Some of you may have been thinking that Mr. Q really enjoys gardening, seeing as we spent three full days touring gardens on our recent trip to the Brandywine Valley.

But, au contraire, it would be more accurate to say that he tolerates gardening and garden tours.  He was willing to put up with it though, because I paid him back by tolerating battlefield tours.

OK, to be fair, ‘tolerate’ is too strong of a word.  I think we both enjoyed the gardens and the battlefields … maybe just one more than the other.

We visited two different battlefield sites on our trip, the first was where the Battle of Brandywine took place during the American Revolution.

The photo above shows Birmingham Hill where much of the battle took place.  Mr. Q and I spent a very pleasant evening following a walking path around the area, but there was not a lot to see outside of some beautiful scenery.

And there is a large monument to Lafayette at the nearby Birmingham Meeting House.

From there it’s about a 10 minute drive to the Brandywine Battlefield Visitor’s Center which is only open on Friday and Saturday.  So we waited until Friday to head over there.  At the Visitor’s Center you can purchase a ticket that includes guided tours of two buildings nearby (FYI, neither are original to 1777 but have been restored to reflect their original look).

The first is the Benjamin Ring house.

Although this is called Washington’s Headquarters, our guide explained that it’s unlikely Washington actually stayed inside the house.  He likely stayed in a tent on the grounds.

They did have the front room, or parlor, set up as Washington’s office, but this is probably not historically accurate.  After all, Benjamin Ring, his wife and six children and two servants were living in this small house at the time.  So it’s unlikely that this room was empty except for one small desk.

Washington and his officers definitely did take meals in the Ring house, and Mr. Ring presented them with an invoice for those meals that is still in existence today.

Since Benjamin Ring was a Quaker, that meant that he was banished from his congregation for allowing this since it went against their pacifist beliefs.  Furthermore, since the British won this battle, Ring’s farm was mostly destroyed, his fields burned and his livestock stolen after Washington’s troops retreated in defeat.

We next headed over to the Gilpin farm.

See that giant tree on the right?  That is a sycamore tree that has been dated to 1730, so it was there at the time of the battle.  Sycamore trees can live for 200 to 400 years, and there are even some known examples that are over 500 years old!

We were able to tour the inside of the Gilpin farmhouse, but once again, it’s a reproduction and nothing inside is original to the house.

Gilpin was also a Quaker, and in contrast to Benjamin Ring, he refused to choose sides or fight during the battle.  However, the British left his farm in ruins and thus he later chose to side with the Continentals.

I found a great blog called Two Nerdy History Girls with some good info on both the Rings and the Gilpins, so check those out if you’re interested in learning more about them.  Although they quit writing their blog back in 2018, there is some good content to explore from before that.  Also, sidebar, I decided to try one of the author’s books so I’m currently reading The Secret Wife of Aaron Burr by Susan Holloway Scott and if you like historical fiction I would recommend it.  I only wish I’d read it before we went on our trip.

In the end both of these Quaker farmers paid a very high price after the Battle of Brandywine, although not as high as the approximately 1,300 Continentals or the 600 or so British soldiers who lost their lives (FYI, I find that those numbers vary depending on where you look).

The high price of war indeed.