The Revolution Comes To NMS

By Martha Coville

On December 12, soldiers from the Revolutionary War’s Continental Army commandeered classrooms at the Newtown Middle School. They were members of the Fifth Connecticut Regiment, a line unit formed in 1775, after the battles of Lexington and Concord, and disbanded after the Battle of Yorktown in 1783. In 1975, the regiment was reformed as an honorary unit. Present members of the Fifth Connecticut Regiment act as “living monuments” to America’s first patriots. They came to NMS to teach students about daily life in colonial America.

A Familiar History

A quick review of the American Revolution puts the Fifth Connecticut Regiment in the war’s most well-known battles. In 1775, the Fifth marched north for the disastrous invasion of Canada; they shivered through the winter at Valley Forge in 1777; and fought at the siege of Yorktown, after which the British were forced to surrender. By the end of the Revolution, the Fifth Connecticut Regiment had served under some of the war’s most famous generals, including George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, and, until he turned traitor, Benedict Arnold.

And the exploits of the Fifth Connecticut Regiment remain important to those interested in local history. Soldiers from the regiment responded to the 1777 British landing at Compo Beach in Westport. A statue of Sybil Ludington, who made a midnight ride to rally American troops against the British, stands in front of the Danbury Public Library.

Several localities across the state are named in honor of local officers who commanded the regiment. The town of Putnam takes its name from General Israel Putnam, in whose quarters the Fifth Connecticut spent the winter of 1778. Additionally, the Wooster Middle School in Stratford is named after another Fifth regiment commander, General Wooster, as is the Wooster Day School, and the Wooster Mountain State Park, both in Danbury. Wooster routed the British after their 1777 attack on Danbury and forced them back to the Long Island Sound; 1777 is considered the turning point of the American Revolution, and Wooster’s ambush on the Ridgebury Road in Danbury is actually considered the turning point of the war in New England.

The best known member of the Fifth Connecticut Regiment, however, is probably Aaron Burr, later the influential vice president to Thomas Jefferson. During the Revolutionary War, Mr Burr served as an aide to General Putnam. Later, in a notorious duel, Mr Burr shot former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton to death.

Witnesses To History

But neither the middle school students, or their teachers, or even the reenactors themselves were interested in dates, generals, or “turning points” on December 12.

NMS social studies teacher Andrew San Angelo, who organized the event, said that he hopes the reenactors will help students “think in the time period we are studying. People lived through those historic times,” he said, “and we try to bring those people to life in our social studies curriculum.”

Volunteers from the Fifth Connecticut Regiment therefore offered students a chance “witness” daily life in colonial America. Two volunteers, Louisa Sherman and Trisha Angels, displayed copies of colonial clothing on mannequins. Their lesson included how clothing was made, and how the wearing of it separated the working classes from the wealthy. They also explained the practicality and the perils of colonial women’s long skirts and multiple petticoats. The layers kept women warm in the days before central heating, but they were also a leading cause of death for women cooking over open fires.

Two other volunteers, John L. Ahrens and Tom Stephen, explained the military technology of the age. Mr Stephen carried a musket, and Mr Ahrens placed a replica of a colonial mortar, a weapon resembling a canon, in the front of a classroom. Mr Ahrens taught the students how an officer in the Continental Army would calculate the trajectory of a mortar shell, and the students followed along as he explained the math and physics behind the projectile.

A third demonstration examined domestic life in 18th Century America. Students learned what colonial Americans ate, and how they preserved their food for the winter. They sampled dried fruits and jams and beef jerky. Many colonists on the Atlantic coast of Massachusetts relied on cod as an important source of protein, and the odor of the dried filet was unmistakable.

Mr San Angelo explained that the middle school social studies curriculum extends from the exploration of North America to the ratification of the Constitution. A sense of the rhythm and demands of quotidian life during the 1700s therefore informs a large part of the syllabus. Mr San Angelo also said “I am constantly referencing the material from the show to remind students, ‘We saw this [subject] during the reenactment.’”

“History should not just be the memorizing of people and dates,” Mr San Angelo said, and the volunteers from the Fifth Connecticut Regiment gave Newtown Middle School students a glimpse of how particular people lived and worked and soldiered during specific dates.