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Mount Vernon’s new Patriot’s Path offers a ground-level look at Revolutionary War service, where soldiers spent far more time sleeping on hard ground, cooking basic rations and playing cards than marching into battle.

Created for the 250th anniversary of the war’s beginning, the living-history camp currently depicts military life in 1775. Its features and activities will evolve to represent each year of the conflict.

Costumed interpreters explain the routines of a typical regiment made up of about 60 rank-and-file soldiers, officers and camp followers. Visitors can speak with the guides and handle reproductions of objects used in camp.

The site includes an officer’s tent, 10 soldiers’ tents, a cooking area and a quartermaster’s station where supply wagons would have delivered provisions. The oval officer’s tent served as both an office and sleeping quarters. It measures nine by 15 feet and has a decorative red scalloped border.

Ordinary soldiers faced much tighter conditions. Five or six men could be packed into a seven-by-seven-foot canvas wedge tent, sleeping on a shared blanket laid over the ground. The tents were likely sweltering in summer and bitterly cold in winter.

Clothing, knapsacks, dominoes and playing cards are scattered through some of the tents. Daniel Cross, Mount Vernon’s manager of encampment interpretation, estimated that soldiers spent less than 10% of their time marching or fighting.

“They had a lot of time to sit around and do nothing,” Cross said.

Historian Bruce Chadwick wrote in The First American Army that card playing became so consuming—and caused so many disputes—that gambling was prohibited during the winter of 1777.

Most Continental soldiers were unmarried men between 16 and 26 from a range of backgrounds. At the start of 1775, there was no established national army. The initial forces consisted largely of locally organized militia companies that would appear ragtag by modern standards.

The Second Continental Congress formally created a standing army on June 4, 1775. George Washington took command on July 3.

Uniforms were not yet standardized during the war’s first year. A dull green hunting frock hanging from a tent pole illustrates the variety of clothing worn at the time.

“It was come-as-you-are,” Cross said. More consistent uniforms arrived in 1777 and 1778, with Virginians wearing red and brown and Marylanders wearing red and blue.

Food, Drink and Camp Followers

Soldiers generally cooked their own meals over wood fires. Under a covering known as a fly tent, Mount Vernon interpreters use colonial-era iron pots imported from England.

Food arrived in wooden barrels and commonly included salted beef, pork or fish along with dried vegetables. A typical soldier’s ration might contain salted meat, beans, South Carolina rice and bread resembling a corn cake.

Alcohol was also part of camp life. Chadwick described substantial drinking among soldiers, reflecting a common practice in colonial America. Cross said camp beer typically contained 1% to 2% alcohol, while Caribbean rum was consumed to help maintain morale.

Women also lived and worked in military camps. Cross estimated that there was roughly one woman for every 24 men. Some wives followed the Army and earned their place by working as nurses, laundresses or petty sutlers who sold goods.

For some, remaining home alone posed its own dangers and hardships. Women with little money or independence could struggle to manage farms and raise children without their husbands, making camp life the more practical option.

Washington’s Departure Recreated

On May 4, reenactors portrayed Washington leaving Mount Vernon for the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, where he was appointed commander-in-chief of the newly created Continental Army.

Accompanied by musicians and participants in 18th-century clothing, Washington marched through the camp and departed through Mount Vernon’s front gates.

Mount Vernon will commemorate his assumption of command on June 14 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with horses and a boat parade on the Potomac River.

The National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir is also marking the Army’s 250th anniversary with June events. Its exhibition, Call to Arms: The Soldier and the Revolutionary War, opens June 7-8.

Together, the encampment and reenactments begin a multiyear commemoration of the nation’s founding 250 years ago.