Glendale AAR Thread

[PieBoy96]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

Yes, I was the lucky one to receive the pleasurable appearance of Skinny Anne. As soon as I opened the letter and pulled that sketch out, about a dozen faces around me suddenly lit up, haha. At a break in the march, I read aloud the "hardships" of life at a western fort. I won't be posting that gem I got in the mail... just hope that at the next event, your "cousin Billy" sends you a highly descriptive letter, too!

Overall, the event was a good time. I enjoyed the boiled beef, and many thanks to those who cooked it up, as it saved much time and effort for 30 guys cooking up rations around 2 fires. The hardcrackers, despite the Panera ones, were a nice change from the usual Bent crackers, which I find almost TOO yummy to be hardtack. Thanks to Joe for making all the crackers.

The extended tour of the wooded property on Saturday afternoon wasn't too exciting, and I'm glad we avoided that on Sunday (even if it had not rained, I wouldn't have enjoyed it too much). I know that because of the NPS ground we were on, our skirmishers couldn't have rounds as we marched through the woods.. which told us in the ranks that probably nothing was going to happen then. But it was still a nice representation of moving through "unknown" land.

Friday night was a bit chilly, but Saturday night was near perfect sleeping weather. Our huge shebang kept us dry from the intermittent rain, and many thanks to Cody Harding, the Architect of such a structure.

Thanks to the event organizers for putting on the event - it was nice to come meet some new people at a site I hadn't been to before, and I hope to see them all again soon.

[Moose]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

Well I guess I'll weigh in.....
First and foremost I would like to thank the other guys on the committee who helped out, Almost, Pete, Charels, and especially Ley Watson, with out whom the event would have not happened, really.

Second to all who came out to the event to help raise money for Glendale. As I was the Federal guide I can not speak of the Johnny's but the Feds were a good groups guys. Got to meet some new people (the boys from the LR and Jason Spellmen), hopefully are paths will cross agian, and soon. Got to mess with my fellow CRs (Grumpy, Kenvin, Brain, and Doug), and got to bring some close friends out of the woodwork (Almost and Hunter). Grumpy did an excellent job as Fed commander, and I would like to thanks Jerry Stiles for putting forth a great effort and for being so paitent with me and the Confederate information.

I would like to make one correction. Grumpy Dave on Sunday said that the organizers spend up to a year planning for these things, he is correct in most cases, but not in ours. We (the event committee) did not get off the ground until November, so we had only 5 1/2 months to put this thing together, so if things weren't perfect folks, please understand, we went from crawl to sprint in thirty seconds to get this thing off the ground.

As for everyones questions on the hardtack here is the answer:
Batch #1: Nothing special
Batch#2: Slightly green tinted water for a "molded" look (2 cups water w/green food coloring)
Batch#3: Black pepper for the visual effect of "floor sweepings" (1 tbsp. coarse ground; note- need to find a way to get stale black peper)
Batch#4: Coarse ground cornmeal, for off texture and floor sweepings (1 cup of cornmeal substituted for 1 cup flour)
Batch#5: Fine ground corn meal for off texture (1 cup of cornmeal substituted for 1 cup flour)

Glad everyone had a good time.

P.S. - 26 ticks, can anyone beat that?

[Enfilade]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

P.S. - 26 ticks, can anyone beat that?[/QUOTE]

NO! But I can tell you that certain parts of my anatomy looked like I had the shingles! All species of ticks really do suck!

The NSR had a good time hanging out again with the SWB. Stiles did great! Dusty was stuck with me most of the time as I was 3rd Sgt and he was Lt of 2nd Platoon- skirmishing, being held in reserve. He just about lost me after I stepped into a tiger trapped gopher hole that I went all the way up to my knee! I couldn't tell whether he led me into it or not...

Met lots of new folks. Saw lots of old friends. Was hungry, tired, thirsty, cold, wet, exhausted. Pretty much experienced all the stuff a real soldier would have experienced. Except not getting shot at with real rounds. And, we did our part to preserve a little History.

All in all, a good time. I guess I'll see you all again at Pickett's Mill, or in Dusty's case, Fredericksburg.

Mark Berrier
North State Rifles

http://www.northstaterifles.com

[Charles Heath]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

Well I guess I'll weigh in....

Didn't you weigh-in just before the boxing match with Petey at Winter 1864? ;)

You are correct about Ley, as the event certainly would not have happened without him, and I really do not know anyone else who would have been able to react as positively to "the new way of doing business," which is likely to send some shock waves through the living history community. That being said, we'll speak of this in a few weeks, as this may be the very factor that drives the hobbies, such that they are, back together in such a way we would never have anticipated.

We (the event committee) did not get off the ground until November, so we had only 5 1/2 months to put this thing together.

That would be 16 November at12:48 pm. I remember it well.

A "normal," if there is such a thing, CR event takes 2 years to prepare, and the first year is generally pure research. Ask Kevin sometime. The cut line for research gave Joe about 3 1/2 weeks to pull it together. Considering the 47th Virginia regimental was at hand, the ORs were available, and two good books about the role of the Penna. Reserves were also accessible, this wasn't as bad of a chore as looking up some truly obscure outfit. As time went on, Joe would find more and more cool details and factoids, and sometimes they were worked into the plans. This battle deserves a really good book, and something beyond the current publication (the name escapes me), which is essentially just a string of snippets from the ORs. Glendale deserves far more attention than it has received.

I'm proud to say I didn't have to bake a single piece of hardtack or ship's bread for this event. That is saying something, too. Over the years, we have had some strange hardtack, but the best had to have been the worm castles at Chatham Manor. Sparky was beside himself with joy that his hardbread finally yielded live, wriggling, honest to goodness worms. Nic "Bug Man" Ellis, Ph.D, verified this, too.

P.S. - 26 ticks, can anyone beat that?

Joe, I keep telling you ticks really dig that EVOO. Lard is the way to go, bro!

[Soup Bone]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

P.S. - 26 ticks, can anyone beat that?
Yep, Kendall Mattern of 2nd Va Co. E had a grand total of 48!!!!!!!!!!!

[GreencoatCross]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

That's disgusting!!!! In all my years of doing this nonsense, I've only ever had to pull TWO ticks out of my own flesh, and only had to brush off about a dozen more that seemed to not know where to stop for dinner.

48!!!! Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!

[GrumpyDave]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

Noah, the bandage stayed on my ankle quite nicely, until I removed it Saturday before bedtime.

Jason, You jumped three feet up in the air and backwards all at the same time at the sight of the snake. I will say that your scream was a loud gutteral manly scream, like a "WWWAAAAAOOOOHH, I hate snakes!!!!!" It was a right nice black snake.

Paul Bocco...., That wasn't a shebang; the thing was so big I kept looking for clowns, midgets and acrobats.


Thanks to the organizers all of you. What a great event.

ticks, ticks, ticks....

[Bill]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

ticks, ticks, ticks....

I was sort of gloating in my own head about not getting any ticks on me. Well, I woke up this morning and found seven or eight of the little buggers sucking my blood. They were a lot easier to see today!

Damn things survived four hot showers, before digging in for dinner!

[Charles Heath]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

I'm so glad you guys used those four cases of Repel (thank you, Nic Ellis) stationed at the Malvern Hill visitor shelter while registration was open from 3 pm to midnight Friday. I'm under the impression anything less than 90% DEET makes those ticks grow hair on their chests. Speaking of snakes, it was a sight to see Noah sunning himself on the Willis Church Road lay back, and a few feet away on the slope going to the creek was a King Snake that dwarfed the one we found during the dump clean up day -- also sunning himself.

I found one Lone Star tick walking about. Anyone else see one?

[JStiles]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

I'm not sure of my exact tick count. I can only say there were many. I'd say somewhere around 30. I apologize for not having an accurate count, but I was more interested in getting them off my CRANK and SACK as fast as I could, rather than counting!........Jerry Stiles

[cprljohnivey]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

I sprayed my self down at registration and again at a water stop Saturday Evening after the battle. I think that stuff just made the ticks laugh.

[SCTiger]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

And for sure, don't tell the rest of us how we can improve.

Wasn't doing that Doug. I spoke about the hobby in general and you took it personal and attacked me. I hope that the rest of the forum can learn from this, whatever you do, don't get sick in the field with this crew. This of course won't keep me from improving or striving to do better or from attending events. The next time I will keep a better record of what happened and you won't have a health problem to use against me.

See you in the field. Nice "AAR" by the way.

[dusty27]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

Greg,

The name is Mike, not Doug.

I took nothing personally. Again, I don't have any problem about anyone falling out due to illness. You were not the only one. If I didn't care, I wouldn't have asked you if you were ok.

My problem with you is after falling out and not going through a large part of the event (battle and overnight on Saturday), you try to fall back in like you didn't miss anything and then report here how we all could improve.

Nothing personal. I'm not the only one who noticed.

[Doug Nash]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

Had a great time at Glendale with the rest of the NSR boys and the other fellas portraying the 47th Va. Enough of ticks, hardtack, pig tails, snakes and all that - how about the "Great Pie Swindle" of '62? If there ain't enough pie for everyone to get a slice, says I, then dangit just mush it up and let everyone come up and get a spoonful of it if they want it. The Sgt. doling out the pie simply could not get that idea into his head, try as he might, and opted for the tried & proven method of keeping it for the NCOs & letting the rank and file do without. A tried & proven method (in 2nd rate armies, for sartain sure), but that sure wasn't much of an example of inspiring leadership. Somehow the 1st Platoon figured out the conundrum and doled it out to everyone's satisfaction. Us guys in 2nd Platoon got a hearty "take your ration and clear out!" when we were so bold enough to inquire about the aforementioned pie. Next time I'll bring my trusty old cadet mess hall pie template and carry it in my hat so when a Sgt. can't figure out how to apportion rations, I can hand it to him so he can cut it with precision! (I have to admit that I do have a weakness for pie, that I can't deny!)
Anyway, can't wait til the next event - again, a well planned, well-scripted & organized even - hats off to Captain Stiles for the great job as Co. commander!
Cheers,
Doug Nash
(But if the NCOs didn't eat the pie then who did? We only had one officer, and he was too busy to eat any!! This bears further scrutiny!!)

[parebel]

Re: Glendale AAR Thread

No NCO's in 2nd Platoon took any of the damned pie, we were too busy trying to saw through the ham and dole it out, which could have been detailed for you to do but wasn't, so you could sit and rest. We waited to issue out the forementioned damned pie because there was a water detail out at the time and we didn't want them to get screwed. We'll be sure to pick you up and burp you after you eat the next issue, and maybe then you'll be inspired.