AARs from Pittsburg Landing

[Shotgun Messiah]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

The event it self leaves me speechless.

I want to Thank Jim Butler ,SCAR, the NPS, the Shiloh Ranger Staff, and of course the WIG
I am so thankful of being able to attend. First with my messmates Mike and Rick, and new sibley mates Mark S, Ted R, Steve H,Theo R, The one fellow I cant remeber his name at all I am sorry(You Chi-town boys are the squirts!!!), Caldwell and Radjecki( sic)( good Hoosier boys)> no finer bunch of fellows could be had in one brown stained- rain soaked Sibley, Made up a fine Molly with the weepy Brown-eyed mess in my humble opinion..

Sgt Heaths Fine Commissary.. you fellas rocked!!... Fires created by defamation and Blasphemy, Food to die for and a general all around grumbliness that was befitting of character.. crackers and Coffee for Breakfast ? I thought that was what you always get for morning chow.... Hmm maybe I was befooled into believing fantasy.
I don't care what anyone said about the bean and pork stew it was most tasty considering some of Marse Heaths fares of late.. it was obviously some kind of deviant sadistic creation to expose more than one human to gaseous noxious fumes Sibley contained. But I gobbled up every bite ,wishing I could go back for seconds....my poor tent mates
The Fish stew well... I opted for a Pie.. it was to die for! without a plate I licked my hands clean, coated in fine juicy cherry goodness, ( of course that killed any germs or toxens I had recieved at that point,filth be damned). I wanted that Hash so bad I could not stand it but the combination of Dysentary and Bean stew was like a exploding cannon waiting to unfold, I knew the hash would only exaporate things even worse.. you're a Devil-man Chawrls.. perhaps a fine cabbage leaf pilfered from the commisary would aset things right.....

Company C ( Comer Company ) Was lead by the finest of Officers and NCO's, Without the Corn King and the Mighty Coates , Corbin the Brave but Brutal and the Company Darling, Runyon the leprechaun.Of course without Brilliant Leaders , Captain Milbert and Lt Jerram, we would have looked like Co I and K ( pun intended).
To the Best Company ( the Pies prove it) Company C.. .. Raise yer hats boys!!!

I look forward to the Next Shiloh .
cold weather or rain or Hail or snow I will be back

[edgeinwi]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

First, the finer points.
- Everyone was complaining about how cold it was. We left snow in Wisconsin, so it was warmer than home. It was kind of fun to watch our southern brothers teeth chatter on Sunday morning.
- Mr. Heaths "land, sea, and air" stew was something to die for. Nothing like a dish with all three meat groups in it. I think Herr Schumann got the prize for the biggest piece of "sea".
- A narriated battlefield tour.
- Sunday morning fun. This is why I do this stuff!!!!!
- Hanging with my fine pards from the Ol' Sipley Mess and the ONV.
- Cooking Saturday evening meal for 50 guys. Charles, thanks for letting us use your stuff.
- Sleeping on a actual battlefield. Reminds me of the old days with the mudsill's.
- Getting Herr Frohmader out of his winter funk.
- Finally putting faces to names. Was so great to meet so many great people.
- Mark Susnis's composition cake.
- The cute waitress at the catfish place on friday night. Ahh, a friday fish fry out of state.
Now the lesser points.
- The rain was a bummer, but you can't mess with God's work.
Thanks to..........
- Mr. Butler and the SCAR for putting on a fine event.
- Our officers and NCO's in Co. K.
- Mr. Heath for allowing us to use a good portion of his stuff for preparing Saturday evening meal.
- Everyone who attended.
- The NPS for allowing us to play.
- The person who invented the sibley tent. Can you imagine how miserable things would have been if we were in shelter tents or none at all?

Had a great time. See you all at Outpost III.

Karl H. Pasch

aka John G Woertz

[Eric Tipton]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

Since the arm rasslin' was such a hit, I touched up Jim's photo a bit. I really like this image. Too bad we don't have a wet plate. ;)

[AndrewMartin]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

Since the arm rasslin' was such a hit, I touched up Jim's photo a bit. I really like this image. Too bad we don't have a wet plate. ;)

Look here.... CJ at work again. Man, I tell you when CJ first walked up for our match before the tournament started I thought I got him, and put a little wager on myself to win of course. Then he started to roll back his sleeves and it was all over after that!:confused_

[Ross L. Lamoreaux]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

Yes sir, that C.J. is 5 feet of dynamite when you get him going. The trick to beat him is to break up his concentration by offering some free chew.

[Jim of The SRR]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

Still more...

[Michael Comer]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

Jim,

I was curious about what all the video is going to be used for. Were they personal videos or are they going to be used for something educational/public at the park? Seems like everything we did was documented on video.

[Kiev Thomason]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

Gents,Things have slowed a bit now so I have some time to write....First thanks to all who braved the deadly gas that came to kill all in the dead of night in the NCO tent of company C.I hope everyone made it home safe.You men did a heck of a job pulling this one together!My hats off to you...or should I say,my crown of Corn.My arm is waiting on next year even though I have had to take it easy at work.Seems I am not 18 yrs old any more:confused_ The food was grand uncle Heath and the tour through the woods was tops.I wish we would do more like that at all of our events.I thought all the groups pulled together as one and it showed.There were a few bugs in the armor here and there but all in all........great job boys!It was great to see you all again and some new guys too.Jim thanks for having us !

[Matt Woodburn]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

Woodburn-Runyon Mafia come to camp, eliminate competing interests, i.e. Chuck-a-luck, and open their own for-profit Arm Wrasslin Exposition.

Our motto is, "Why pay taxes when you can wager at the Woodburn-Runyon Exposition and double your money!"

Paid for by the "Mo Money Woodburn" for Governor and "G Money Runyon" for Lt. Governor Foundation.:wink_smil

[IowaYank]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

Kiev, I thought I had the comeback for a second, but in the end I just couldn't get my arm back up. It was very generious to give me the $5.00 after you won. All in all it was a great time.

Matt, it took me awhile to realize that if the winner only gets 50% of the pot, where does the other 50% go??? I knew there was a catch to it somewhere.:wink_smil

Dan Chmelar
AKA John Dawson

[Rankin]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

Dan,
I think the attached photo to the post before yours will answer your question as to where the other half of the money went.Let the buyer beware!

Jim Crawford
co.K, Shiloh

[Jim of The SRR]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

The thing that impressed me most about the event was how all the men truly created a camp environment that really felt like I was actually in an 1862 Civil War camp. It was about the spirit of all the men in attendance working to play the part as soldiers. Historically, the original men spent weeks of tedious drills and inspections. Some brigades didn't even do much of that. Thus, there were endless hours of boredom that were filled with whatever distractions the men could come up with. Here was some interesting things I saw at the event:

- Period shaving. I had only witnessed this briefly once before, so this was very cool.
- Arm Wrestling match. What many of you may or may not have realized is that I had carefully taken all the money for the sutlery and had it distrubuted thru PayCall and the rest in some clever ways. One was thru mailcall. Some of you may have received money from home, etc. The other way was to have a chuck-a-luck game set up on the other end of camp (with odds in favor of the player to redistribute the money back out). Well, clearly the men rolled the chuck-a-luck huckster for all his money. My first response was "THEY DID WHAT?!!!" and thus possibly ruined my carefully laid plans to redistribute the wealth. However, I soon found myself laughing because I realized this is the exact type of thing that would have happened with a real group of soldiers in the Civil War. This aside from the fact that it was a clever idea and the men really enjoyed it.
- Missing straw. The park dumped off a few bails of straw to add to the flood waters in the tents. Sgt Mjr took control of this detail so it would be distributed out failry. In the midst of this, Mess #1 pilfered two bails under the Sgt Mjrs nose. Sgt Mjr and I were ticked off! However, I again found myself laughing as this is the type of stuff the real soldiers would have done.
- Lastly, someone pilfered some hardtack from the commissary in the middle of the night. The Comm. Sgt reporting that the box was left slightly open and a trail was left by the culprit. Again, I found myself laughing as this was probably something that would have really happened (however, I am betting a police guard wa sposted at the commisary stores). However, the men were then shorted on their hardtack issue the next morning.

It is not that I condoned all of this, as someone ends up with the short end of the stick (or the short end of the hardtack or short straw in this case). My point is that despite all measures to try to keep things equal among men, it will never work. It didn't work in the CW army (read Billings, Hinman, Wiley, etc) and never works in real life.

Mr. Runyon and Mr. Woodburn never fail to disappoint.

Thanks to all of you for creating a memorable Encampment at Pittsburg Landing!

Regards,
Jim Butler

[Matt Woodburn]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

And just as a note Jim, just about all of the chuck-a-luck money did end up in the hands of many men as you intended. I must have paid 30 men a dollar to vote for me for Governor of Illinois after the war! I figured they could get a cigar or something at Barnhouse's or pool their "votin' money" to get some condiments for their mess. Great idea you had for a paycall that could actually be spent. I've only done this once before. The guys liked it and Crabb loved how it went off. Bully job!

[Tenthtexas]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

A little late on responding but I want to thank Jim for organizing this successful event. I know it has grown over the years and that is due to each of the quality men that showed up for it. An event is what you make it and how much you are willing to participate. I must say that everyone pulled their weight and more.
I thank my Lt's Paul Jerram and Robbie Mitchell for their find leadership all weekend and sorry for the log cutting on my behalf. Also the NCO's in my company did a first rate job as they always do. Kiev, Justin, Tripp and Herb were on the ball the entire time.
There are individuals that make an event just a bit more memorable and add something that you never could try to plan if you tried. Runyon, Woodburn, Kiev really made the event secondary to their chuck-a-luck mafia ring they had going on. Just sitting back and watching that was worth it alone.

I do have some pictures of the event that I took and Miss Amber as well. If you contact me I will forward some on. I will be sending them to the Civil War Historian along with an article of the event with the assistance of Eric Tipton.

Finally, I want to echo Steve's words about Outpost. He had the chance to see the land that we will be using for the event after Shiloh. This will be great land for the event we have planned. There are so many experiences that will result from the Outpost and I hope that everyone at Shiloh will be there. The land we are using is behind Rippavilla in Spring Hill, TN. This may be the last event to be held on this ground for it has been sold to developers. Where we will be having this event was where Cleburne was camped just prior to marching to Franklin. Somewhat fitting if you ask me.

I hope to see everyone at Vicksburg, Ft. Wayne, Chickamauga and Outpost this year.

Art Milbert
10th Texas
Armory Guards
WIG, commanding

[Fiddlebum]

Re: AARs from Pittsburg Landing

"However I guess I don't expect to attend an event with such high standards and hear "Marching Through Georgia." Not a good song for April 1862"

Blame Heath. He axed for it. :D And it's true, supposedly the melody predates the Civil War.

We had an actual list of all pre-1862 songs, and it just kinda blew away. :p


Kim Caudell
Gut String Mess