Fort Knox, part deux

August 29-30, 2009

This was probably the worst Fort Knox event me and Dave have ever been to. The wind started around 10pm, then ended around 3am but the rain...oh the rain! It rained until at least 4am on Sunday morning and it went from a drizzle to a steady rain the whole weekend! It was cold, wet and windy... But as usual, we end up having some fun.

Sgt. Dudley came over on Friday night to tell us the story of Alphonse the Moose (we were just looking for a new place to send out that second moose call Sgt. Dudley, don't you think I will forget next season). Which was pretty funny. I guess it's whole purpose was to basically see how many people it can make crazy because it takes so long. I thought it was hilarious, I want to learn it, but I do not think I could make a very good french accent to star as Pierre, the hunter who has been looking for Alphonse over twenty years.


Todd got royally boned. He had to play Yankee because some of the 20th left on Saturday because the forecast for Sunday was not supposed to be any better. Well it was & we had run out of Yankees...

I did not even change out of my regular clothes on Saturday, those dresses are horrible when wet and cotton, I would be soaked and cold in probably ten minutes. I ended up stealing Dave's overcoat and made sure my legs looked like they were in uniform. But then the rain started to pick up after noon (not that we could tell from the sun) so I went to my car and got my umbrella. I just sat, huddled around the fire, along with the rest of the group trying to dry out and keep warm. It is sort of a double-edged sword, you cannot do both unless you have a propane heater (which Todd has, he knows how to camp).

We went into the Fort Saturday evening to have some sweets with the soldiers there. Miss Rose wore a lovely dress that she recently made. Quite lovely in the firelight, I was glad to see it in the daylight on Sunday, though. The guys on the other hand, they were soaked & readily took up the area around the 20th's fireplace in the fort. If not for going in and drying out like that, I think everyone would have been sick the following week.

Sunday, thankfully, the sun broke through and dried just about everything out. Thank goodness, I did not know what I would do if I had to air out that canvas at home.

We had a little battle, unfortunately Todd had to galvanize because the rest of the Yankees left on Saturday night. He is an especially sharp dresser, I wish I had got a photo of him in his civilian clothes. They are very nice.



We also got a quick lesson in dismounted cavalry drills from Al, one of our newest members. I wish I had brought a change of clothes (soldier's) so I could have participated in the drill.


Although, Miss Rose and Todd did complement each other.

Next event!

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.

Borderland

June 16-17, 2007

"Borderland" is a state park in the Easton, MA area (I believe the park is actually in three towns, Sharon, North Easton and Mansfield, MA). Well, it was a very nice place to have an encampment and the parking was great! You don't think about parking too much until you have to carry things that weigh you down. I don't need to go to the gym to "pump up" I just need to carry Dave's musket around. Well, the parking was great for us, this was our first encampment with Union soldiers sharing the field. They were actually down behind some trees, we were closer to the road and the House that is sort of the icon of the park. When we got there that night to set up it was probably the first time we got there to actually help the group set up >eye roll<

As we were setting up Friday night, someone came over to us and said "In about ten minutes there's going to be a big wind!" We all just kind of looked at each other. Well, it was the Mass. Life flight helicopter creating the wind. We know it was not a re-enactor who was hurt, otherwise we would have heard the gossip at some point of the weekend, so we're thinking the ambulance (with an escort of fire trucks) carted someone in there because it's an open place for the helicopter to land. Well, the big wind came all right! It's a good thing we got the tent stakes down so well, even then we had to hold them, just in case.

So after that, we settled down around the campfire for our traditional evening of laughter and drink. I found out that a group of guys from Connecticut (mostly) calling themselves the 1st Maryland had fallen in with our company because, from what I understood, none of their officers had been able to make it. They were a fun group of guys. I cannot wait to see them again.

Well, here are some photos...
These guys are crazy, they get up at like 5:30 in the morning after a night of carousing and drinking! No wonder they need coffee! I think one of the gentlemen from the 1st Maryland said something about that. It's really Mike and Tom who are the early birds, and a few other people in camp & everyone else just wakes up shortly thereafter.


Here are "our boys" as Miss Vicky likes to call them (she's a delicate Georgia girl >wink<) on the battlefield.
As you can see, the Confederate forces were slightly outnumbered (you cannot see the two or three cannons with support crew or the cavalry in this photo). But those Rebel soldiers died with all the drama they could muster.

When we went over for this battle, this skirmish, me, Vicky and Charlene went over. It was so funny because we were watching them for a minute then all of the sudden Charlene asks Vicky "Is Daddy dead?" The spectators around us (we were dressed in our Civil War garb) had to laugh. It was a great question, especially when Vicky seriously looked over the bodies and made sure Mike wasn't on the ground before saying, "No, he's not dead, sweetie." It was just one of those "Priceless" moments.

Later that evening, the soldiers went off for a tactical battle where the spectators are STRONGLY discouraged from attending because basically everyone ends up running through the woods as though they were actually being pursued. Tom and Mike (from the 1st Maryland, they call him "geezer" and even though I don't want to, I'm going to call him that because we already have a Mike) had apparently broken away from the Confederate forces when all hell broke loose and escaped into the woods, they showed up for dinner at least a half hour after everyone else. But the important thing was, they didn't get caught or surrender!

One scary thing that happened was, we were preparing dinner and all of the sudden we heard hoof beats and a man calling out "whoa, whoa". Everyone in the Confederate camp looked and saw one of the cavalry horses come cantering across the field right back to it's hitching post with it's saddle twisted to the side. The first thing everyone thought was, "I hope the rider's okay!" She was, I guess she just bruised her ego, better an ego than being trampled. Luckily, no one else got hurt in the horses' path of fury. From what I heard from the soldiers who witnessed it, she somehow fell off and the next thing they knew the horse was charging for the camp. Smart animal, the tactical wasn't that close, but he remembered where he felt safe.


After the soldiers had left, we women didn't have a whole lot left to do. It was a good thing that there was a wedding! It was pretty neat, a couple, who are technically sutlers and when they go to the encampments they stay in "Unity" the civilian camp. Unity is like an entity itself, there's the Federal Camp, the Confederate Camp and Unity (otherwise called the town). Well, congratulations to Heather and Dave! They actually researched and made their outfits and Dave's daughter, Samantha was so adorable in her flower girl dress! They had a wonderful idea and I really appreciate the fact that they did it at a re-enactment so they could show off their outfits to the rest of us!

Well, things wound down and we actually left early on Sunday. Apparently that tactical on Saturday night took a toll on just about our entire company. I think half of us were down with injuries (it seemed like it took us an extra hour to pack the company stuff). But once again, we made it through another encampment! I love the experience more and more!

Borderland State Park