Voices of Revolution: Personal Stories of the War for Independence

Imagine marching — hungry, tired, sweating in a hot wool uniform — shoulder to shoulder with other soldiers towards a line of enemy infantry taking aim at you. Imagine watching a mob burn your neighbour's house because of whether they had declared loyalty to King George. Imagine risking your life, and your family's, for a chance to escape slavery and know freedom for the first time — a right the Declaration of Independence called inalienable.

Experiences like these belonged to thousands of Americans during the Revolution. They are the stories of ordinary people living through uncertain times, whose contributions are often overlooked when the war is told through its generals, politics and great events: the personal cost of war and sacrifice for Patriots, Loyalists, Black Americans and women. They are stories no line on a map can tell, and the Society of the Cincinnati sees them as essential to understanding how the United States was founded and grew.

The project

With a Battlefield Interpretation Grant, the Society's American Revolution Institute plans new museum exhibits at Anderson House in Washington, DC. Touch-screen displays will present the personal accounts of people who fought in and lived through the Revolution in an engaging, accessible way. The Society will also develop educational resources, including K-12 lesson plans for online audiences, and reach out to draw more people to its museum programs throughout the year.

The grant program

Battlefield Interpretation Grants, from the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program, help preservation partners modernise and improve how battlefields are interpreted, creating places that inspire a wide range of visitors to come, understand and empathise with the soldiers and civilians who lived through some of the nation's hardest times. The program also offers Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants, Battlefield Restoration Grants and Preservation Planning Grants, encouraging community-led care of historic places at the state, tribal and local levels.

Sources

Based on the American Battlefield Protection Program's grant profile "Voices of Revolution: Interpreting the Personal Experiences of Soldiers and Civilians during America's War for Independence," published by the National Park Service; rewritten in hubnx's own words.

• The profile's image of the planned exhibit, credited to the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati, is not reproduced.