Over padding a saddle

[Outrider]

Re: Over padding a saddle

"Oh...... I thought you may have been refering to the lack of blankets"

Actually, that is very true and as good a reason IMO to rethink it but Dan makes an excellent point .
Noone here is suggesting that we place ourselves or our mounts at risk like they did and we dont, not in the least, but to use that is a very old excuse that has been used to justify every farby thing from no ramrods to bad uniforms to static camping in tents. Somethings of course we can , should or have, make adjustments for. For example even if moss blankets were widely available they would be very expensive for most but honestly I see no way to justify not doing our very best to come as close to experienceing what THEY did as we can short of hurting ourselves each other or our horses. I can count on one hand the times I was cold enough that I couldnt go to sleep when I was tired much less freeze or catch pnuemonia. If you are careful, learn field crafts and apply them as they did, you can survive and even be fairly comfortable most times at least for a few days.
I suppose a legitimate question is why are we doing it? I am no big believer in the concept of honoring anyone by reenacting but that is just me. Are we out to have fun? Have an adventure? Hang out with friends? Or are we doing it to try and as accurately as we can, relive moments in history and try and get a sense of what those boys went through.
The last bit for me is the only one that counts. The others come naturally as a result of being with like minded friends.

[1st Maine Trooper]

Re: Over padding a saddle

Come on now. I too tend to be cold natured at night but 3 blankets and multiple pairs of pants? How about this, pine boughs or leaves on the ground close to the fire, saddle blanket then you. Next comes the sleeping blanket and if its really cold, climb into your overcoat and pull a ground cloth over all of you. Don't forget to cover your head either. In this manner, you can stay warm and dry in the off chance someone holds an event when it rains.

Dave Myrick

[Jerry Ross]

Re: Over padding a saddle

Boys,
The boys spooned all the time to keep warm, share blankets stay under one painted ground cloth. Yeah, put some pine straw ,leaves ,grass under you . I have one account of them sleeping on top of fence rails to stay out of the water or off the wet ground. Oooochh!

Yeah! Read the reports Ken K. has posted they are a real eye opener and I feel like a real farb compared to the veterans . No saddle, gun, haversack, canteen.

[forrestcav]

Re: Over padding a saddle

multiple pairs of pants seems a bit much, but I'm not gonna bash someone for his extra blanket. There are alternatives, I have used my great coat over my blanket and then a gum blanket.
I have also woke up a number of time the last 15 plus years with frost on my bed roll, even in March and november. We cannot ask a man to give up his blankets if "he" percieves a health risk to himself. This isn't forced service and we do have to go to the "21 century" monday morning. Everybody decides their level of authenticity

[VaTrooper]

Re: Over padding a saddle

2 blankets and a overcoat I could see.

[forrestcav]

Re: Over padding a saddle

my norm 95% of the time with a gum blanket over that

[IowaYank]

Re: Over padding a saddle

Everybody decides their level of authenticity

Yes, this is true, but here on the "Authentic Campaigner", a higher level of authenticity is set FOR YOU. This is not a place for discussion of topics if you have set your own level of authenticity lower than you can possibly have it (In all three areas, man, materials, and methods). "We" (from talking with others, I know this isn't just something I am seeing) are tired of sub par cavalry passing for "authentic" these days when they have ACCEPTED their lower standards and have no ambition of changing that. There are places for those people, like Szabo's site and the 2011 Tractor Pull and Civil War Days, but not here or at authentic immersion events!

Stepping down from my pulpit now.
Dan

[Mark Choate]

Re: Over padding a saddle

Gentlemen of the mounted persuasion,

There have been some very informative posts on this thread and some excellent points on authenticity mingled with practical survival ideas and mingled with some leg-pullin' exaggerations I am sorry to say..............

As Dan has said here, this is the Authentic Campaigner site and more specifically, the Cavalry Forum and we all take a great deal of pride in how this thing is handled and used. I like a good joke as well as the next fella, etc. etc. but the fact remains if we are going to advise others that are new to this study (I will not say "hobby"), then we must be able to back it up with book, chapter and verse as to what is documented. Were there exceptions??? Heck yes!! Do we fashion our impressions based on exceptions??? Heck no!! So, with these comments I believe we need to find another horse to beat as this one died long ago. I am not gonna lock the thread as I believe there to be many good points for posterity.

Remember, use the search engine to find past threads on a subject and revive them if you still have a question and use this forum wisely and with documentation and yes, you can have fun with it, too.

Respectfully to all.

Mark

[ButtermilkRanger]

Re: Over padding a saddle

I'm coming into this discussion late, so maybe the joke posts have been deleted. I understand Mark's comment and appreciate it. However, I think some very vailid comments have been made. I understand that there are various levels of progression in the authentic side of the hobby. I respect that, and I have always lived my life with the belief that we catch more flies with honey than vinegar. I am more than willing to share my limited amount of knowledge and research with those who are open minded and care to listen. Having said that, I also stand by the principals upon with this entire website was founded. This is the Authentic Campaigner website, founded so many years ago by Paul Calloway, and there are a few of us left here who were there for the first posts and long before there was a "sub-forum" dedicated specifically to cavalry. It is my belief that this group was founded on the principal of a gathering place for those who have already progressed into the dark side of authentic campaigning. Yes, we are the original "stitch-nazis", "button pissers", and "hardcores". Lord knows we lived with those titles as names as terms of slander, not endearment, for far too long. When Paul put together this site for those of us who were the outcast and the persecuted, we finally had a home where we could wear the titles like "stitch nazi" or "button pisser" with pride. There were always those "other" sites where we could frequent to help lead the masses into the realm of enlightenment. Over "there", we could discuss WHY a person carrying a shelter half or two blankets may as well be wearing fuzzy pink slippers with a propane heater in his tent. But over here, at "home", we could discuss the documented mintuae of cavalry life for the ACW trooper. Here was our safe place, where we could speculate on first person documentation and recently uncovered treasures.

Now it seems that times have changed. I suppose it is still progress. Sort of like that neighborhood you grew up in where everyone knew everyone else and it was more of a family than a street, then all of a sudden you wake up one morning and you find that most of your friends have moved away and you're left with strangers living in their houses. Strangers from "somewhere else", who don't know you or care to, and don't really care what your neighboorhood used to be like before urban sprawl came knocking.

The trouble is, we can't turn back the clock and go back to the glory days of this forum, as much as some of might want to. All we can do is tolerate the new neighbors and maybe educate them as to what this forum was founded upon and why "it might have been" simply won't cut it in the AUTHENTIC CAMPAIGNER community. Those two words must be mutually inclusive for all of us.... to reside here, we must be willing to do whatever it takes to make us both authentic and campaigners. Anything less should be relegated to another, less exclusive, neighborhood.

Mark, old friend and kindred spirit, there is no need to lock this thread (or very many others for that matter). If we are the gated community we started out as, then the ne'er-do-wells would have never infiltrated the neighborhood in the first place. I believe we are perfectly able to police ourselves. Iron sharpens iron and maybe some of the newcomers do come with talent and knowledge we oldtimers desperately need. If there are those here who haven't earned the title of hardcore, then let us show them the light... and then, if they still refuse the lesson, let's ask them to find a different school.

[Jerry Ross]

Re: Over padding a saddle

Larry,
Amen!

[Mark Choate]

Re: Over padding a saddle

Larry, ole buddy,

As I said, I am not planning on locking it as there is a lot of good stuff going on in it.

Heck, I am not sure which of these buttons to press to do it anyway, ha.

Maybe it's this big red one that says "No - no - no" :wink_smil

thanks,
Mark

[Mike Ventura]

Re: Over padding a saddle

Hey Larry --

I remember the time that we all (Buttermilk Rangers / Critters) went to Perryville - maybe '01 or '02? I recall waking up one morning and all of us, and the ground, were covered in a layer of white frost. I also remember someone - you perhaps? - giving us a little rodeo show when first mounting that morning.

[ButtermilkRanger]

Re: Over padding a saddle

That was one of Coley's TWHs. I think it was my first and last ride on a TWH. I also remember us standing around a fire all night in the rain on the first night, too cold and much to wet to sleep. It's the hard stuff that makes us "hardcore".

[The Egyptian Homeguard]

Re: Over padding a saddle

Mike, I think that was in 02'. If I remember correctly it rained Saturday night and I froze my *** off. I slept under a cedar tree with a gum down, saddle blanket, me, bed blanket and overcoat.I could feel running warte under me all night. In the middle of the night I awoke because I thought the rain had let up; Nope, my horse had slid down the highline under the tree with me and was a stradle of me... I figured if he peed on me at least I'd be warm for a while.

For those of you packing everything but the kitchen sink...what's a bit of cold? We all get to return to good food and hot showers Sunday night. The guys who fought the war didn't get to call it quits Sunday at 2pm. If you don't like roughing it a bit, maybe you should buy an RV and take up "camping" instead of "campaigning"... Z

[Old-South]

Re: Over padding a saddle

Easily said for you thick blooded northerners! By Floridian blood will freeze solid! So forgive me if I am a little heavy on the blankets! LOL!