February 13, 2006
That South Boston and the Dan River played a more crucial part in the Colonies American Revolution than they've been given credit for has been a rallying cry of local history buffs.
This past weekend, two historians and a festive celebration lent credence to that belief.
The Crossing of the Dan celebrated the 225th anniversary of the Continental Army's Gen. Nathanael Greene's long and brutal retreat from the South, with the British Lord Charles Cornwallis in close pursuit. Greene got over the flood-swollen Dan with the help of ferries and local boats. Cornwallis had no such help, and was forced to turn back into North Carolina, weakened, soaking wet and demoralized.
Greene's admittedly unconventional military maneuver "paved the way for the final victory at Yorktown," said South Boston Mayor Carroll Thackston, himself a retired general.
The weekend's celebration and the coming permanent exhibit on the Crossing will help properly document the region's role "in saving our infant nation," he said.
Planners had to ruefully admit that the Saturday drizzle that forced all events into the shelter of The Prizery were probably very similar to the weather encountered by soldiers centuries ago: "Noah would have been impressed," quipped John Buchanan, visiting historian and writer.
Concurred Lawrence E. Babits, writer and historian: "It was a rough two weeks" with the men marching in downpours over 30 miles a day over inaccessible back-roads. "Abysmal conditions."
While Buchanan talked of military strategy, Babits painted a picture of grueling military life: two and a half hours of sleep per night on the retreat, breakfast the only meal of the day, no tents, no pots for cooking.
The men, too, may not have been the patriots we idealize them as. Some joined for self-interest, some switched sides more than once.
A hit of the weekend was the historical impersonator D'oyle Moore, who personified Greene as a commanding, broad-chested man decked out in a navy and beige staff officer uniform with gold-fringed epaulettes, a white frilled shirt and tricorn hat.
(Due to the weather, Moore's/Greene's horse did not make the trip.)
"We don't do this for our own entertainment, "Moore told the audience. "We do this for the future."
"The story [of the Crossing] must be told and retold, accurately, cleverly ... and with tears."
Also Saturday, wreaths were presented to the Crossing commemorative stone that will be places at Constitution Square.
Almost a dozen representatives from Virginia and North Carolina Daughters of the American Revolution chapters and Sons of the American Revolution chapters paid their respects.
Colonial artifacts collected by Charles Ware were on display and period music tinkled in the background as men and women in 18th century period dress milled about.
Celebration organizers Douglas Powell and Dan Shaw said they were happy with the turnout, which was undoubtedly compromised by the cold, rainy weather.