Cavalry Camp of Instruction

[Mark Choate]

This is my first Post on the A/C, but I hope that it will be found as beneficial to some. The 7th TN. Cavalry, Co. D. is conduct it's annual Camp of Instruction next month on the weekend of March 21-22 in Franklin TN. at the historic Carnton Plantation. All of you are familiar with the significance of this location to the Battle of Franklin, and we are honored to be able to use these grounds. I don't believe the "posting" rules allow attachments but if any of you wish to email me, I will be happy to send you a copy of the schedule. Suffice it to say that it is filled with "classroom" instruction on a variety of topics key to the hobby and is interspersed with lots of drilling, maneuvers and saddle time. Most of us will be arriving on late Friday afternoon and will camp that night and Saturday night. Reveille will be at 6:00 a.m. and we will begin the first drill at 7:30. I want to personally invite any and all cavalrymen to come and join in with us. As of now, we have approx 30 troopers coming and have room for more. Some of the topics discussed will be: Authentic Impressions, Tack and accoutrements, Packing Light and Right - Campaigning, General Horsemanship, Defarbing your weapons and accoutrements, Authentic Food preparation, etc. I hope some of you can join us as we hope for this to be similar to the plans that we had two years ago for the Cavalry Congress in East TN.
On a separate yet related note, while I did not comment on the recent discussion of our website, I do want to thank the membership for pointing out its shortcomings. This unit is 23 years old and those guidelines were written then. At that time they were fairly cutting-edge, but when the site was created 12 years ago, those were copied from the original handbook and largely ignored on our part. I take personal responsibility for it not being attended to, but as a result of the discussion, we have assigned the creation of a new site to one of our troopers, Mark Bridges. I have seen the early stages of that site and am very pleased with Mark's work. It will be debuted at the Camp of Instruction and the old site will be taken down. Again, my thanks for the critique.

I hope to see some of you at Carnton. Please contact me if you need directions or have questions.

Lt. Mark Choate,
7th Tn. Cav. Co. D.
choatecav@aol.com

[Jerry Ross]

Re: Cavalry Camp of Instruction

Mark,
I will be there.

[Ken Knopp]

Re: Cavalry Camp of Instruction

Mark,

WELCOME!! I hope this will be the first of many posts for you. The Carnton "School of the Trooper" event sounds like a great shot at the opportunity we "missed" with the Cavalry Congress. I hope the authentic cavalry readers of this forum will take note and not let the opportunity slip by.
As a member of the Carnton Association since 1983 (or thereabouts) I can attest to its trully unique place in Franklin Battlefield and American history including ownership of the largest privately owned CS cemetary in the country. Many of America's greatest and the Confederacy's finest graced its doors. The stories around its place as a field hospital after the battle are legendary, haunting and rumor has it, still haunted today.

Ken R Knopp

https://www.confederatesaddles.com

[csabugler]

Re: Cavalry Camp of Instruction

Mark, send some info. You can link it or private message or e-mail me, you have my addy. There's a good chance that several of us will come up.
I see the 6:00 a.m. revielle, just so you know, i like my grits a shade on the lumpy side., my eggs over medium, and don't burn my bacon, that makes me cranky!! :D

[Mark Choate]

Re: Cavalry Camp of Instruction

That's great to hear, Pete.

Now that I know you are coming, I will have a chef brought in so that those eggs are just right! I'm just glad you are NOT demanding the eggs benedict like you did at Pickett's Mill last year, ha. I never could do those justice.

I heard from Guy M. just the other day and he mentioned that y'all might come up. Great news and I am happy to say that the number of fellas that have contacted me with interest in coming has been really high! May have to kill a whole hog!!

Will send you some materials of sep email.

Thanks again!!
Mark

[Mike Nickerson]

Re: Cavalry Camp of Instruction

Mark, send some info. You can link it or private message or e-mail me, you have my addy. There's a good chance that several of us will come up.
I see the 6:00 a.m. revielle, just so you know, i like my grits a shade on the lumpy side., my eggs over medium, and don't burn my bacon, that makes me cranky!! :D

In the event he does get cranky, we just slap him a couple times, throw his a$$e in the saddle and tell him to pretend he can ride a horse and blow his horn! That usually takes care of the problem. :D

Mike Nickerson

[Mark Choate]

Re: Cavalry Camp of Instruction

Patrick..........

I have no idea why I called you "Pete" in my earlier post. It is mighty early here and I suppose I was thinking about those eggs.............

Guess I really will owe you a good breakfast after that screw-up, ha.

Sorry about that!
Mark

[csabugler]

Re: Cavalry Camp of Instruction

Thanks, Mike, can always count on you for a word of support!!!
Of course, you won't be able to make it because of.....

[Mike Nickerson]

Re: Cavalry Camp of Instruction

Mark, he actually likes to be called "Pat".

Mike Nickerson

PS: Pete, you have a point. I suck at getting to the good events!

[RJSamp]

Re: Cavalry Camp of Instruction

Patrick..........

I have no idea why I called you "Pete" in my earlier post. It is mighty early here and I suppose I was thinking about those eggs.............

Guess I really will owe you a good breakfast after that screw-up, ha.

Sorry about that!
Mark

Pete, Patrick, Bugler....just don't call him late for dinner or the chance to play zee trumpet....

[csabugler]

Re: Cavalry Camp of Instruction

Or for the Ale!!! :D

[Jerry Ross]

Re: Cavalry Camp of Instruction

Mark Choate and all of the rest ,
Thanks for a great time over the weekend. I surely needed the drill as much as anybody . You and your fellas were great hosts. There was plenty of drill and discussions. Each topic discussed was very informative to the young and old . I know I got there late Saturday morning . So ,I might have missed this .You have several very good horseman that could teach all of us some horsemanship skills, just by listening to the men,one could tell they know a lot more than than I. I would love to spend a day picking the brains of several on solving horse related problems . I look forward to doing this next spring . Again thanks for having us.

Ken Knopp , It is always good to see you.

[Mark Choate]

Re: Cavalry Camp of Instruction

First of all, I want to thank you Jerry, for the kind comments on your post. Ironically, you mentioned getting there a little late, well the first instructional was on that very topic, "Horsemanship", by our Chief of Scouts, Ronnie Tucker. I want to thank you and the other fellas from Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama to make the Camp of instruction such a great success. There were members of the Critter Co, Terry's Texas Rangers and others in attendance. We had about 40 troopers in the ranks from complete new recruits to veterans with over 20 years experience. Some seasoned mounts, some green mounts, lots of drill and lots of classroom time. In addition to Ronnie Tucker mentioned earlier, the instructors were the highly respected Ken Knopp (no stranger to this site), Joe Alliston (just back from the Piney Woods event), Mark Bridges Tommy Helton, Earl Stocks and Joe Lambert and they ably covered many important topics and really put in a of hard work. Most had handouts and items for display! Excellent work, men! We had many hours of drill starting from the most basic foundation actions to quite advanced movements. All of this in the shadows of the historic Carnton mansion. Just imagine this..... we were allowed to conduct our classroom sessions on the back porch of the mansion. . .the very site where the bodies of the four slain confederate generals were lain after the bloody battle of Franklin! As if that were not enough, after an intense, yet rewarding weekend of honing our craft, we were taken on a private tour of the mansion by Mr. Eric Jacobsen, author of the new book, "For Cause, For Country". His book is on the battles of Spring Hill and Franklin and I can say with confidence that every man that went on this would agree that it may have been the most powerful and moving "tour" that any of us have ever been involved in.

I just hope that everyone that attended and that helped, will accept my heartfelt thanks for what they did to make this the finest instructional session that I have been involved in in my 17 years in this hobby.

On a separate, yet related matter, I would like to invite all of the readers to check out our new website that was just unveiled this past weekend as well. The site is www.7tncav.org and it is the product of many, many hours of hard work by our own Mark Bridges.

Mark Choate, Lt.
7th TN. Cav., Co. D.