcoat, breeches and tricornered hat—and playing a field drum.
“If you were in the Continental Army, this sound would wake you up, tell you when to eat and when to march,” he said. “The soldiers’ day was ruled by the drum.”
Cutul came to Increase Miller Elementary with a story to tell—how a teen just several years older than them enlisted in the Continental Army and witnessed some of the most important moments in the Revolutionary War. The fourth graders, who have been studying the Revolutionary War for the past month, were active participants in the program, asking well-informed questions throughout. “You are impressive!” said Cutul. “I’ve never had a class that knows this much!”
Cutul introduced them to Joseph Plumb Martin, a fifteen-year-old from Connecticut, who enlisted in the Continental Army in 1776 and, with one winter off, served throughout the war. The young soldier kept a diary, which was the primary source for Cutul’s presentation.
Students connected to Martin’s stories, mentally overlaying his experiences on the material they covered in class. The fourth graders had studied the American’s battles against the British; Martin wrote about kicking his cast iron cooking pot down a hill in frustration because there was no food to cook. The students knew about Benedict Arnold’s treason; Martin recounted that the Major General required the barracks to himself because he talked in his sleep!
“Perspective-taking is a huge theme in this unit because the students must walk in the shoes of colonists who were patriots or loyalists, trying to better understand their points of view, how they were formed and how it impacted their lives,” said teacher Jocelyn Lividini.
The artifacts that Cutul brought invited the fourth graders to step into the experience of an American soldier during the Revolution. From trying on the typical clothing of an American recruit to seeing the various foods that they foraged, hunted and fished for, students deepened their understanding of life along the Hudson River during the Revolutionary War.