This turned out to be the Confederate side, so most of my pictures are of confederate soldiers.
Once we had our spot secured, we wandered the tents. There was the re-enactor camp, which had demonstrations for kids, the medical demonstration, and the burial detail (complete with shallow graves. One of the graves had a hand and foot sticking out of it, and heaven help me the only thing I could think about was the ad in Weird Al's movie UHF about "Are you tired of sloppy burials?")
There was a line of food tents (funnel cake!) and a line of merchant tents selling costumes, weapon replicas, and other touristy stuff. We ended up buying soldier caps (me-Confederacy, BSA-Union) because it was incredibly hot and there was no shade.
The 11:00 battle was a cavalry battle called "Custer's trap" I can't really tell you more, because our narrator was somewhat less-than-helpful.
It went something like this:
A bunch of guys on horses ride to one side of the field. Some of them get off their horses, jump in a ditch, and preceed to fire at another group of guys on horses.
Narrator: Now the guys on the ground are dismounted cavalry.
Me: No way!
Another group of horses rides around the fence, but then rides back.
Narrator: The guys on the horses are mounted cavalry.
Me: Get out of town!
Everyone rides thier horses around, and the groups switch positions.
Narrator: If you look closely at their uniforms, you'll notice the embroidery on their sleeves. This means their in the cavalry.
Me: The devil you say!
Anyway, when there wasn't a battle, you could wander to the big tents, where they had living history presentations. We learned about the Union generals, and A.P. Hill.
That one was really good. The guy playing A.P. Hill was the same guy who played him the movie Gettysburg, and he was an excellent presenter.
We went to a Civil War wedding, a fashion show, ghost stories, a live mortar demonstration, (that was really cool) a cannon demonstration, and checked out the band, which had a guy playing the bones.
Notice that for this song, he's actually playing a jaw bone, complete with teeth.
The second battle was at 5, and it was an infantry battle. It also featured a much better narrator who explained what the groups were doing and why.
I'll hand it to those re-enactors though, it was incredibly hot and they were out there running, marching, fighting, dying dramatically (on our side, a Southern deserter made a run for it, only to be chased down and shot by an officer on horseback) and they did it all while covered head-to-toe in wool costumes and carrying a soldier's pack (including blankets).
My camera, not so great at the far away shots.
That evening, we went out to eat, and then went to the celler of the Farnsworth House Inn. The 7th most haunted house in America. Our storyteller was very good. He was an older, larger, Southern Gentleman with a wicked sense of humor. His stories had us cracking up, to the point where Becca asked if this was a ghost tour or a stand up routine.
When he started on the ghost stories though, it got pretty intense. Some of them were especially creepy, and pretty much gauranteed that I will never stay in the Farnsworth House Inn.
Never. Ever. Ever....Ev-er.
Sunday we explored the town. It's a cute little town, with lots of touristy shops that are fun to explore. Plus that part of the country is just absolutely gorgeous.
We went out to the Boyd's Bears HQ, which we were told was "Just a barn, right outside of town."
It's just a barn the way the Deathstar is just a space station.
It's fricking enormous. We had a lot of fun in there. I don't think it's possible to go in there and not spend money.
I bought a stuff orangutan and named him Capt. Terror. He will guard my books like The Librarian from the Terry Pratchett novels.
That afternoon we signed up for a bus tour of the battlefields. It was really good. We got to drive out to all the battle sites, in the order that they happened. Our CD died after the first day account, so our guide just took over.
I actually like his better. You could tell he was very passionate about the battle, and he knew all these cool little details about the various monuments that have been put up.
We went to Little Round Top, and then he showed us Devil's Den, the Slaugherhouse, the Bloody Wheatfield, and the Peach Orchard.
You don't always here about those parts of Gettysburg, and the stories there were pretty intense.
If you get a chance, it's definitely a trip worth taking.
1 comment:
Sound like you had a blast. Literally! And as the local historian you are haveing fun. One of these days you will have to reenact you favorite part of history although I have a feeling that alot of heads will be loilling off of bodies. Oh well, you will have fun with the special effects.
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