Groton, Mass.

July 14-15, 2007

Wow! This has probably been one of the best events I have been to this season! What made it so great was that the Groton Historical Society (or Hysterical Society, as Chris likes to call it) was so involved in the event and really pulled things together! They even linked the town to the Civil War through historic buildings, discussions and cemetary tours of soldier's graves (all Union, obviously).

This was Lindsay's first re-enactment where she actually participated, as a soldier no less!

I don't personally know these boys, but they were watching the Confederates line up for the Saturday battle. Future soldiers?

Well, not only did the Union have seven cannons (at least six were full size, too!), but on Saturday they had the high ground. Here are some of the 15th's and the 1st Maryland soldiers running across the field away from enemy fire.

This was our (the Confederates) cannon...yes, I know, not that impressive to look at, but dang! That thing can make some noise! I like how the "bodies" of the artillery crew that manned it are strewn about.

Later that evening we noticed the Confederate Cavalry saddling up and I thought, "oh, they're going out to ride, scope the hills, or practice." Well, in reality, they were headed over to Unity to raid the town. When they started shooting and yelling, Mike looked up and said "Oh, it looks like Unity is being sacked again."

As I was watching the raid and the large tent on the right was that of the largest sutler (shop) for the weekend, well all of the sudden, as the horses were slowed down and things seemed to calm I saw these three figures go running out of the tent and take off down the field back to our camp. I'd forgotten that Kate, Charlene and Amelia (Charlene's new friend) had gone down to buy some rock candy. They came back with the news that a man had been "shot" during the raid because as the cavalry raider said "that suit is unacceptable!" I thought that was pretty funny and the girls told the story quite well.

Charlene is just so pretty in this photo. Her father has plenty of reasons to worry!

On Sunday, me, Vicky, Peg, and Kate went on a cemetary tour. When we arrived a Union group, the 13th Massachussetts I believe, were leaving after holding a memorial service for the Civil War soldiers buried there. I was sorry to have missed it, but the ladies giving the tour were excellent and they really knew their history! Two of the three were dressed as Civil War era widows and they described the three (recommended) stages of mourning for the time period.

A year and a day after her husband's death the widow barely went out or socialized and she wore black dresses with a veil and gloves and little to no adornment.

After that time had elapsed, for the following nine months she was allowed to incorporate a little color into her attire (i.e. putting little purple rose buds in the folds of her bonnet, a dark red hat covered with thick black lace, etc) and she was allowed to send out letters to friends informing them she was allowed to have visitors, the stationary was usually had a black border of some kind. As for jewelry if she wore any it was black, usually made of jet, and not fancy.

After those nine months she went through the final stage which was three months long and she only had to wear the black dress and hat, she could accent it with some of her family jewelry, white lace collars, etc., but she still had to keep it subdued.

Back to the battle!
Here's some of the Union artillery. They were supposed to lose on Sunday, but it didn't look like the Confederates won...I don't really know what happened except that the company nearest me took some hits (guys fell down as though dead) and their captain started shouting "Get up! get up!" They kind of looked at him like 'huh? But I'm dead." So not that many fell in the onslaught of our Volkswagon Beetle-sized cannon.

Here was one of the last Confederates standing on the left flank. He made the Union company nearest him charge and take him, they were actually laughing with him after that and I think they and him just watched the rest of the debacle unfold.

So that was the afternoon. As we were folding up though, the skies darkened and despite Mike's attempt to keep the rain away (he was blowing at the clouds as he was tying things up >eye roll<) as we were halfway through packing up the sky opened up and it poured! Lightening, thunder, the whole shebang! Everyone who was there to help ended up soaked through! It was pretty amazing through when the re-enactors around us saw we were still trying to get stuff stowed and they just came over and took stuff down. Before I knew what was going on the fly and wall tent were down and they were folding the canvas. There are some really nice people involved in the re-enacting hobby.

4th of July

July 4, 2007

Do you know where Winslow, Maine is? It's one of those places where if you drive to the middle of nowhere and take a left, you'd find it. Actually, since joining the 15th Alabama, I've noticed a lot of that in Maine...hmmm. Anyway, it was quite the drive for me and Dave, especially since we couldn't leave until we got out of work. We had Mike (Captain), Steve (1st Sergeant), Chris (Surgeon), Tom (Corporal), Dave and Ben for soldiers while me and Kate represented the civilians.

So let me show you how I spent my 4th of July holiday!
I got to meet another one of our younger members, Kate. She's a real sweetheart and she walked the parade route with me which really put me at ease. I was worried that I was going to be the only one. We actually turned into the company's propaganda scouts. Tom turned to us after our first "tourist-y" encounter (a parade watcher coming over to take a photo with Tom) and told us to hand out cards with the Company's contact information on them. I mostly held the stuff and sent Kate over to pass the cards out, which she did very well.


Here's a great photo of the guys firing their muskets. I actually had to ask the Captain to wave me forward so I could get this shot (no pun intended). When he did I had to trot out in front of them, which was farther than I would have had time for if I didn't have the signal from the Captain.


This photo gives you a better look at Mike and Tom with the flag.


Here are the guys standing next to this blockhouse which is all that is left of Ft. Halifax which was built by the English to ward off enemies during the French and Indian war.

Ft. Halifax: National Park Service

Finally, here's another photo of Kate except at the end of a fairly warm day at the end of the parade, which turned out to be almost two miles long. Thank goodness they had a "VIP" bus service to take us back to our cars.

Well, it wasn't as warm as years past, according to the veterans of the parade, but almost everyone finished their canteens full of water (no, there's no whisky in them...this time >wink<). I don't blame them though, it was warm. What was nice though, was that Mike kind of tried steering us into the shade when ever it looked like we were going to have to stop for a while. We might have mutinied if he hadn't, and Vicky would have been mad at him, too. But it was nice, me and Kate really were not looking forward to having to play nurse to the surgeon, I kept having flashbacks to the Train Robbery a few days previously where Deb was pretending to dig bullets out of soldier's arms. >shudder<

On to the next event! Groton!

Lincoln, RI

April 4th - 5th, 2007

After months of meetings, this was mine and Dave's first event. We were excited, we were pumped, we had to sleep on the ground. Yeah, that didn't go over well with Dave. Come to find out that camping is not exactly his thing. The lack of shower bothered him, it was very cold, and the ground was pretty hard (it was frozen, no joke, it was 30 degrees that night). It didn't bother me much, but we were unprepared to tell the truth. So we ended up driving around who-knows-where Rhode Island (it doesn't seem that big until you're lost at 4am) to find a Wal-Mart to buy an extra blanket and an air mattress. We managed to find one (thanks to a pretty cute, and very nice, Woonsockett police officer) but it did not open until 7am, so we did the unthinkable; we waited for it to open.

Now armed with our "Farb" we headed back to the campground. This event was one of the first in the season and it was actually a school of instruction. There were classes that the men and the women could attend to help them be better re-enactors. It also gave me a glimpse of how to interact with the tourists. It was fun to hear some of the stories about dealing with tourists (can't call them civilians because that's what we call the re-enactors who are not soldiers). Apparently, many tourists just walk around the campsite and kind of look at you like you're a living diorama or not even real. They kind of just walk around or through your camp and stare, but don't say anything. I witnessed it, and it was kinda disturbing.

Now you're probably wondering what a re-enactment is like? Well if you've been to Plimouth Plantation in Massachusetts, that's basically a re-enactment, just a different era and less exciting.

So, the guys practiced drilling, we met the cavalry, and I realized that, there was no Union camp. When I asked about that, Miss Vicky said, "Oh, they're >insert place here< this weekend for their school of instruction." Oh, okay.

Our group was fairly small for this event; me, Dave, Mike, Vicky, Charlene ("The Child"), and Tom (who is REALLY hard to photograph because he moves so much!)

Well, now for some photos:
Here are Mike and Vicky at the camp, despite their look it was actually quite cold.

Here is one of the few photos I have of Tom (who is a corporal in the group). He's an awesome guy who, as I have learned after a few events, is really quick and hard to track with the camera. But I have the rest of the season!

At this event they did a payroll re-enactment which was pretty neat, but at the same time kind of humiliating because Dave (my boyfriend) was docked a dollar (from a private's pay of $11) for excessive cleanliness. >hangs head in shame< However, Mike got docked I think it was $10 from his pay (not sure how much it is for a captain) for excessive drunkeness last season. He tried to defend himself, but I guess it didn't go over well. He also owed Tom money from a card game they played.

As I later found out, they passed forms around the camp to find out who was there, how much each was getting and what he was going to be docked for. So it was really Mike and Tom who had Dave docked for excessive cleanliness. I guess it was also Tom who put in excessive drunkeness for Mike. Tom was the only one who didn't get docked for anything. What did they use for money, you ask? Someone took some confederate bills and photocopied the crap out of them to make a suitable payroll box. They even staged (or maybe they didn't do it intentionally) a payroll robbery by two privates. Also, I learned that the enlisted men got paid first (probably so they wouldn't see how much the officers got).

Well, a few hours after the payroll, we packed it up and left. I can tell you now, there were a lot of sore bodies for the next couple of days.
But it was a lot of fun.