No one experiences a museum like a reenactor or a veteran.

 

As a former Civil War reenactor, I think visiting a museum in Gettysburg is a surreal experience. I've seen these things out on the field in real life and there they are in a museum, behind glass.

We go to these places and feel a physical connection across time to these very old objects.

 

It's different when you know firsthand how rough the wool clothes are, how hard it is to sleep on the ground in those tiny canvas tents, to have sore feet from the hard leather shoes. When you know just how heavy that rifle is and what the gunpowder smells like (and tastes like). When you've felt the shock of the blast hit your chest the moment a cannon fires, when you know the stinging smell of smoke, when you've heard the beating drums vibrate you to the core, when you've heard the harsh bugles and fifes assaulting your ears above the clattering chaos. When you know the gut wrenching feel of marching steadily toward the sound of gunfire, when you've felt invincible, a cog in a vast machine of war and yet vulnerable at the same time knowing there's a good chance you'd be dead if it were real. 

 

We stare at the grim faces in those tintypes and they seem to stare back at us. If we listen closely, maybe they can tell us part of their story. 

 

We have an organic connection to those men we know the public will never be able to grasp. The dry numbers and percentages in textbooks will never make a visitor feel a connection to the past like being able to see it, hear it, feel it, taste it and smell it like we do.

 

You feel a strange sort of camaraderie, like that long dead soldier in the photograph could be a friend, a cousin or even a brother to you. You want to reach across time and speak to them, listen to them. Hard to describe beyond that but it is unbelievably real to me.

Bruce Catton said it best:

We are the people to whom the past is forever speaking.

We listen to it because we cannot help ourselves, for the past speaks to us with many voices.

Far out of that dark nowhere which is the time before we were born, men who were flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone went through fire and storm to break a path to the future.

We are part of that future they died for.

What they did--the lives they lived, the sacrifices they made, the stories they told and the songs they sang and, finally, the deaths they died--make up a part of our own experience.

We cannot cut ourselves off from it.

It is as real as something that happened last week.

It is a basic part of our heritage as Americans.

 

 The Civil War living history days are far behind me now, almost ten years ago as I write this. But some of those experiences will stay with me forever.

Some Lame News - But A Nice Picture

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This journal will be updated a lot less often now, since I am no longer active in the Civil War hobby. Between the global shutdown and all the event cancellations due to Covid-19, my photography business put on hiatus and my own financial struggles, one of my hobbies had to go. I had to make a tough decision to sell off most of my gear and retire from 1860s living history. My rifle is gone, as well as my tent and most of my gear. You will not see many new posts on this site going forward, unless of course I volunteer for a day at Fort Delaware or I go to an event as a spectator. My reasons for leaving the hobby go much deeper than this, mainly I cannot stand the re-emerging racism and modern politics starting to loom over something that used to be fun and educational for the public.  I do WWII events almost exclusively now and have a far greater collection of uniforms and stuff, as well as a better family connection to the 1940s.

I attended one Civil War event this weekend as a spectator with a camera however, and got some amazing images with a new lens I bought last year. Like this one, which I think is my favorite from the whole day:




I took this picture of a friend at the Colonial Pennsylvania Plantation in Ridley Creek State Park, during their annual Civil War skirmish this past weekend. This is what I love about the Plantation, the backdrop is perfect for reenactments. Not a single modern thing in sight. I think this photo in particular has an illustrative quality to it so I wanted to do something special with it.

I think this is my favorite photograph I have so far and I've been shooting photos of reenactments for 7 years. I liked it so much I wanted to turn it into an engraving for a story in an imaginary issue of Harper's magazine. So I did some intense Photoshop work and this is the result:

The Revolution and the Civil War were still very popular subjects for stories at a time when everybody read books for entertainment. American history was fascinating to boys and young men. They liked to read adventure stories about military exploits, discoveries, tales of sailing on the high seas (I've read some Navy stories but most of them involve pirates). Historical fiction was hugely popular. Fantasy and science fiction at this time were still fairly new & unfamiliar genres and they were very exciting, but history was no less interesting. Generally it seems young people near the turn of the 20th century were curious about what America was like "in the old days" and they longed for the simpler pre-industrial times.

Harper's, (of the famous Harper's Weekly newspaper) started making bound literary collections of poetry, humor and short stories for young readers in the 1880s called "Harper's Young People." In 1895 the name was changed to Harper's Round Table. I have a Harper's Roundtable book from 1896, the pages in it are very thin and falling apart but I have read some of it. The illustrations for these stories were prints made from engravings and were amazingly detailed.  For examples, see my 1896 Roundtable posts: Civil War Drill Camp for Boys, Passing The Winter, A Song for Christmas Eve,  The Man Who Invented Santa Claus
 
This image had to be turned to monochrome and layers of digital filters put on it...I upped the contrast, played with shadows and highlights, overlaid a film grain filter, added a "sketch" filter with high detail and then cropped it to fit on a page with some typesetting, as if it was from a book.

In this scene, I imagined a Confederate soldier ran away from a battle or he got lost somewhere in Pennsylvania after Gettysburg. Maybe he's seen enough of the war and wants to find his way home. Perhaps he's been on the road for a few days without food, he's tired and he can't go on much longer. So in this scene he's come across a farm, maybe he hopes he can forage an ear of corn, some carrots or a few apples without being seen. He's in enemy territory and he knows he could be shot on sight, unless he's very lucky and the family are Secessionist sympathizers. What will happen?

Flashback- 8 Years Ago

Boonsboro, Maryland. Sept 16th 2012

It had rained overnight, the ground was soaking wet. Our wool clothes were wet too, we had no chance to dry them. We got up when it was still dark, stars were overhead. Reveille was at 4:30 in the morning. Without time for anything but a cup of black coffee cooked over the fires, we put on our uniforms and backpacks and picked up our muskets to join formation. A silent inspection and the General on his horse called out "Attention, Division. Forward, March!" Then we started to march down a long dirt road in the moonlight, in a long line of hundreds of men.

 Everyone was quiet, except for shuffling feet and full canteens banging on our tin cups strapped to our haversacks. The march seemed to go on indefinitely, as the sky turned to grey and we could see our surroundings. A thick fog rose up, so we could barely see each other. A lone pickup truck drove on by us down the road, his  red tail lights fading into the murky gloom. I only imagined what the driver thought of our line of ghostly soldiers marching to nowhere.

At long last, we reached the edge of a field of corn and the Division commander called for a halt. We formed ranks and stood there like statues, facing the cornstalks that loomed over us like ranks of silent soldiers. Then day broke...the sun climbed slowly behind the trees, shining golden rays through the thick white mist. As the morning got warmer, steam started to come off our wet jackets, off the hats on our heads, off the backs of the horses.

We heard a shout from the other side of the field, and a few shots. We were ordered to load and shoulder, then the first rank of men walked slowly into the corn and seemed to vanish into the white. The sounds of a skirmish came floating back at us through the impenetrable fog. We were next. Flanked on both sides by other men with deer tails stuck in their caps, I lowered my borrowed 1842 Springfield and stepped into the field, then the volleys from the other side started and I was instantly thrown back 150 years in time.  The Battle of Antietam had just begun. 

How to Stay in Fighting Form Through the Winter

"The first thing in the morning is drill, then drill, then drill again. Then drill, drill, a little more drill. Then drill, and lastly drill. Between drills, we drill, and sometimes stop to eat a little and have roll-call." ~Oliver Norton, 83rd Pennsylvania Infantry

During the Civil War, infantry tactics of the Napoleonic era dictated that the soldiers spent close to half the day drilling when they were in camp. The officers basically drilled the men until their arms were ready to fall off. And then they stopped briefly to eat or rest a bit, and then started to drill again.  The idea was to instill in the men a 'muscle memory' of the required movements, so they could obey orders even when half asleep from exhaustion or in the heat of battle. They wanted it to become a reflex.

As reenactors who only do this as a weekend hobby for about three or four months out of the year, and only get to do a well-organized Battalion Drill perhaps once or twice a year, of course it is rather easy to fall out of shape. The months spent cooped up indoors without much physical activity can leave us rather, well... soft. 

If you're looking for a way to keep your muscles toned for battle during the long winter indoors, (and you're like me and don't have gym equipment or can't afford a gym membership,) here are three exercises that an experienced reenactor showed me who had been doing Rev War since 1976. It works best with a long musket, like the Springfield or the Enfield, but I've been involved in World War II more and more and I found it works just as well with my M1 Garand. It trains the specific groups of muscles that we use most often when dropping to our knees after running, getting up to run, and of course aiming our rifles.

I found these exercises to be most effective, try to do them once a day. It only takes a few minutes, and yes, you will have to get out your weapon to do this:




 

1. Hold your rifle or musket by the barrel and the stock horizontally, and raise it straight above your head (pretend you're one of those guys fording a river in 'Nam)






2. Raise and lower it slowly like a barbell several times, then hold it up as long as you can until you feel your arms getting shaky. Then rest for a few seconds, and repeat.  This works your shoulders and upper arms.





 






 3. Bring the rifle down behind your head, so you feel your back stretching out. Dang that feels good. Stand up as tall and straight as you can.











4. Aim your rifle or musket straight ahead, supporting it with your elbow on your hip, and crouch down on one knee, then come back up. Do this slowly 3 times. Rest for a few seconds. Repeat.  This targets the specific parts of your legs used in crouching down and rising up to move. Your knees will hurt for a bit. That's how you know you did it right.

5. Aim your rifle or musket straight ahead while standing, then pick up one foot and place it against your other knee, like "Jethro Tull playing a flute" Keep standing on one leg, and try to hold your aim steady for as long as you can until you start to wobble. This is harder than it sounds, but it works a lot of muscles at once. The longer you can stand to do it, the stronger you will get!












6. While you got the rifle out, why not go through the Manual of Arms? (if you got the ceiling height for it) I have to go out and practice in the garage, due to some dents in the ceiling from a certain blunt instrument...  Here are some videos for musket drill you can follow for an example.

LionHeart Filmworks just made some new Casey's drill videos this year.

Or, follow Casey's Manual "By the Book" with this one:

A soldier's face revealed after 155 years

In the small cemetery of Emmanuel Church in historic New Castle, Delaware, there are very old burials and headstones dating as far back as the 1680s. One slightly more recent grave caught my attention for the amount of writing inscribed on it. This is the gravestone of Captain John Evans, a soldier in the 2nd Delaware Volunteers during the Civil War. It says where and when he was KIA, and unlike most soldier burials, it lists all the battles he fought in.
His headstone is below.

It reads:

SACRED

To the memory of

my beloved husband

CAPT. JOHN EVANS

Of 2nd Regt. Del. Vols.

After having distinguished himself

at the Battles of Gains Mills,

Savage Station, Peach Orchard,
White Oak, Malvern Hill,
Antietam,
Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville,
Gettysburg, Auburn Hill,
Bristoe Station, Mine Run and Wilderness,
He fell in the pride of early Manhood
May 19th, 1864.
In the 27th year of his age
At the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, Va.
He was a true and faithful follower
of Christ from early youth.
He rests in peace.

With the appalling death toll of Civil War battles and the short life expectancy of officers, I think it's amazing he survived 13 major battles, including the deadliest days in American history. What an incredibly brave soldier he must have been. 

Now, thanks to a visit with the Delaware History Museum's research library this past Saturday, and with their permission to share for my readers, I have a copy of this man's photograph.

So here he is...this is Captain John Evans himself in 1861.

No more a faceless name carved in weathered stone... now this long-dead soldier can get the admiration he deserves. The things he must have seen and survived. We can only imagine.

This young individual, at age 27, led an entire company of 100 men in battle. A hundred scared boys with muskets, some of whom were mere teenagers, others may have been older than he was. He led them through 14 battles, no less.

I don't know how he was killed, but I think his career speaks for itself. With thirteen engagements under his belt, he must have been no coward.

So let his name and face be known, after all these years!



...I myself am related to a Union soldier who was killed in 1864, at the battle of Reams Station. And he was about the same age. His tale was somewhat less noble... but his is a story for another time.

Advice for Soldiers at Public Events

-Don't be the guys who ignore the public's questions.
-Don't be the guys who give sarcastic answers to the questions.
-Don't be the guys who sit around and drink beer and smoke cigarettes.
-Don't be the guys who turn their backs on the National anthem.
-Don't be the guys who ignore the command staff when they pass by. SALUTE!
-Don't call an officer by his first name. "Captain _____ Sir" only!
-Don't walk right into the Colonel's tent. Get your Captain to escort you and ask permission.
-Don't sit around mocking the spectators.
-Don't sit around mocking the 'farbs'.
-Don't sit around and talk trash about other reenactors.
-Don't sit around and talk trash about that guy's girlfriend/wife.
-Don't sit around and talk about modern politics in an 1860's camp.
-Don't sit around, period!

Get up and walk around!

-Go pose for pictures with young visitors; it will make their day.
-Go find a veteran and talk to them, invite them into your camp.
-Go visit other units, try talking to them. Make new friends.
-Go find the answer to a question you don't know.
-Go party with the other side on Saturday night, see what they think of your event.
-Go to the dance, even if you don't dance you can still watch.
-Go act out a scenario with friends to entertain the public.
-Go find where all the laughter and music is coming from, that's where the fun is.

Remember the public, we are here for them.

-Without them we have no local interest.
-Without the local interest, we have no funding.
-Without the funding, we have no events.
-Without the events, we have no excuse to wear our fancy blue suit in public.

"I thank de lawd everyday for Mista Lincoln who gave me these beautiful clothes!" - Glory

Living Historian's Creed

Defacing ANY war memorial is a crime.

This cast bronze, concrete-embedded sign is at the base of the Virginia monument, which overlooks the field of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. It was placed at the monument's dedication in 1917.




$500 + 100 years of inflation= $9,551.72 in 2017.

I do not support the Confederate cause, or believe in what it stood for, but you cannot change history. What's happened has happened!  If you deface a war memorial, you should both pay the fine AND go to jail.

On This Day in 1862: Battle of Hampton Roads

155 years ago today

The Monitor and the Virginia (Merrimack)

Battle of Hampton Roads, James River Harbor, Virginia

On March 9, 1862--155 years ago today-- was a face-off between two very strange boats that forever changed war at sea...the clash of the ironclad vessels USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia. As these two unconventional ships approached each other in the harbor of the James River, it must have been a strange sight to the Union and Confederate supporters watching from the shore. For no one had ever seen such vessels afloat.

The Virginia was actually a salvaged Union frigate called the Merrimack that had been sunk and later raised by Confederates. Her hull was cut away and covered with angled sheets of metal, called "a floating barn roof" by observers. The plating protected everything except her smokestack, with shuttered gun ports hiding six Dahlgren smoothbore guns, two 6-inch Brooke rifles and two more 6.4-inch Brooke rifles.  She had spent the previous day decimating the Union Navy's fleet of wooden ships, totally destroying a 50-gun frigate and a sloop, and running another frigate aground.  Shots simply bounced off her sloping armored sides.

Her adversary the Monitor was not a ship, so much as it was a barge, running so low in the water that waves broke across her flat deck. Not an elegant vessel, it was jokingly called a "Yankee cheese box on a raft." Its only feature was a revolving turret with two large guns that could only be fired once every seven or eight minutes. The iron plating on the hull was covered in rounded rivets like the bumpy skin of a toad.

Though very different in appearance, the ships could not have been more evenly matched. The two bizarre ships circled round and round, Monitor's revolving turret rotating to keep its two guns sighted as Virginia tried to position herself to broadside Monitor with her fixed guns. They fired volley after volley at almost point-blank range, but neither boat was able to cause crippling damage and there was no clear victor. But ship to ship combat would never be the same.

The age of the wooden warship was over in a day. This was, for all intents and purposes, the start of a new age in sea battles.

It is hard to imagine the sweltering heat the gun crews had to tolerate in their wool uniforms, the deafening noise of black powder cannons inside the metal ships, and the shock of those solid iron cannonballs bouncing off the outer hull.  These sailors were very rugged individuals, to sail on an ironclad ship required a will of iron.

A recreation of this battle only appears in one movie that I know of, a film from 1991 called IRONCLADS. I like to watch dramatizations of historical events, so here's the edited scenes of the battle for your entertainment.

On This Day 3 Years Ago

This post came up in my Facebook timeline from today in 2014 and I thought I'd share it...

The "drill till you drop" weekend at Fort Mifflin with Company C of the 28th PA Infantry was significantly better than last year, albeit much more wet and muddy.  I think we drilled about as much as any soldier would on a typical day in camp; pretty much continuously with less than an hour to rest in between each.  It's open to any unit in the Mifflin Guard, but only the 28th PA routinely does it. I was the only Bucktail.

Saturday night while the 28th was having their planning meeting and huddled around inside the bunker for some tight gossip, I decided to go take a walk. I was wandering about the fort like a sentry and saw a large group of Cub Scouts and parents come in to spend the night in the barracks around sunset. A bit later I was cleaning my rifle on the front porch, and the kids started to congregate around me, inspecting my uniform and equipment. So I located the janitor of the Fort and asked if he could unlock the closet where they keep the wooden muskets. Without further ado, I found a wooden crate to stand on and informed the crowd "By the orders of President Abraham Lincoln, on this day March 8, 1864 you are all hereby conscripted into the Federal Army!" Then I put all my gear and wool coat on several of the kids, photos were taken and I gave my musket to each kid in line, to let him hold it briefly and see how heavy it was.

About an hour later I seem to have gotten a field promotion to First Sergeant, as I was instructing 2 5-man "rifle squads" in Casey's manual! Yelling out the right orders was not easy, but the parents told me I did an impressive job. First time ever trying to act as an NCO. We even did an imaginary bayonet charge toward the wall at the end. By midnight, I found myself sharing grilled hot dogs and snacks around an enormous bonfire and talking to the den leaders. Everytime one of the kids walked by they said "by the way...you're awesome." 

Everyone stayed up super late past their bedtime but I think a good time was had by all.

A weekend well spent. 

The Sounds of War: What It Was Like to be Shelled By Artillery

We've all seen the cannons blank firing at reenactments. You cover your ears, you feel the shock wave of the explosion that punches you in the chest, you see a puff of smoke, maybe a smoke ring and that's it.  Well, keep in mind that these 1-pound powder loads are only half of what was considered full military power. So the noise we hear is only half as loud. We also don't hear the shells whistling downrange and the jarring impacts when they hit, a frightening experience that traumatized countless Civil War soldiers. While it is difficult to imagine getting shelled by over a hundred cannon at once during the battle of Gettysburg, some highly trained reenactors get to reproduce it on a small scale by live firing artillery pieces.

I have collected some videos here with examples of live firing explosive shells from Civil War cannons, using full military powder loads, and with cameras placed near the impact site. Also included is an attempt to simulate digitally what being shelled by 150 cannons on July 3, 1863 may have sounded like.

This is a more visceral experience than you will never get at a reenactment.

Live firing full military powder loads from parrot guns at the annual Historic Artillery Match, Camp Grayling Michigan National Guard Base:

Downrange shell bursts by 5th Massachusetts Battery at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin in 1990:

Special live fire target shooting against 55 gallon drums at Antietam battlefield:

A computer simulation of what Pickett's Charge artillery may have sounded like (best heard on a home theater system):

Reenactor Dictionary

"Farby Darby": (noun) A garishly over dressed male Civil War reenactor, frequently shows up to events uninvited, appears to have no unit affiliation. Known for his gentlemanly manners, pleasant disposition and outrageously Southern accent. May have an abnormally large feather plume on his slouch hat, black knee-high jackboots or other items inappropriate for his military branch.  Also known to wear an excessive amount of brass insignia and/or medals on his coat, of unknown origin. Frequently mistaken for an officer in a camp setting, whose only real job appears to be directing spectators to the restroom facilities.

Open Project: Decoding Civil War Telegrams

Want to be a history detective?  A collection of over 15,900 telegrams and codebook pages containing messages to President Lincoln, known as the Thomas T. Eckert Papers, have been digitized by Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in one of the most massive and ambitious archival projects for the Civil War. You can participate in this effort by helping to decipher them on this Zooniverse project website. It walks you through the entire process and the interactive interface is easy to use.

Cursive handwriting is not being taught to kids in schools anymore, so future generations may be unable to read anything before the age of printers! That's a scary thought. (My own handwriting in grade school was heinously bad, so in a way I can understand their decision). It's important that we start rewriting historical documents now or history could be lost forever.

Here's an example below that I just transcribed. No one has read this message in 153 years. If you are good at reading calligraphy and would like to help with this open crowd-sourced project, you can either create a free account and discuss in the forum, or you can work anonymously. Your efforts will help historians and researchers better understand how battles unfolded by providing access to an untapped resource for field intelligence!

New York City July 13, 1863
For Col Jas B Fry Prov.Marshal
"A mob estimated at from ten to thirty thousand men has assailed & destroyed the office of the Provost Marshal for the ninth district. The guard was completely routed & many injured. Gen'l (Abbott?) has ordered into the city all available forces but they will not exceed five hundred men of all kinds not more than two hundred regulars. The mob threaten destruction of all Gov't offices. I have sent all the enrollment papers to Governors Island. The demonstration is extremely dangerous. I respectfully suggest that a force sufficient to quell the mob be immediately sent to me as nearly all the effective militia Reg'ts are absent & those remaining here cannot be relied upon. Col. Nugent is now at the scene of the disturbance. Signed Samuel B Glassey, Deputy

Our National Anthem's Tune Started as a British Drinking Song

How many modern Americans know the original song the "Star-Spangled Banner" was based on? Francis Scott Key wrote his moving poem after watching the siege of Fort McHenry in 1814, at his joy of seeing the flag still flying over the fort.  The tune he stole for it, though, had origins less noble than you might imagine.

It was originally called "To Anachreon in Heaven," dedicated to an ancient Greek erotic poet who was particularly fond of feasts dedicated to Bacchus and their accompanying "wine & wenches", and was a popular British drinking song the colonists brought to America.

Hum along to the tune of this song and you will find it mighty familiar.

Words: Ralph Tomlinson
Tune: John Stafford Smith, 1771 (?)
The song was written for the Anacreontic Society, probably around 1771. The tune was was once thought to have been written by Dr Thomas Arnold, but is now thought to have been written "collectively" by members of the society, led by John Stafford Smith (who now usually gets the credit). The society met every two weeks to get drunk, sing songs and to indulge in some debauchery. Anacreon himself was a Greek poet from about 570 BC who was noted for his erotic poetry (in the Anacreontic style that he established) and his drinking songs.

source: http://www.miketodd.net/encyc/anacreontext.htmThe words changed slightly over the years but this is the well researched, cross-referenced version from the Wiki article:

To Anacreon in Heav'n, where he sat in full Glee,

A few Sons of Harmony sent a Petition,

That he their Inspirer and Patron would be;

When this answer arriv'd from the Jolly Old Grecian

"Voice, Fiddle, and Flute,

"no longer be mute,

"I'll lend you my Name and inspire you to boot,

"And, besides I'll instruct you, like me, to intwine

"The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's Vine."

2

The news through Olympus immediately flew;

When Old Thunder pretended to give himself Airs.

"If these Mortals are suffer'd their Scheme to pursue,

"The Devil a Goddess will stay above Stairs.

"Hark! already they cry,

"In transports of Joy,

"Away to the Sons of Anacreon we'll fly,^[31]

"And there, with good Fellows, we'll learn to intwine

"The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's Vine.

3

"The Yellow-Hair'd God and his nine fusty Maids,

"From Helicon's banks will incontinent flee,^[32]

"Idalia will boast but of tenantless Shades,

"And the bi-forked Hill a mere Desart will be

"My Thunder no fear on't,

"Shall soon do it's Errand,

"And dam'me! I'll swinge the Ringleaders, I warrant.

"I'll trim the young Dogs, for thus daring to twine

"The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's Vine."

4

Apollo rose up, and said, "Pry'thee ne'er quarrel,

"Good King of the Gods, with my Vot'ries below:

"Your Thunder is useless"—then shewing his Laurel,

Cry'd "Sic evitabile fulmen,^[33] you know!

"Then over each head

"My Laurels I'll spread;

"So my Sons from your Crackers no Mischief shall dread,

"Whilst snug in their Club-Room, they jovially twine

"The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's Vine."

5

Next Momus got up with his risible Phiz,

And swore with Apollo he'd chearfully join—

"The full Tide of Harmony still shall be his,

"But the Song, and the Catch, and the Laugh shall be mine.

"Then, Jove, be not jealous

"Of these honest fellows."

Cry'd Jove, "We relent, since the Truth you now tell us;

"And swear by Old Styx, that they long shall intwine

"The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's Vine."

6

Ye Sons of Anacreon, then join Hand in Hand;

Preserve Unanimity, Friendship, and Love!

'Tis your's to support what's so happily plann'd;

You've the sanction of Gods, and the Fiat of Jove.

While thus we agree,

Our Toast let it be.

May our Club flourish happy, united, and free!

And long may the Sons of Anacreon intwine

The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's Vine.

In an early scene of Turn: Washington's Spies you can see a bunch of British officers merrymaking and singing this song. I thought it was interesting to hear our nation's most recognizable tune sung by men of a foreign army with words unfamiliar to Americans.

The practice of stealing the melody from a popular song to write new lyrics was very common in the 18th and 19th centuries. Of the hundreds of marching songs written during the Civil War, a large chunk of them were set to the same tune that everybody knew. ("The Ants Go Marching" is a more recent version of the one that seemed to be most frequently used) 

This has continued today, if you consider the entire foundation of Weird Al Yankovic's music career. And, as juvenile an example as this is...the Barney the Dinosaur theme song is based off "Yankee Doodle," a tune which is now almost 250 years old.

Art imitates art. Always.

I am still alive...

I must apologize how this page has been so dead for months. I have actually not gone to a single battle since April; my civil war adventures have been put on hiatus while I focus on doing World War II reenactments. (I bought a rifle this year and finally started to participate instead of watching from the sidelines). In July I started volunteer work & interpretation at Fort Delaware, and I've been doing that about 3 to 4 days a week. 

 Fort Delaware is on Pea Patch Island, in the middle of the river between Delaware and New Jersey. It was built as a river defense fort, but never used as such and instead served as a prison from 1861-1864 for Confederate soldiers. Many rebels captured during the battle of Gettysburg were incarcerated here, including General Pettigrew, after his defeat at Pickett's Charge. All told about 20,000 people stayed on the island, and over 2,000 of the prisoners died, mostly of disease rather than failed escapes. (These were light compared to the death toll at Andersonville). 

Most of what I do at the fort is give equipment and weapons talks in the ordnance supply room when I'm not acting as a prison guard.

Sorry, but no pictures. All the interpreters do first-person impressions of 1864 and we have to stay in character, so only the public has the photo opportunity. This weekend will be a POW event at the fort, with more reenactors in attendance to act as prisoners. The event has been well advertized so hopefully it will draw some crowds. 

I don't know when the next battle reenactment I can attend will be. Maybe not until next season. 

Art Imitates Life, Life Imitates Art

The Gloomy Gus soldier

"...There were a few men in every organization who engaged in no pastimes and joined in no social intercourse. These men were irreproachable as soldiers, it may have been, doing without grumbling everything that was expected of them in the line of military or fatigue duty, but they seemed shut up within an impenetrable shell, and would lie on their blankets silent while all others joined in the social round; or, perhaps, would get up and go out of the tent as if its lively social atmosphere was uncongenial, and walk up and down the parade or company street alone. Should you address them, they would answer pleasantly, but in mono-syllables; and if the conversation was continued, it must be done in the same way. They could not be drawn out. They would cook by themselves, eat by themselves, camp by themselves on the march, --in fact, keep by themselves at all times as much as possible.  Guard duty was the one occupation which seemed most suited to their natures, for it provided them with the exclusiveness and comparative solitude that their peculiar mental condition craved."

 John D. Billings, Hardtack & Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, 1887

I think the entire first year of reenacting I hardly spoke to anybody. And I loved the overnight sentry duty.  Most nights in camp I could be found sitting alone at 4:00 in the morning in front of a blazing fire, leaning against my rifle with the glow from orange embers reflected in my eyes, doing what war veterans call the "ten thousand yard stare"...brooding, silent and mysterious.  

NESHAMINY 2016

The Battle of Neshaminy

The Battle of Neshaminy was fought over the course of three brutally cold spring days in April 1994. What began as a small skirmish over a parking violation erupted into a full scale engagement between three 10-man Brigades of New Jersey Confederates and an entire Federal division of 50 angry Northeast Philadelphians.

Some of the fiercest fighting occurred in the vicinity of the mulched area where the swing sets now stand by the picnic pavilion. The much sought-after strategic rally point known as the "Port-of-Pottay" changed hands over thirty times during the course of the two and a half day battle. There was a lull in the fighting in the afternoon on the First Day, when the 2:00 battle was called off on account of some light drizzle. The men dug entrenchments and huddled together under rubber blankets for protection from the prolonged bombardment which lasted until nightfall.

A solitary drinking fountain on a concrete pedestal marks the exact spot where a Union Lieutenant Colonel named Bob twisted his ankle while picking up a dropped ice cream cone. His wound was treated by a veterinarian named Barbara, who had an Ace bandage and some Neosporin in her fanny pack, which saved the man's leg from being amputated. He was rushed to a nearby doctor's office and nursed back to health. It was the most severe casualty of the fighting on the Second Day, for which he later received the Congressional Red Badge of Courage.

It ended with a formal surrender and mutual cease-fire on Sunday evening, as both sides remembered they had to go to work on Monday. It was decided that in future reenactments of this historic battle, the Federal encampment would be located as far away from the Port of Pottay as possible, while the Confederate encampment would be directly next to it, as postwar reparations for the humiliating Confederate defeat suffered just two weeks earlier at the Battle of the Kentucky Fried Chicken parking lot.

 Please give us one weekend of your time each year, and join us on this preserved and protected historic battlefield, to pay respects to these brave men in blue and gray who shed their sweat and selflessly laid their admission tickets on the registration picnic table of freedom.

Don't study it, live it!

"I learned far more about the Civil War in just four short years of reenacting than I did in sixteen years of reading about it in school textbooks. History books can't tell us what a wool uniform feels like in July, what rough leather shoes feel like after a long march in the mud, the weight of a rifle in your hands, to sit on a horse and feel the raw muscle power between your legs...how heavy a knapsack is, what gunpowder smells like; the beating of drums in your chest, or what a cannon firing a one-pound powder charge actually sounds (and feels) like.

Reading about abstract numbers of casualties and dates, or 'General Lee's division did this while General Meade's division did that and lost xx,xxx men with x,xxx wounded' is so far removed from reality that the average person will never understand it. You want to know what it was like? Go out and live it for a few days.

Those dry, snobby academics who say living historians are idiots, that history should be buried in the ground and forgotten, or entombed in the rotting pages of old memoirs on dusty bookshelves, are the reason why the people of today are so disconnected from their past. When was the last time you saw a kid reading a paper book instead of staring into a screen? They have really short attention spans. They want something to interact with, something to engage the senses. 150 years ago or a 1500 years ago, to them it doesn't matter without an experience. They'll never understand or respect what their ancestors struggled through without a chance to taste, hear, touch, smell, see - and experience- some of it for themselves."