Maryland My Maryland
(MMM)
A 150th
Anniversary Reenactment of the Battle of Antietam
Oddly
enough as I was wearing my wool uniform and sitting under a canvas fly dodging
the sporadic rain showers that occurred last Saturday in Maryland I was
thinking of what I was going to say in my blog post for this class. I figured
I’ve travelled all this way and am doing something that’s of a historical
nature so there’s no way I can’t I can not blog about it. But, I did have some
reservations. Mainly that of how can I talk about this event and explain this hobby
I take part in to you without writing an epic novel. Well, I haven’t quite
cleared that up, but here it goes anyway.
As we
finally got down to the last hour of our journey from Ohio to Maryland I laid down
the book Public History, that I had
been trying to conquer throughout the trip and had surprisingly done so with
some success, on the floor of the car. As the GPS navigation clock counted down
to an hour I proudly yelled to the driver of the vehicle, my friend and fellow
reenactor, Jason Hunt “One hour until Antietam!” I continued to exclaim the
time till we made it to the Antietam National Battlefield every ten minutes.
After half an hour of this I knocked it off because of an annoyed look Jason
gave me, but the excitement continued. However, as excited as I was I was
trying to get in that mindset that many reenactors try to get into before they
reach the event site. I try to think of what these soldiers had been going
through up to this point in the war, more specifically what these men went
through as elements of each army pushed their men both mentally and physically
to make it to this geographic location, how many of the US regiments involved
were just coming off of forced marches to try to stop Lee’s northern advance.
You’ll never be able to feel what they felt nor be able to match up your
mindset with theirs entirely, but we try to achieve a glimpse of it even before
we put on our wool uniforms and stiff leather shoes. It’s something you do to prepare yourself for
living history so that you can portray these men accurately and authentically
so as to honor them.
This is
my eighth year of reenacting. I joined the 91st Ohio Volunteer
Infantry, Company B and have been a member since. In fact before I joined I
bought most of my uniform, something I found out later was a costly mistake.
The reason I got into this hobby was really because of two family vacations I
had recently been on.
The first of these family vacations
was to Colonial Williamsburg. There I was enamored with the living history
aspect of the place. I was a little kid surrounded by all of these people
dressed in 18th century clothing, talking like the colonists talked,
and some hard at work with the tools of the time period. I pronounced it as
“cool” whereas my friends back home probably would have termed it as “weird.” I
was starting to find out my interests were different. I was, cue the melo-dramatic
music, a history geek, a term I now proudly accept, but at the time I never got
far at the cool table talking about Williamsburg or later on about reenacting.
The next trip was to Gettysburg. I only saw one reenactor there, but I was
instantly hooked on the Civil War the minute I got on that bus for the tour. I
think my face imprint is probably still embedded into the window of that bus we
were on as I strained to look and see what the tour guide was pointing out. So
now I had these two things that stuck with me as being cool: living history and
the Civil War.
It finally came together when I was
at my uncle’s house and had the History Channel on when they had a
behind-the-scenes of a War of 1812 program on. There was a teenager, not much
older than I was at the time, who was talking about how he was a War of 1812
reenactor. Immediately it popped in my head, “There had to be reenacting for
the Civil War!” I rushed to the computer and Googled Civil War Reenacting Ohio.
From that list of organizations that popped up I started emailing their “unit
contacts.” That winter I went to meet the members of the 91st Ohio I
had joined.
So eight years later here I am with
my friend as we are pulling into the Visitors Center parking lot for the
Antietam National Battlefield Park. This was my third time here and second for
the purpose of reenacting. As soon as we got out of the car you could just tell
they were swamped with reenactors from this Maryland My Maryland event. Some of
the people we walked by you could sort of just tell were reenactors. After 8
years in this hobby I’ve developed a sort of Spidey Sense for reenactors. Some
were people I recognized from events, and others, most apparently, had their
uniforms on. Mainly I went into the Visitors Center to do my interview portion
for the site-visit evaluation for this class, but of course I looked around and
caught the tail end of their video. After this we were off to tour the
battlefield. I knew were most of the places and monuments were within the
battlefield, but we went ahead and used the app Jason had downloaded that gives
you a lot of information on the site you are visiting. Starting with the Dunker
Church we went inside and immediately I pointed out to Jason the spot on the
floor where I had slept when I was there with the Army of the Ohio (reenacting
organization) for a living history event. I joking remarked to him that I was
surprised they haven’t put the plaque up yet to designate that spot on the
floor.
Reenacting
is a great hobby in the fact that it allows you to do things you might never
get to do otherwise, such as sleeping in the Dunker Church. I’ve gotten private
tours of museums, a chance to look at some rare and valuable artifacts, the
chance to tour some private homes that were around at the time of the war and
either played a role directly or indirectly in the fighting, but I think above
all it is the people you meet in the hobby and the people you get to teach
about the war and the soldiers that are the two most rewarding experiences. I’m
friends with people from New York, Pennsylvania, Marlyand, Kentucky, West
Virginia, and of course Ohio that I would have never met if it hadn’t been for
dressing up like a Civil War soldier. It sounds odd but you develop a real
sense of camaraderie with the guys that serve in the ranks with you, akin to
what the real soldiers described. Some
become an almost integrated part of your life and like family.
The other great experience is
talking to and teaching the public about the Civil War. Mainly when we do talks
we talk about the life, uniform, and equipment of the Civil War soldier. I’ve
gone to classrooms and talked about the uniform and equipment of the Union
soldiers and I’ve taught a Civil War class to high school kids where two days
of the two week class were devoted to them learning drill. But the instance of
teaching the public that remains stuck in my mind is that of setting up at the
Ohio State Fair last year. Going into it I thought that we would get maybe
fifty people tops to look at our tables laden with our uniforms, gear, rifles,
swords, and merchandise we were selling to help raise money for conservation of
Ohio’s Civil War Battle Flags. But no! We had literally thousands of people each
day stop by our tent and talk to us. There was a line to talk to us! It was
mind blowing, but great! People were so interested! It was quite refreshing and
was a real reminder to us that this is why we are in this hobby, to educate people
through living history portrayal.
Jason and
I wrapped up our tour with Burnside’s Bridge and found the McKinley monument on
our way out that Jason had wanted to find. It was about 6pm by the time we left
the battlefield and I was starting to feel a little antsy. I was having a great
time touring the battlefield, but I wanted to get to the event site. We had our
“last meal” of real food for the weekend, that is until Sunday after the event
was over, at the Sharpsburg Cracker Barrel.
After our meal we paid and set out for finding the event site in
Boonsboro. I was very anxious by then. I had a sinking feeling that I was going
to be late for the battalion’s (Army of the Ohio) sergeant meeting which I, as
Sergeant Major, was going to conduct. My nerves were helped a bit by the really
beautiful scenery we drove through, several very old farms and one striking,
stone barn with mere slits in the stone for “windows” met us on this journey.
After only a short while we made it to the event site. Surprisingly traffic was
backed up waiting to get into the parking lot. It was going to be a big event,
bigger than I had expected. We got in, parked in the temporary area of the
field reserved for registration, went up to the canopy and signed the paperwork
they had for us, bought an event t-shirt, said hello to Tim Bills, a New Yorker
and our Lieutenant Colonel, and went and parked the car for weekend. We changed
from our “street clothes” to our Civil War clothes. For me it was a pair of
drawers, undershirt, cotton shirt, sky-blue wool trousers, wool socks, sack
coat, forage cap, and a pair of brogans (shoes.) We then put on our
accouterments: a cartridge box slung across the body with the box portion on
the right hip, waist belt with cap pouch and bayonet in the bayonet scabbard
went on next, then the haversack overly laden with period food, next was the
knapsack containing a blanket, a couple gum blankets, shelter-half, an extra
shirt, pair of socks, and other small personal effects such as soap and a
housewife (sewing kit), and finally over all this went a canteen. We grabbed our guns and headed off for US camp
to find the Army of the Ohio battalion headquarters, stopping briefly at
registration to look at their site map.
Ok, so
I’ll finally explain to you what the “Army of the Ohio” is. The Army of the
Ohio (AotO) is the umbrella organization, in military lingo it is the
battalion, that smaller organizations such as my unit, the 91st
Ohio, belong to. The 91st Ohio is considered as one company within
the Army of the Ohio although it retains the number of a regiment as an
organization. Smaller company level organizations come together to make up a
battalion. The battalion organizations often are members of an even larger
organization. In the case of the AotO we belong to the Blue-Gray Alliance
(BGA.) The BGA contains both US and Confederate (CS) organizations. The AotO
has units from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. These units have come together
voluntarily to join the AotO.
Within the AotO we have a corporate
offices and military offices. The corporate is usually very small consisting of
a President and Secretary/ Treasurer, but now we have a Board of Directors
since the AotO has decided to become incorporated as a 501c3 organization
within the State of Ohio. The military offices are that of Colonel, Lieutenant
Colonel, Major, Adjutant, Sergeant Major, and Quartermaster. To choose who
resides in what office and what events will be placed on the battalion schedule
we usually have two winter meetings one in November and one in January for the
leadership of the various companies within the battalion to attend. At the
November meeting we hold elections for these offices. With the Army of the
Ohio, as I mentioned earlier, I am the Sergeant Major and I am also on the
Board of Directors. Those persons voted into a military office take on the role
of what that rank would have done within the battalion in the 1860s military. This is similar to what is done at the
company level as well. To use the example of the 91st we have a
winter meeting where we decide what events we would like to go to and vote for
military and corporate officers. Corporate offices within the 91st
are a President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. Military offices are
Captain, 1st Sergeant, 2nd Sergeant, 1st Cpl,
and 2nd Cpl.
The
event Maryland My Maryland itself is important to discuss when talking about
the hobby. There are two reenactments of Antietam that are occurring this year.
One was Maryland My Maryland last
weekend and the other is another 150th reenactment of Antietam that
will be occurring this weekend. This shows a rift in the hobby between the two
fields of reenactors. What divides them is their adherence to and the
importance they place on “authenticity.” Authenticity pertains to how closely
reenactors try to maintain faithfulness to the use of only period correct items
and maintaining authenticity in their dress and drill. There are two classes of
reenactors termed as in-authentic. The first is farbs, something no one in the
hobby wishes to be called. These persons are most interested in dressing up and
making a big bang with their rifles, their interest in impersonating the
soldiers of the Civil War basically ends there. Their uniforms and gear more
often than not have the look of Civil War equipment but its authenticity ends
there. Luckily they are a minority. The next class is termed as mainstreamers
who are “ok” on the authenticity scales. Their gear is of better quality than
farbs, but usually is not entirely as authentic as it could be usually being of
poor quality or not made entirely or constructed in a period correct manner.
Their camps are made up of many A-frame tents adorned with too many comforts
such as a cot and a cooler. There are two classes of reenactors termed as
authentic. The first class is progressive reenactors. Progressive reenactors do
the research and strive to have clothing and equipment made from period correct
materials, using period correct patterns, and put together by period correct
construction methods. There are no coolers or cots in this camp. They eat
period correct rations. Hardcore reenactors maintain the highest level of
authenticity. In reality there is not much difference between authenticity
levels of progressives and hardcores. The main visible difference between these
two is that progressive reenactors will associate with mainstream reenactors
and help them improve their kit to a level of higher authenticity. Hardcores
tend to disassociate themselves from less authentic individuals.
The
Maryland My Maryland event is put on for the more authentically minded
reenactors. It is more demanding in its authenticity standards and often times
is even more physically demanding in its scenarios calling for prolonged
engagements, longer marches, and at times calling for men to sleep on arms
without shelter. The reasoning behind much of these more demanding even
features is that the overall scenario of the event is based on the historic
record of what troops did during the battle being portrayed. Often times a
reenacting group bringing a number of men will be asked by event planners to
take on a unit impersonation, the unit in these cases are regiments that fought
in the actual battle. The event planner for this event is Chris Anders. He is
well known amongst the reenacting community for planning and orchestrating
these more progressive events. He does a large amount of research into the
battle, restricts registrations based on the ratios of Union to Confederate
forces present at the battle and further the ratios of infantry, artillery, and
cavalry, and scripts battle scenarios that are play-by-play recreations of
segments of the actual battle they represent. These events even go to the
extent of finding landscapes similar to the landscape of the actual battle
location. Sometimes these landscapes are even created to match the scenario. At
Maryland My Maryland an entire cornfield was planted. Running parallel to the
cornfield was a pike flanked by two rail fences to match the actual Cornfield
battle at Antietam.
The
first Anders event I attended was my “baptism” into the progressive field of
reenacting. In my early days I had been what you could term as mainstream and
at times farby, but after hearing my fellow 91st members talk about
the awesome times they had at Anders events I decided to do research and update
my kit with clothing and equipment that were more authentically made. With my
new more authentic kit I went to Anders’ 145th anniversary of
Gettysburg event called At High Tide. It was the single most fun I’ve ever had
in the hobby. This event and its insistence on authenticity made the whole
reenacting experience better. By wearing the authentic gear and eating the
authentic food you had a more rewarding experience that brought you closer to
an understanding of what the real soldiers went through. By attending a more
progressive event you are more apt to have a “period moment” in which you look
around and in your view is a sight that the real soldiers must have witnessed
as well. It’s a spectacular thing! I also found that a more authentic kit
helped to give the public a truer understanding of what the Civil War soldier
looked like. Ever since the High Tide event I have been researching my
impression and feeling more rewarded in my event experience.
So as
Jason and I journeyed off into the throngs of the progressive event we got lost
and only after walking around for approximately half an hour we found the US
camp and then found the AotO headquarters. Jason wondered off to find the rest
of the 91st members and I went to HQ to prepare for my sergeants
meeting, but due to the fact that there had been several changes in the
schedule I was relieved from conducting the meeting by the Adjutant. After the
sergeants and then an officers meeting I bedded down amongst the rest of the
battalion staff and wondered what tomorrow would bring.
We were
awoken by bugles and by the fife and drum playing reveille. I reluctantly awoke
packed up my knapsack and put my coffee to boiling on the nearest fire. I found
Jason and took half the salt pork we had gotten and fried it in my canteen
half. Coffee, salt pork, and hardtack was my breakfast. Around quarter till 8
we formed the battalion for drill. We marched out the drill field where the
companies broke off for company drill and then we reformed the battalion for
battalion drill for a few moments. After this we marched back to camp and let
the men rest before the next formation for battle. The event opened at 9am to
the public who began to trickle into the camps. No doubt the gray skies and the
threat of showers reduced the amount of visitors. Around this time I got a
detail from a company to put up the fly for the staff officers. Oddly such a
simple thing as having four or five men working to raise a fly attracted the
attention of several spectators walking by with their cameras. Once this was
done I set to sewing back on my Sergeant Major stripes to my sleeve and this
too elicited several questions and pictures taken by the passing public.
Around the time of our first call
at 11:30 there was a steady stream of public coming into watch the upcoming battle.
This battle was to portray the fighting at Fox’s Gap that occurred before the
battle had moved to Antietam. A warning
for a torrent of rain accompanied by high winds delayed the battle. We were all
in line and awaiting orders to move into the fighting when the rain started.
Myself and Lieutenant Colonel Bills moved rapidly to cover up our gear and the
gear of the other staff officers we had left under the fly. While we were in
camp an order was given for the men to seek shelter. They broke ranks and
hurried to the shelter of their dog tents just as the beginning of the shower
started. As men streamed back to camps our fly became a haven to many men who
were trying to get out of the rain. For a while it was standing room only. The
spectators also dispersed and we invited one family under our fly to dodge the
rain. While they remained there with us we talked with them and one of the
sergeants explained the equipment and firing process to them. After two showers
had passed us we reformed for a do-over. This time we made it to the field,
passing by the spectators. We advanced within 100 yards of the enemy who fell
back. We advanced further and just as we did so we saw the columns of
Confederates massed and ready to come out of the gap. One of their battalions
rushed onto the field and into line and pushed us back. Many of our men broke
ranks, but we reformed and put some more fire on them as fresh battalions came
up to take our place. During the height of the fighting we took a good number
of casualties. As the men went down the other sergeants and I helped to pull
them to the rear. Finally under severe fire the battalion broke and the men dispersed
to a wood line.
All of this had been scripted and
based on the actions of an Ohio unit that had fought at Fox’s Gap. I should
probably take this opportunity to explain how we “take hits.” The question of “How
do you know when to die?” is the second most asked question that spectators ply
to us next to “Are you hot in that uniform?” Most units and reenactors take
hits on their own accord. They simply choose to “go down” when the moment feels
right or if the fighting seems like its become quite hot. This is the way most
organizations do it. Some units hand out casualty cards. These will say if you
are wounded, sometimes even where your wound is located, or if you are killed.
Within these progressive scripted scenarios for those units that take hits on
their own we try to make sure to communicate to the men that this was about
when the actual unit we are portraying took a number of hits or that this is
the climax of our fighting here so we need to be able to leave wounded on the
field. This is important to do not just for our own experience as reenactors,
but also important to do because we have a crowd of spectators watching us and
leaving no dead or wounded on the field would be grossly inaccurate.
The wood line that we entered was
on a rise giving us a spectacular view of the battle. We rested and sat down
for a while. Many of us watched the battle progress. Once the fighting had
reached its scripted ending the spectators cheered. We reformed the battalion,
cleared our weapons, and went back to camp. Once things settled down we learned
that the dusk battle that had been scheduled had been called off due the
looming threat of severe storms. We now had a lot of free time on our hands.
Shortly before 5 the Major, some of our 91st members, and myself
walked over to the sutler area to look around. Sutlers during the war and in
today’s reenactments are persons who would set up stores to sell items to the
soldiers. Today there are a lot more sutlers and they are usually more
specialized in what they are selling and of course there is the modern food
vendor set up to sell hotdogs and hamburgers to the public as well as to the
reenactors that want to step out of authenticity for a minute to gain some nourishment
from “real” food. While we were at the sutlers we somewhat skeptically sat down
to watch a period comedy that was being performed. To our great surprise it was
actually hilarious and very enjoyable. None of it was lost in translation form
19th century to the 21st. It was nice to see spectators
gathered around and laughing at the puns, jokes, and antics of the men on the “stage.”
After the play was over we walked around to some of the sutlers and browsed
their wares, then moved back to camp.
To most of our delight within the
battalion we still had the opportunity to perform a night march to the area
where the cornfield scenario would take place the next morning. The AotO was
able to muster up two companies of men to go. Of the staff officers the
Lieutenant Colonel, Major, and I chose to go leaving the camp under the charge
of the Colonel and Adjutant. We stepped off at about 9:30pm marching out of
camp. The brigade staff came out and greeted us as we left thinking it was
wonderful that some of the men were still willing to brave the so far
uncooperative weather. We eventually found our way, but for some reason or
another had to go behind and past the Confederate pickets on our way to our own
picket line. This kinda killed the chance for a period moment, but it was just
something that had to be done because a road was closed for modern reasons. So
we marched past the Rebels who had big bonfires going, as that was right on
with the historical account of the cornfield. The Confederate troops at the
cornfield the night before the actual battle had fires going and could see the
outline of US troops moving into line on the other side of the corn. Once past
their picket line we passed into our own. The Lieutenant Colonel asked the
commander of the troops already there where we should go to from there. We were
given the option of sleeping behind the closest tree line without fires or
moving on to a second tree line with fires. The majority of the men chose to sleep
without fires. We moved behind the closest tree line laid out our blankets and
gum blankets in the dark and went to sleep.
Morning came very early. We woke up
at 5am and packed up our gear. We were expecting the rest of the battalion to
show up around 5:30 or so. The two companies were formed and we marched to the
point where the battalion would meet us, stacked arms, and put the men at rest.
The battalion finally showed up and we formed on them in front of the tree
line. The sun started to peek above the hills and the morning fog was starting
to dissipate. At 6:30 a group of skirmishers moved into the cornfield and
sporadic firing was heard on our front. The skirmishers, no doubt, had reached
the Confederate picket line. Our battalion, accompanied by another battalion on
our left, was ordered into the corn. We moved into the corn struggling to keep
our line as we encountered the rigid stalks. We passed through the skirmishers
and immediately onto the rebel front. We opened fire. The smoke from our lines
combined with the battalion on our left and from the rebels to our front filled
the cornfield with smoke like a dense fog. We were pushed back and then we
pushed them back. Eventually the battalion to our left was gone. With no
support on our left flank we had no choice but to pull out of the field with
rebels hot on our tails. After we reformed our lines the fighting continued as
another battalion took our place. After a while we were ordered in again. This
time many of the stalks had been laid flat on the ground. Also on the ground
were heaps of rebel dead and wounded. That was a period moment for sure. It
looked like the pictures you see taken of the battle soon after the fighting
was over.
We finally advanced out of the corn
and as soon as we had reached the open field there was a battalion of rebels to
our front. After exchanging a few volleys they rapidly moved off, ending the
scenario. The cornfield scenario was probably the best fight I have ever been
in because of its authenticity leading to so many awesome sights that lead to
many a period moment. We stacked arms and men went back over the field to
collect their friends who had taken hits and to pick up the knapsacks many had
left in the wood line. After this we reformed, moved closer to a tree line,
stacked arms again, and were put at rest for a long while. Many of the men took
rails from the fence, which it was okeyed for us to do, to built fires. With
the fires going the men began to cook up their lunches, some started playing
cards, others talked with their pards, and some decided to take a nap.
The cornfield battle we had just
participated in was a non spectator battle. The next battle we had on our
schedule would be. At 10am the event opened to the public and this being a much
nicer day without the threat of rain many spectators started to fill up the
viewing area. At noon the battle kicked off. We were the last battalion to
enter the fighting. Due to some complications in performance of the script, in
part due to some real medical emergencies on the field which were not serious
thankfully, our role in the battle was cut down and so we didn’t get to perform
the part we had planned to play. This was understandable, but unfortunate.
None-the-less the spectators enjoyed the battle and again cheered wildly. This
was the end of the event for us. After the battalion was marched off the field
and the Colonel said thank you to the guys for coming out. I bid a couple of
quick goodbye’s and Jason and I retreated to the car. We passed by the
spectators that were still there and many of them thanked us and little kids
waved at us. We waved back and smiled feeling like largely over dressed sports
stars leaving the arena. Finally back to the car we took off the sweat stained
and still rain dampened clothing we had on and became “normal” again by putting
on a pair of shorts, t-shirt, sneakers, and a baseball cap to hide our unwashed
hair. We got in the car turned on the radio and began the journey back to Ohio
from a fantastic weekend of living history fun.
I apologize for the lengthy nature
of this, but I figured if I would have to post something about reenacting again
this would give you a good understanding of what this hobby is. While we may
not have a lot of direct contact with the public within this event we took part
in largely scripted scenarios that showed to the public with relatively good
accuracy what the fighting at Antietam was like. Living history events such
Maryland My Maryland are definitely one way to perform public history. It is a
good way to interpret the past as well as a good way for the historian to step
in the shoes of the persons of the past and gain perspective that just simply
can’t be gained from sitting down and reading a book, although living
historians do a lot of that as well.
For more information you can visit the following:
The Army of the Ohio website: http://www.armyoftheohio.com/
Maryland My Maryland website: http://www.marylandcampaign150.org/Reenactment.html
A collection of assorted pictures and videos from the
weekend:
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