"Thunder" Near Gettysburg

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Well, as you might recall from yesterday, we (the 9th Vermont Infantry of the Sons of Union Veterans, as near as I can recall anyway) were riding to the sounds of the guns at Gettysburg. Sort of.

Looking back I recall this as being a three day affair, as was the actual battle. If you think that it looked like that opening photo, you'd be mistaken. Though as reenactments go, it wasn't that bad, wasn't that bad at all. May have been a couple of hundred troops on the field, maybe a tad more, maybe a tad less. There were enough troops to fit the field, made the battle seem larger I guess. it was pretty cool to have been there, at least as I remember it. Even with our farb uniforms.

Now as I recall the event did not take place on any of the fields where the actual battle occurred. I knew that at the time as the venue was an indoor flea market with a field adjacent where we could fight our battle. It was surrounded on three sides by trees, the building containing the flea market was somewhere around the fourth side of the field. Where the "troops" were encamped was on the other side of that building. A corrugated metal structure I do believe. Outside of Gettysburg would be my guess, somewhere to the north because the big blue bus never went through the town. Which I would have noticed.

My best buddy at the time, we'll call him Freiheit, as that was his name, if he were German, and I shared a pup tent. It felt semi-authentic but I'm sure it was not. We had our two kid man pup tent, a blanket each and all our gear. You might well imagine that we didn't spend a lot of time in the pup tent. Only to sleep and that was damned scanty.

Now KN2 informed us that we would be performing "guard duty" on the flea market building as there were "high value" items therein and the proprietors were leery of all the reenacters camped nearby. I reckon the Southrons were their biggest concern as the Army of Northern Virginia had been through there before, though 103 years prior to our arrival. Long memories I guess, and no, there were no shoes on offer that I could recall, no doubt to General Pettigrew's great dismay.

At any rate, we noticed that our bunch of hyperactive 12 and 13 year olds seemed to be the only unit performing this "guard duty." I'm guessing that CK and KN2 had arranged some sort of shady deal with the proprietors of the establishment whereby we young'uns would do all the work and they, as our faux officers, would reap all the glory, or mebbe cash was involved, I dinna ken.

Now I don't remember much about the three day affair, only some rather vivid vignettes have stuck in my mind over the years. As the Great Duke himself said:

The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance.

All I really remember about that first day down in Pennsylvania is that a few of us hit the flea market (as soon as we could escape the not-so-watchful eyes of Thing 1 and Thing 2, er I mean, CK and KN2). Where we proceeded to blow much of the cash which the parental units had bestowed upon us prior to leaving the Green Mountain State to embark on our own version of the War of Northern Aggression, as some have called it.

I myself purchased a rather nice long bayonet (damme but the thing was more of a short sword than a bayonet) and a couple of German gewgaws, one of which was an Allgemeines Sturmabzeichen (general assault badge, which actually turned out to be authentic), this thingy -

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Boys being boys, I strapped the bayonet on (which had come with a sheath and a frog to hang it from a belt) and pinned that gewgaw above to my tunic, er, Big Yank dark blue work shirt. Which our glorious leaders made us leave in the tent prior to marching off to war, no matter how "cool" they looked. I mean farb uniforms were one thing, sporting WWII bayonets and wearing Kraut medals was going too far. Even for them.

As I'm writing this, I think we actually missed the action on the first day, all I remember is hitting the flea market, wasting my limited supply of shekels, and pitching the tent. Oh yeah, Freiheit had misplaced his kepi somewhere on the "march" south, so KN2, who thought of himself as some sort of military expert, sent Freiheit over to one of the concession stands to purchase a replacement hat. "Can't go into a battle without a hat!" Now our kepis weren't too bad looking, the only part of our "uniforms" that looked okay. But all the concession stand had was these -

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The rest of us were all wearing these (the kepi I keep referring to) -

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In addition, Freiheit's chapeau was about a size too small and as he was a sturdy lad, given to corpulence, he looked rather just shy of ridiculous. I think he wanted to frag KN2, not that anyone had heard of that phrase just yet.

So that first night we guarded the flea market building, our rifles charged with no projectiles but enough powder to make a lot of smoke and a big "FOOM!" when discharged. As you might expect, the night went quietly, other than when we ambushed KN2 who was prowling around with all the grace of a beached whale. As he approached, Freiheit remarked that he sounded like an entire panzer division coming through the brush, that is if tanks wheezed like a fat man climbing a hill.

We ducked around the corner of the building and when KN2 rounded the corner, this happened -

"HALT WHO GOES THERE?!?!?!"

FOOM!!!

FOOM!!!

FOOM!!!

Three rifled muskets discharged over KN2's fat head and the fellow nearly reenacted a modern version of Civil War incontinence. As he was yelling at us, CK wandered over, told KN2 to shut the Hell up and go back to his tent and "quit playing soldier, you ain't one!" We may have been chastised as well for "making a damned racket in the middle of the night!"

The next morning, after a few hours of indifferent sleep, we marched off to do battle and drive the gray-backs off the holy soil of Pennsylvania.

Like I said, I remember bits and pieces of that second day of battle.

• A Southern fellow rode his horse across the mouth of a Reb cannon, which discharged and blew the cavalier off of his mount. I can still picture the guy silhouetted against the cannon smoke, arms and legs splayed out like a starfish, his mount headed back to Old Virginny whilst he learned a basic fact of gravity. And, maybe, artillery.
• The battle being halted while an older dude, real gray beard he was, dressed in a really nice looking Union cavalry rig (no horse to be seen) was escorted off the field by the local constabulary. One of said constabulary carrying the fellow's Sharps carbine like it was evidence or something. (Which it was, the a$$hole was firing beeswax out of his piece and seems the Johnnies rather objected to that. As did the organizers of the event. Can't say I blame them!)
• As the 9th Vermont was falling back in the face of a determined Confederate charge (I think we might have been simulating Dan Sickles' disastrous move forward off of Cemetery Ridge and the subsequent semi-rout which followed) old Freiheit, with his souvenir chapeau, took a Rebel slug and went down in a heap next to a rail fence. As he lay there, simulating being all dead and such, one of our merry band yelled out, "Geez, look at Freiheit, he ain't been dead five minutes and he's already bloating!" (Like I said, he, like Yours Truly, tended a bit towards corpulence. As we collapsed with merriment, so did the Rebs. One of whom yelled out, "I'm gonna bayonet this here fat Yankee and let some of the air out!" Hilarity, and a pause in the battle, ensued.
• Watching Freiheit's toy hat blow away as the Rebs withdrew to their side of the field and him getting up to chase it, yelling, "I know I'm dead but I paid five bucks for that hat!"
• Black powder weapons generate a LOT of thick, sulfurous smoke.
• Cannon are loud. Damned loud. (Hence the "Thunder" in the title.)

The second day's contest ebbed and flowed, much powder was burnt and "Oh God Yes!" does that stuff make you thirsty! Soon it was over and we all rather regretted that CK and KN2 had not equipped the unit with canteens, even farb canteens, but we did find a garden hose over by the flea market building so we had that going for us.

The sun fell, the air cooled, and we all turned to our feckless commander and asked, "What's for supper?" He had no ready answer and we, like fools, had spent most of our money on gewgaws and bayonets. All of which, sorry Valory, leads to part three, "Southern Belles, Southern Hospitality, and How Zulu Got His Nickname."

Stay tuned mes amis!