campaingn packing

[Paul L Muller]

Re: campaingn packing

That was a very good artical, Thanks for setting it up. I am looking so forward to this season,and doing a lot of riding. My unit are mostly mainstreaqmers, and I am trying to help lead by example for those willing to try campaigning. All your input helps. plm

[forrestcav]

Re: campaingn packing

your right we do usually think in terms of friday to sunday. But I have pushed out to extra days with the gear I pack. even in your thinking in terms of weeks or months the basics are the same. other than food and ammo.

[ButtermilkRanger]

Re: campaingn packing

Not much to add here. I think most of it has been adequately addressed. But... in the Buttermilk Rangers, we stress carrying our traps on our person and not on our horses. IF (and it's a big IF) we carry canteens and/or haversacks, they are to be worn on the person and never tied to the saddle. 99% of the events I go to issue rations, so I go to an event with an empty haversack or small handsewn tote sack specifically for my rations. Since rations tend to be fat back, corn meal or whole corn, the occassional piece of hardtack and maybe a luxury like dried apples, they will all fit nicely in a small sack. I don't usually bring extra rations for me or my horse. On my horse I sometimes bring a picket pin and/or rope (depending on the terrain), a ground cloth, and my blankets under my saddle.

There is good advice here.... less is more, and be willing to do without. They did it for four years. We can do it for two days.

[forrestcav]

Re: campaingn packing

I agree on the trapsbeing on your person. Especially your canteen, if your dismounted and moving with the infantry then that canteen does no good on the saddle. A man get dehydrated quick in August and that canteen is a necessity

[ButtermilkRanger]

Re: campaingn packing

But we also need to remember Ken's article about the lack of canteens in the cavalry. It would be perfectly okay for more people to leave the canteens at home.

[forrestcav]

Re: campaingn packing

I agree we are canteen heavy in the hobby and less of them should be seen.

[ButtermilkRanger]

Re: campaingn packing

I've often thought about the lack of canteens in the mounted arm and the more I consider it, the more sense it makes. I remember reading a book about the big ranches in the marsh of SW Louisiana and they mentioned there that none of the old cowboys carried water on the big drives from the coast to the piney woods. They watered themselves whenever and wherever they watered their mounts. I don't have documentation to support it, but it makes perfect sense to me for CS cav to have done the same thing. Horses on campaign are going to need water on a frequent basis. Just dismount and scoop you up a few handfulls or maybe use your cup and you're good to go until the next watering.

[Outrider]

Re: campaingn packing

Exactly Larry and lets be real here, Outside of the very occasional serious....moving...campaign ...event , how far -as reenactors- are we ever really from a water source anyway? Never far enough that one man could't carry a canteen and his filemate the food for both in the haversack ( I am talking Western Theater Cornfed Cav ) like they did in a lot of case for just two days typically?
If it is just so hot at an event that a canteen is required because you are anticipating being out into the open fields standing around waiting for hours to do anything...then I would suggest that it is probably the wrong events anyway as the only time I have ever experienced that was at mainstream circusfests and usaully a result of failure on the part Gen. or Col.Thinkshesnapoleon and again , as has been said already,that is not the type of event/impression we are supposed to be discussing on THIS forum anyway.
Not trying to be a "mean old hardcore" I am not that at all. It is just the facts, as I see them, based on my own experiences.

[Tom Craig]

Re: campaingn packing

Larry et al,

Going sans canteen, and watering with your horse may work in your neck of the woods, but not at most events that I have ever been to in the east. Most of the land we use is active farm or pasture, which ends up having fertilizer or animal waste run off, not to mention the potential of upstream pollutants etc, like wastewater treatment sights. The other thing to think of is that many of us who reenact live pretty soft, climate controlled lives. It's one thing to be 18 or 19, living in the outdoors and accustomed to exertion and hardship and go without water. It's another thing entirely to be a modern office type, living in AC and soft, trying to get out into the open and ride and live in the sun all weekend. Absolutely no excuse to be farby, just saying that a canteen is a pretty good idea.

I think the core advice in this whole discussion is that less, is in fact, more.

Take care,
Tom Craig
1st Maine Cavalry

[ButtermilkRanger]

Re: campaingn packing

The vast majority of our terrain is dense forest and smaller pastures or fields. I seldom do any mainstream events at all, but the ones I do go to usually are static camps and have farby modern watering sources available. Why carry a canteen when you can just turn on the faucet and drink your fill of fresh, cool water? The better immersion events I've been to in the last several years had natural water sources (creeks, steams, etc.) and the event hosts did not provide "potable" drinking water to the human participants. Water purification tablets were usually made available. I'm not anti-canteen by any means. I actually own a couple myself and I use them... sometimes. But, I've also gone sans canteen for many events and learned to make do and share with my pards who were lucky enough to have a canteen. And I'm a huge proponent of drinking tons of water to stay hydrated during an event.

And what's a little fertilizer and manure going to hurt anyway? The manure is organic, which means it must be good for you, and the fertilizer and pesticides are already in the food you buy at the grocery. :) J/K.

When I step back to think about it, I guess how we live, the terrain we're accustomed to, and how we were raised plays into our experiences and views as living historians way more than we might think. I was raised rurally and still live there now. I grew up in the woods and swamps, hunting and fishing and trying to kill myself horseback every chance I got. I come from a long line of loggers and subsistance farmers from time immortal. I have never had city water or had to order drinking water in big containers. I've never paid a boarding fee on a horse. I do have electricity, A/C, an education and a desk job, but that's not what defines me. It's only what pays the bills. I guess that's why I never think twice about stepping off my horse and watering in a stream that at least appears clear. On the other hand, I've got very close friends who have been in the hobby longer than me, but were raised in the suburbs that wouldn't dare drink that water without boiling it first.

Not saying either of us are wrong, just different.

[Jerry Ross]

Re: campaingn packing

Larry,
E-coli is in manure, it is all natural though just like snake venom. We all might have a line or two we will not cross. Mine is drinking water in a open environment. Wells OK, creek,river,hoof prints no.....Just me and my line . Oh snakes I don't like them much either...

[Outrider]

Re: campaingn packing

" When I step back to think about it, I guess how we live, the terrain we're accustomed to, and how we were raised plays into our experiences and views as living historians way more than we might think. I was raised rurally and still live there now. I grew up in the woods and swamps, hunting and fishing and trying to kill myself horseback every chance I got. I come from a long line of loggers and subsistance farmers from time immortal. I have never had city water or had to order drinking water in big containers. I've never paid a boarding fee on a horse. I do have electricity, A/C, an education and a desk job, but that's not what defines me. It's only what pays the bills. I guess that's why I never think twice about stepping off my horse and watering in a stream that at least appears clear. On the other hand, I've got very close friends who have been in the hobby longer than me, but were raised in the suburbs that wouldn't dare drink that water without boiling it first.

Not saying either of us are wrong, just different."

Ditto for me...minus the education and the desk job..Ha.

I am not suggesting anyone not carry a canteen or go without a haversack really. I realize this is beyond what many are willing/able to do.One must do what one must do and I also know the importance of drinking ALOT of water being, as Larry is, from the Deep South where summers sap the water and the energy right out of you if you are not accustomed to it. I have always made a living outdoors so I know that as well as anyone.I was only suggesting it is possible and sometimes far more "accurate" do do without as opposed to doing with way too much is all. Also, I tend to think in terms of mid war Western and Trans -Miss CS troopers because I have never really been properly de- programed by the Feds.

[Hank Trent]

Re: campaingn packing

Something else to consider is that people do become accustomed to bacteria. The cliche of travelers going to Mexico or another country and getting sick on foods that don't bother the locals, is a good illustration. So this may be a disagreement that can never be settled because the assertion that drinking this water won't hurt you can be both true and untrue, depending on the immunity that a person has developed. Google "traveler's diarrhea" and immunity. For example:

"With this recognition of infectious agents being responsible for the disease, it became clear that th infectious diarrheas of travelers were basically the same as that of small children living in the areas visited. Travelers from developed countries were immunologically naive in a way similar to children born into a new environment. During the first several years of life, most children experienced these diarrheal illnesses, thereby acquiring relative immunity if they survived. Travelers from the developed world, on the other hand, had never come into contact with these diarrheal pathogens before arriving in the developing country and, therefore, had no immunity and were unusually susceptible. It should be noted that this is not true for travelers from one developing country to another; they already have some immunity from their diarrheal exposures in their own country and, therefore, they experience travelers' diarrhea much less often."

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[ButtermilkRanger]

Re: campaingn packing

Somehow this is changing directions. I'm not advocating for anyone to quit carrying a canteen. The original surmise was that we probably see too many canteens in the hobby, which we probably do. If we can share canteens and haversacks, but still keep our bodies hydrated and fed in order to stay healthy, then so be it. But what's the real difference in every man in a company carrying a canteen and a haversack when documentation suggests otherwise, but then we blast someone who choses to use three blankets?

I do not, have not, and will not advocate that we all start drinking out of streams, hoof prints, mudholes, or bayous. Although I have done all of those, I don't particularly like it and I don't do it on anything resembling a frequent basis. I was pretty desperate in most of those situations. My rule of thumb is, if the water is clear and I don't see many squigglies in it when I scoop it up, then take a chance. It might kill me one day, but so far, I've been okay. I would not encourage you to do the same thing, however. Where I live, too much water is always the issue, never the lack of it. But, like Patrick mentioned, our heat and humidity won't just incompacitate you if you're not hydrated, it will kill you. The threat of heat stroke for us is far more real than e-coli or the squirts. I think Hank brings up a very good point. I think much of it goes with immunity and conditioning. What has worked for me IN THIS ENVIORNMENT may not work for you and I'd be wise to err on the side of caution when I'm in your environment. But I drank water from creeks, rain run off, and even mudholes for four days during Into the Piney Woods and filled my canteen (yeah, I carried one) from those same sources without any ill effects. My water purification tablets are still in my saddlebags, unopened. We all have our lines we won't cross. I just have different lines.

[Longrope]

Re: campaingn packing

Didn't I hear this in "True Grit"? Rooster Cogburn complaining that every Texan he met has drunk from a muddy cow track?

Sorry about that, I couldn't resist.