Co. D captures the entire 11th Mississippi and colors with only four sharpshooters and not a shot fired!
Union Gap was quite nice this year with cool temperatures, light rain, and new union camp. Visitors were low in number in the new camp but the layout was amazing. As always, Union Gap had little to no firewood and what was there was garbage. It was so hard, it literally broke the 1st Sgt's axe!
Saturday morning Co. D participated in the annual parade through Union Gap. The tractor pulled trolley left at 8:30 a.m. for a very low attendance parade. The cool, drizzly weather had a definite impact. The battles were fairly good this weekend and attendance for them was pretty high. We again tried to avoid the night battle since no apparently understands the difficulty of cleaning a Sharps in the dark but we were eventually goaded into it. We were initially going to work the public and informally MC the battle but apparently battalion staff didn't pass the word the Colonel who had a bit of tantrum over it. Feeling ornery, we decided to freak out the Confederates while not firing...still determined to not clean our rifles at night! We ran like we haven't ran in years! We circled the battlefield and the Confederate battalion twice, pulling several companies off line to see what we were up to. At one point we worked with Union Cav and actually kept up with them while running around the whole battlefield, past Confederate artillery, only to plow directly into the back of the 11th Mississippi. The four of us left charged them at a rush scared the life out of them and they almost instantly turned their rifles upside down in surrender. A couple of the officers where having a cow and during the awkward standoff, Cav, in amazement at what was happening, rushed over with their six horses to support us. Also coming out of seemingly nowhere, was our Sgt. Major with pistol drawn to lend support at our impressive feet of taking an entire company without firing a shot. It was the talk of Union battalion that night in camp with several people coming over to camp complementing us on our extraordinary feat. There is a really nice picture of the Captain with his sword drawn during the capture on the Yakima Herald website (CLICK HERE).
It was really nice to have Joseph join us again for this battle and we also had the exciting experience of signing up a new recruit. Not quite old enough to take the field but with Pvt. Doramos field ready next year, we'll definitely need a new runner. Our newest recruit, Ken, is expecting to join us at Snoqualmie in August.
Union Gap was a great event to just hang out. With so much modern activity going on, it was impossible to get into the period mindset. We still had plenty of fun, especially seeing Pvt. Hardway pretty up for the officer's ball. As always, thanks to everyone who could join us over the weekend, you're company, friendship, and support make this the great unit it is.
Union Gap was quite nice this year with cool temperatures, light rain, and new union camp. Visitors were low in number in the new camp but the layout was amazing. As always, Union Gap had little to no firewood and what was there was garbage. It was so hard, it literally broke the 1st Sgt's axe!
Saturday morning Co. D participated in the annual parade through Union Gap. The tractor pulled trolley left at 8:30 a.m. for a very low attendance parade. The cool, drizzly weather had a definite impact. The battles were fairly good this weekend and attendance for them was pretty high. We again tried to avoid the night battle since no apparently understands the difficulty of cleaning a Sharps in the dark but we were eventually goaded into it. We were initially going to work the public and informally MC the battle but apparently battalion staff didn't pass the word the Colonel who had a bit of tantrum over it. Feeling ornery, we decided to freak out the Confederates while not firing...still determined to not clean our rifles at night! We ran like we haven't ran in years! We circled the battlefield and the Confederate battalion twice, pulling several companies off line to see what we were up to. At one point we worked with Union Cav and actually kept up with them while running around the whole battlefield, past Confederate artillery, only to plow directly into the back of the 11th Mississippi. The four of us left charged them at a rush scared the life out of them and they almost instantly turned their rifles upside down in surrender. A couple of the officers where having a cow and during the awkward standoff, Cav, in amazement at what was happening, rushed over with their six horses to support us. Also coming out of seemingly nowhere, was our Sgt. Major with pistol drawn to lend support at our impressive feet of taking an entire company without firing a shot. It was the talk of Union battalion that night in camp with several people coming over to camp complementing us on our extraordinary feat. There is a really nice picture of the Captain with his sword drawn during the capture on the Yakima Herald website (CLICK HERE).
It was really nice to have Joseph join us again for this battle and we also had the exciting experience of signing up a new recruit. Not quite old enough to take the field but with Pvt. Doramos field ready next year, we'll definitely need a new runner. Our newest recruit, Ken, is expecting to join us at Snoqualmie in August.
Union Gap was a great event to just hang out. With so much modern activity going on, it was impossible to get into the period mindset. We still had plenty of fun, especially seeing Pvt. Hardway pretty up for the officer's ball. As always, thanks to everyone who could join us over the weekend, you're company, friendship, and support make this the great unit it is.
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