Completion Report on American Battery No. 2, Second Parallel, Colonial National Historical Park
Borresen T. 1941. Completion Report on American Battery No. 2, Second Parallel, Colonial National Historical Park. Historic Structure Report. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
This report contains information about the American Battery No. 2 at Colonial National Historical Park in Yorktown, Virginia. Portions of it had been reconstructed for exhibition purposes, but the entire battery had not been reconstructed or fully excavated. Of the batteries constructed and used by the allied army at Yorktown during the siege, one small French four-gun battery in the second parallel and one large section of the Grand French Battery in the second parallel had been reconstructed. Report sections describe known information about the battery related to the siege of Yorktown in October, 1781, based on journals, diaries, maps, and archeological excavation. This information formed the basis for reconstruction. The battery is the only one constructed entirely by American troops that had been possible to reconstruct on the Yorktown battlefield. The American Revolutionary army had no established system or principles for the construction of fortifications and followed the rules instituted in Europe. The report describes the process of reconstructing a battery based on archeological findings, described as a procedure in reverse of the original construction. Three 10-inch mortars had not yet been reconstructed because the position had not been definitively decided and further information about the carriage was needed. This also recommends installing gun platforms.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Borresen, Thor
- Date of Issue
- 1941-07
- Publisher
- U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
- Units
- COLO , NER
- Keywords
- archeology, battery, cannon, cannon carriage, defense, excavation, military, parapet, powder magazine, reconstruction, siege