Look at all that Hainesworth! Thank you to all of our Berdan's who were able to make it this last weekend and an extra thanks to all of their hard work.
As usual, Union Gap was a relatively ho-hum event though we got very lucky with favorable weather. While no one got over-heated, the pock mark covered battlefield took its toll on a number of us. Camp life was comfortable with lots of down time to chat, rest, and socialize with our fellow reenactors. Well, socializing and maybe some plotting with our friends in the 79th New York. With a little extra planning and communication work, duty delegation in the company worked out smoothly. We look forward to supporting and educating our soldiers who have added to their daily duties the specialization of specific responsibilities like master of ordnance, master of arms, and quartermaster. While unofficial titles, the work is highly valued and appreciated by everyone.
Saturday morning including a "parade." While simply a slightly longer march to the battlefield for the public, Company D pulled out all of the stops going in full campaign gear, white gloves, and with flags flying. Enjoying the sight of our two flags flying made up for an otherwise underwhelming parade. The battles were alright. Not much to complain about but not much to write home about either. For those of you who haven't been, the battlefield is the size of a football field with waist high grass. Saturday evening included a nice dinner hosted by Confederate battalion. From the end of second battle and for well over an hour, the Captain and I spit polished our uniforms with precision and cleaned ourselves up pretty good, too. After being told no swords for the dinner, we finally agreed that uniform dress regulations matter, dang it! If no one does it, no one is going to know about Civil War uniform dress regulations. So, we did it right and didn't make a big deal about it. In a similar vein, both battalions have agreed to adopt our period correct and well documented resting on arms for taps. After getting the "stink-eye" from enough reenactors, people started asking questions and we jumped at the opportunity to educate. It's inspiring to learn just how many reenactors are eager to learn the proper ways of doing things and to adopt them when they learn. Sometimes, people just don't know what they don't know.
We're still learning some of the battalion's often unspoken or under-communicated management agendas. After the Captain returned one afternoon with the disappointing news that my very period correct morning report was rejected, I nearly burst a blood vessel! After lodging a complaint with the "higher ups" and asking to be informed explicitly when farb was required we learned that period morning reports don't matter to battalion. They only need a modern check list of unit members and a rifle count. Our unit takes maybe too much pride in period correct clerking and paperwork, so naturally it made me twitch to obey this modern accommodation for our dedicated battalion staff.
Our next event is our living history weekend at Fort Stevens where we'll be filming a bunch of new videos, taking inventory and repairing loaner gear, drilling, training, offering project activities, and of course putting on a good, informative show for the public. We hope to see you there.
As usual, Union Gap was a relatively ho-hum event though we got very lucky with favorable weather. While no one got over-heated, the pock mark covered battlefield took its toll on a number of us. Camp life was comfortable with lots of down time to chat, rest, and socialize with our fellow reenactors. Well, socializing and maybe some plotting with our friends in the 79th New York. With a little extra planning and communication work, duty delegation in the company worked out smoothly. We look forward to supporting and educating our soldiers who have added to their daily duties the specialization of specific responsibilities like master of ordnance, master of arms, and quartermaster. While unofficial titles, the work is highly valued and appreciated by everyone.
Saturday morning including a "parade." While simply a slightly longer march to the battlefield for the public, Company D pulled out all of the stops going in full campaign gear, white gloves, and with flags flying. Enjoying the sight of our two flags flying made up for an otherwise underwhelming parade. The battles were alright. Not much to complain about but not much to write home about either. For those of you who haven't been, the battlefield is the size of a football field with waist high grass. Saturday evening included a nice dinner hosted by Confederate battalion. From the end of second battle and for well over an hour, the Captain and I spit polished our uniforms with precision and cleaned ourselves up pretty good, too. After being told no swords for the dinner, we finally agreed that uniform dress regulations matter, dang it! If no one does it, no one is going to know about Civil War uniform dress regulations. So, we did it right and didn't make a big deal about it. In a similar vein, both battalions have agreed to adopt our period correct and well documented resting on arms for taps. After getting the "stink-eye" from enough reenactors, people started asking questions and we jumped at the opportunity to educate. It's inspiring to learn just how many reenactors are eager to learn the proper ways of doing things and to adopt them when they learn. Sometimes, people just don't know what they don't know.
We're still learning some of the battalion's often unspoken or under-communicated management agendas. After the Captain returned one afternoon with the disappointing news that my very period correct morning report was rejected, I nearly burst a blood vessel! After lodging a complaint with the "higher ups" and asking to be informed explicitly when farb was required we learned that period morning reports don't matter to battalion. They only need a modern check list of unit members and a rifle count. Our unit takes maybe too much pride in period correct clerking and paperwork, so naturally it made me twitch to obey this modern accommodation for our dedicated battalion staff.
Our next event is our living history weekend at Fort Stevens where we'll be filming a bunch of new videos, taking inventory and repairing loaner gear, drilling, training, offering project activities, and of course putting on a good, informative show for the public. We hope to see you there.
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