Zoar Ohio, September 17-18, 2011
Large events have their place. It is always a thrill to go to an event where
Yankee numbers match the Rebel numbers, and there are two full battalions on
each side.
I am told that Zoar is the largest event in Ohio, and it is the largest I had ever been to (although Jackson and Hartford
City are pretty close)—I
have not yet been to a national event.
But it was not an official 1st Tennessee event, so only a handful from the
unit attended. Since we weren’t enough
to form our own unit, we fell in with the 5th Kentucky—a
good unit, but not the 1st Tennessee
where most of my friends are.
It is good to sometimes fall in with different units and
different battalions to be grateful for what we have.
5
th Kentucky uses Gilham’s tactics, which takes
a little getting used to when we always use Hardee’s.
The key difference is shoulder arms, and I
learned to appreciate Hardee’s after this weekend.
Shoulder arms with Hardee’s manual of arms is
to hold the rifle on your right, barrel toward your body, holding about the
trigger guard, relaxed to your side.
Gilham’s holds the rifle on your left shoulder, holding the rifle butt,
barrel out.
This has the unfortunate
side effect that during a battle, the barrel gets hot and can tend to burn your
face if you are not careful.
You do not
have this problem with Hardee’s.
I kept
hearing the 5
th wonder how would could carry the rifle with Hardee’s
tactics without wearing out, but I find it to be a natural position, plus I never
worry about burning my face.
Anyway, I also learned to appreciate the Independent Guard,
the battalion that both the 1st Tennessee
and 5th Kentucky
are members of. The Independent Guard is
more west Ohio and east Indiana, so was not part of the Zoar event. We therefore had to fall in with another
battalion. Since there were two
battalions, we could have ended up with either.
I do not know how we end up in one battalion or another, but somehow we
ended up with the Army of Northern Virginia.
Since I had heard of issues that exist between the 1
st
Tennessee and the Army of Northern Virginia
(though I do not know the details), I kept quiet about being from the 1
st
Tennessee outside the 5
th Kentucky camp.
Somehow we (the 5
th Kentucky) managed to impress the battalion as they
invited Capt. Steiner of the 5
th Kentucky to join the battalion.
However, the positive impression only went
one way, as there was mutual agreement with both 5
th Kentucky and 1
st
Tennessee members that there would be a forecast of frostbite over the Lake of
Fire before we would fall in with them again.
I am a reenactor as a hobby.
This is not my job, I am not a real soldier, nor do I have any desire to
have the full experience of being a real soldier.
I have never been in the real military.
I know that even our modern soldiers have an
experience in the real world that I am grateful I do not have to.
I do not have to march 20 miles on a half-day
ration and a bout of dysentery.
And as my hobby, I expect respect from superior officers.
After all, these guys are not real soldiers,
either.
I will obey superior officers as
a matter of course of the hobby, but if these superior officers do not show me
respect, despite my being a private, then I will simply go find a new hobby.
And that was the problem—point blank—with the Army of
Northern Virginia.
Before all battles we
always do inspection arms.
I expect
this, and this is for everyone’s safety.
With the Independent Guard, the captain of each unit performs the
inspection when we are standing in battalion formation.
The inspection goes pretty quick.
But with the Army of Northern Virginia, the
battalion staff apparently does not trust their company captains, as we had to
stand in formation while a single staff officer inspected each and every
rifle.
This probably quadrupled the
amount of time we spent standing at attention in battalion formation.
It meant that for a 1:30 battle, we were
formed at 12:30 for inspection—basically marching to the battlefield almost as
the battle began.
But there were other things—such as referring to each other
in derogatory terms as if they were terms of endearment. Basically, there seemed to be a general lack
of respect from the top down. Perhaps it
was something you would expect to see in the real military. But this is my vacation time. Yes, I strive to give the best Civil War
soldier impression (I am not a farb), but at the same time I have zero desire
to live like a real Civil War soldier—and anyone who says they desire
differently has no idea what the life of a soldier during the Civil War was
really like. And if you are reenactor
that thinks differently, I would recommend you read up on books like Company
Aytch, Privations of a Private, Hard Tack and Coffee, and Recollections
of a Soldier. Because if you think
you would like have been a real Civil War soldier, then you do not know crap
about the Civil War.
Anyway, I’ll get off my soap box and back to the Zoar
event. Overall, it was a good
event. I hope to return when they have
it again in two years, only I hope we fall in with a different battalion.
There was a Saturday morning tactical that I had nearly forgotten--it was not memorable. Most of the time was spent waiting for something to happen, and when it finally did, there were judges who kept interrupting to say, "Captain, two of your men just took hits--take them out of action". Strange way to perform a tactical.
The battles for both Saturday and Sunday were to be 1st
Manassas, with
the Yankees winning Saturday (try to explain that one). Unfortunately, Billy Yank was being Billy
Yank and didn’t push like they should have—pretty much leaving the field before
the end of the battle before we could pull back closer to where the public
would have a good view of us—we had to walk off the battlefield to give the
public some kind of idea that we lost (which felt pretty weird). Sunday battle, however went well as the
colonel pretty much had it in his mind that if the Yankees did play like they
should, we would simply run over them. But
the Yanks did their job and made us work for every inch of ground.
Sutlery was excellent.
I think there were around ten or so sutlers, although most were smaller
sutlers. There were one or two large
ones there. The odd thing was that the
place I found that had the best things was a local antique store across the
street from the sutlers. They must have
pulled out a few odds-and-ends of reenacting gear just for the event. They had a $45 civil war cot and a few other
items at good prices. Zach bought a
pretty good shelter half with an end for only $25. I would have bought it myself if he hadn’t of
found it first.
And, like I said at the start, this wasn’t the 1st
Tennessee. I
am not much for sports, so I decided to stay in camp when the rest of the 5th
Kentucky left
for the local tavern to watch the OSU game.
And without anyone to get a good Euchre game going, I turned in early.
 |
| My new palace |
But that was okay.
I
got to enjoy my new palace.
For the
past two years I had been camping out in a small 5 foot by 6 foot by 4 foot
A-frame.
I was used to moving around in
it on my knees, having all my gear piled around so I could hardly move,
anyhow.
But this last week I bought a
large A from someone who used to be part of the 1
st Tennessee but was
getting out of the hobby.
He told me it
was made by Big Dave.
It was seven feet
tall by nine feet long, and had a fly to boot.
It was a freakin’ palace!
I had
so much space in that thing, I did not know what to do with myself.
I think Zach got a good laugh from me as just
about every time I would go into that thing I would say, “This is a freakin’
palace!”
Zoar is a town full of historic buildings, which helped a
lot for providing a good time-trip.
The
battlefield looked like it had been left to grow, but was hit with a bush-hog a
week or two before the event.
There was
not any grass on the field, but it also was not problematic to perform our
formations.
