Vails Gate, New York

Children's, History, Library, Military, Park

New Windsor Cantonment breathes life into the onetime Continental Army post housing 7,500 soldiers and 500 women and children civilian war refugees. A small but talented staff authentically dressed and equipped as soldiers or soldiers' wives demonstrate the work and pastimes of life in a military community from weapons drill, woodworking, blacksmithing, medicine, cooking and laundry to celebrations and funerals, sports and games, and aspects of ordinary life in extraordinary times 60 miles above British-controlled New York City at the close of the Revolutionary War. Two new galleries introduce guests to the forgotten people behind the famous figures, and to a lost historic site nearby where the seeds of victory at the Siege of Yorktown were planted through intensive training.