WowNirvana. You have that view and all I have is the old sewage lagoon. sigh

hey! i test snow melt panels!!

Yesterday I went with my son's cub scout den to a Civil War reenactment of the battle of Cedar Creek. I'd never been to one of these before. It was an interesting view of a culture I'd never seen before. These reenactors spend thousands of dollars to buy their own gear and costumes and they join the battle just for the experience. They don't get paid.

They buy reproductions of period tents and camp the whole weekend using only period camping gear (at least the stuff left out in the open. Maybe they had down sleeping bags and air mattresses inside the tents.)

There are vendors who have larger period tents set up off to the side, and they sell most of the stuff that the reenactors need. So you could just walk up to one of these events and buy everything you need to join in on the fun.

They started off the action with a little skirmish between two mounted groups. Not much gun fire, but lots of clanging sabers. Nobody "died" during this, because I guess they didn't want to fall off their horses.

Then the two armies marched on each other and just basically fired volleys at one another from a short distance. The Confederates did well during this part of it, and drove the Union soldiers back. More people "died," but seriously, I don't think it was historically accurate. Out of a couple hundred people shooting at each other over a distance of about 50 yards, only a dozen people died. This was cool to watch. They also had cannons behind the lines going off.

And they stopped the reenactment at this point. Today, they continue it, and I understand the Union will regroup and push the Rebels back again. But we're not going back out there to watch that.

Here, the Confederates are marching back to their camp after the battle.

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Judging from the license plates in the parking lot, I think these reenactors come from all over the East Coast, and once they have purchased all the gear, they probably participate in one reenactment after another, much like deadheads following the Dead around on tour.

excellent pics glatt! I'd love to see a reenactment. later today i'm going to the Wings Over Houston Airshow and should have plenty of pics of that later on....

glatt - great pics. I haven't seen a reenactment in decades. I gotta look around here and see whats up.

Looks super cool. :D

Awesome pics glatt.

We had a little demo at the Soldiers and Soldiering conference, put on by a couple of reenactors (not sure, but I think they're from the 33rd Foot). Fascinating stuff.

A lot of what we know about uniforms and marching ephemera, we know because of the re-enactment community. Formal, and informal historians who work through experimental history and try to reconstruct, from fragmentary evidence and the odd throw away line in a memoir, the backpacks, and blankets, and uniforms as they'd have been used. There are people who've spent 25-30 years trying to piece together exactly what the back pack was like for a foot soldier in the latter stages of the Peninsula war for instance.

Great pictures glatt! I really enjoyed seeing them. Thanks! :)

I went to a re-enactment of the Battle of Franklin-Nashville, on the original battlefield. At that time it was said to be one of the larger re-enactments til that time, about 25,000 participants. There was a company of re-enactors, I think they were all from Texas, who were stunt-men/extras for the movies. They would roll off their horses at full gallop, the horses dropped like they'd been shot, too. They put on a hell of a show. Interestingly, when the riders fell/got shot, the horses stopped almost in their last steps, and stayed rooted to that spot, till their rider got up and came and got them. All of them did this, every one.

Also, these guys (all the re-enactors) are hard core. At the one I went to, there was literally white canvas tents by the thousands. Root beer brewed on site, 1860s style. :yum: Kept the bottle.

I have all this on Sony 8mm videotape. Yeah, I know, great decision. $1000 well-wasted.

There were also black re-enactors. Something I'd never thought about. There were soldiers, servants, maids. A surprising number of them, in fact.

Yesterday Bob, my roommate and I went to the Wings over Houston airshow. here are a few pics and some of these planes i'd posted before in another thread from the flight museum that they live at currently. i'll post a few more pictures later on. but for now here's several...