Taking the Kids: Mixing American history with holiday fun in Valley Forge and Philadelphia

Visit Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were signed. I bet you didn't know that the city's most famous site, the Liberty Bell, didn't take on significance as a symbol of liberty until the 1830s when it was named the Liberty Bell by anti-slavery groups.

At the National Constitution Center, we voted in "fantasy elections" between presidents from Harry Truman to Barack Obama, saw ourselves sworn in as president and played "Presidential Trivia." Did you know that John Quincy Adams was the only president to meet both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln?

The boys posed for selfies in Signers Hall alongside the 42 life-size bronze statues of the Founding Fathers present at the signing of the Declaration of Independence on September 17, 1787 and gave a thumbs up to "Freedom Rising," the multimedia theater experience that tells the story of the U.S. Constitution.

I think we all gained a new appreciation for the liberties we often take for granted -- and for what George Washington and his troops were fighting for that long ago cold winter.

When they arrived in Valley Forge, worn out from a year and a half of war and just 20 miles from where the British were headquartered in Philadelphia, they first had to build their camp -- felling trees and dragging them miles to build 1,500 rough huts.

The youngest soldier was just 11 -- a drummer boy whose mother was a "camp follower" who did the soldiers' laundry while her husband served. The oldest soldiers were in their 50s and 60s. They were as diverse as the people in the colonies -- poor and wealthy, free and enslaved, those who came from abroad and those who were native born.

That winter, Valley Forge was the fourth largest city in America. (In case you are wondering, George Washington's famous Christmas crossing of the Delaware River occurred two years before Valley Forge was chosen as his Army's winter encampment -- the night of December 25-26, 1776, the first move in a surprise attack against the Hessian forces in Trenton, New Jersey.)

The idea the following year was to concentrate the soldiers so that they could protect the countryside and better resist a British attack.

We visited the house that served as George Washington's headquarters (so small) and peered into the cramped recreated log huts where as many as 16 soldiers lived in bunks one on top of another. A national park ranger dressed in continental army uniform explained what life was like for soldiers here -- not easy, pleasant or safe.

Disease was the biggest threat, killing 2,000 that winter.

"People may think the troops were taking "a vacation," from war, said our guide Dave Lawrence on the 90-minute trolley tour around the vast park. "But that's a big misconception. The war never stopped."

Today, we should be glad for that, and thankful for their sacrifice.

========

For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com and also follow "taking the kids" on www.twitter.com, where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments. Check out the newest books in Eileen's Kid's City Guide series -- to San Diego, San Francisco, Denver and Colorado Ski Country.