W64 Registration is Open

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Registration for "Winter 1864" 2008 is now open. The registraton form is posted on the event's Yahoo Group in the "Files" section.

If you want to attend, get your registration in ASAP, because the available registration slots will probably be taken within a few days.

Looking forward to freezing with those who are quick to stick the envelope in the mail. :)

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: W64 Registration is Open

Sir-

My check is in the mail. Don't wanna miss this event. Now to find an enlisted frock, Hardee Hat, and more importantly an overcoat... ;)

Look forward to meeting you! -Johnny

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: W64 Registration is Open

Now to find an enlisted frock, Hardee Hat, and more importantly an overcoat... ;)

Please review the event standards: No dress ("Hardee") hats and, while enlisted frock coats are fine, we prefer that attendees wear a New York State jacket. If someone does not have a NY jacket, a frock or sack coat is acceptable, because the 151st New York was documented as having all three types of jackets represented in its ranks in the winter of 1864.

An overcoat, extra socks, and mittens are virtually mandatory (let's put it this way: I wouldn't attend this event without them) and a scarf is a darned good idea. Wool sleeping cap is advisable as well.

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: W64 Registration is Open

I stand corrected, sir. Thank you. ;)

No worries. I don't even own a Dress "Hardee" Hat... don't fancy them at all. :p

I shall try my best for a NY State Jacket especially, though. They are pretty rakish, indeed.

Will we receive confirmation that we're signed-up for the event? The check clearing from Mr. Schotz would be enough, I suppose.

This sounds great- a no-miss event.

Thanks-Johnny

[Randy]

Re: W64 Registration is Open

John,

Love the avatar you've got! :) Made me crack up.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: W64 Registration is Open

We'll issue an e-mail with the registrant list probably over this coming weekend or, at latest, early in the week of 10/01.

While I admire the number of folks on this forum and the event listserver discussing obtaining NY jackets, please note that the registration form has a place for anyone with a jacket they can loan to check it off (for example, I believe most of the commissioned officer impressionists for this event each have a NY jacket that they won't be wearing at this event) so that we can help individuals who need a loaner. Fact is, while they are nice-looking jackets, they are somewhat specific in impression.

Perhaps the comment above about dress hats was a jumbling of event requirements for W64 and the upcoming Outpost 3 event; Outpost has dress hats as the preferred headwear for Yanks. :)

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: W64 Registration is Open

Kevin-

I'd like to let you know now that I'd like to borrow an extra NY State jacket, if I can reserve my place in-line for this somehow. If I happen to obtain one in the meantime, I'll let you know so someone else can use that loaner.

"Why suh... those uniform regulations comin' at me so fast must have hit me with a horrid case of the vapors and confused me somehow... where's my smellin' salts?" :p

Not too hard to confuse me anyway, at least.

I normally get a "case of the vapors" when I eat at Taco Bell...
Too much info-

Good times! :D

Cheers, sir- Johnny

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: W64 Registration is Open

We’ve been receiving several requests by e-mail and other means asking a version of, “Did my registration arrive? Am I ‘in’?”

I’d like request a few days’ grace period before the Registrar has to reply to these requests. I’m sure that Tuesday through Thursday of this week will see quite a number of registrations arriving in the Registrar’s mailbox and then they have to be arranged into “who’s arrived on what day” and then we have to start listing who goes where.

The intent of the committee is to let all those who sent in a registration know the results as soon as possible, but please keep in mind, the Registar (and me—I have to help transcribe some of this stuff into the event registration listing) holds a full time job with a wife and kids, and further the Registrar, in addition to his day job, has a 40-acre farm complete with both crops and livestock here at harvest time.

It’s our intent to let those who submitted registrations know “the results” within the coming week. We’ll do our best. If, for some reason, it takes us a few days longer than that (frankly, I’m also spending some of my evenings this week watching the new Ken Burns documentary mini-series on PBS), please be patient. :)

[Charles Heath]

Re: W64 Registration is Open

...and with that, the 2008 season has begun!

Heck, the 2007 season still has one event left. Good gosh, such a hobby!

I'm still wondering how the recently slaughtered porcine offering works into this cult of winter camp. Makes you go "hmmmm."

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: W64 Registration is Open

Charles,

I can state unequivocably that the Event Coordinator's recent trucking of a full-grown swine from the pen behind the Event Coordinator's barn to the kills-and-dresses-your-livestock guy in the nearby town has nothing whatsoever to do with W64. :)

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: W64 Registration is Open

Today I received a forum PM from someone who wrote that they are not a member of Yahoo Groups and therefore were not able to access the event's registration form.

To state what I hope is obvious, the W64 2008 registration form was posted only on the event's Yahoo Group for one reason: to register you need to be a member of the event's Yahoo Group, so that you are "connected" with pre-event communication.

Expectations for this event--both those of prospective participants as well as the event committee--are quite high. We can all achieve those expectations, or at least come close to them, through a lot of pre-event communication of things like:

* Gear participants will need for their safety.
* Gear and items that participants will probably want to obtain the best experience possible from the event--remember, this isn't your typical "campaigner" event where everyone packs light; rather, this is winter quarters, and that means a whole set of "stuff" that most reenactors don't bring to a campaign-impression event.
* Setting pre-event expectations properly.
* Sharing historical documentation and research applicable to the event and unit bring portrayed. It's important to know the history to portray the men and situation even partly properly.
* Clarifications to the event's standards, rules, and regulations, when such clarifications are necessary.
* And other stuff!

Want to register? Sign up for the Yahoo Group by dropping an e-mail to event coordinator Scott Schotz at hurrah_without_the_H@yahoo.com (frankly, I think this is one of the best reenactor e-mail addresses I've ever seen, taken from Billings's hilarious account in "Hardtack and Coffee").

[Charles Heath]

Re: W64 Registration is Open

Kevin,

Somewhere there is a joke that begins, "a German, an Irishman, and a hog all walked into a bar....."

Anyway, I think it was pretty darn nifty to mail a registration for the first EBUFU event of 2008 at the same time as the registration for the last event of 2007. Back to the pig...knowing some of the alleged diabolical activities that sometimes occur with event rations (not that I've actually witnessed any of this firsthand, of course), I'm tempted to be in a state of suspicion bordering on paranoia when it comes to any critter being slaughtered in WNY between now and W64. Don't you dare contact Mark "Piney Flats" Campbell for any baled skunks, either.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: W64 Registration is Open

I'm pretty sure Schotz's porker is destined for his own chest-freezer in his basement, and maybe parts to the freezers of some of his pards.

[GrumpyDave]

Anyone Remember this or something very like it?

“The Winter of 1864-Looking Through a Frost Covered Window”
Dave Towsen


I've had a very difficult time writing about the Winter of 1864 event. This sort of mental, writers block problem, has never happened to me before; describing events I've attended as always seemed to come easily but for some reason this was a huge exception. I was for some time unable to get my thoughts into words and my words into a form that gave the event the credit it was due. My good friend, Rob Willis, didn't know I called him the other day to help remove my writer’s block. And, with his words, "Even though some who read what you write may not fully understand what you experienced, you need to put into words what you saw and felt. Not everyone knows the time period we know so well, not everyone can or will understand the experiences the men of the American Civil War had but, because of what we know, our hearts and minds can parallel our experiences to theirs. Even, sometimes to the point where the present time becomes a moment in a time past." Thank you my good friend for those words of inspiration. Who could have said it better? This won’t be the first time I will thank all of the event organizers, the members of the 151st New York, Kevin "Old Zeke" O'Beirne, Charles Heath our Sutler and especially Renee Roth, who portrayed the distraught Mrs. Silk. You shall never know how much your acting contributed to my weekend's experience or, everything I‘ve ever done at a Civil War event. Your portrayal haunts me still. I don’t know any other way to put what I experienced walking you from the guard post to the Officers Quarters. I hope you, the reader, will endeavor to understand the paragraphs to follow.

February 12th 1863

Dearest Mother,

I have just received you letter of January 19th. It often makes me wonder why the mail is so awfully slow while we are in winter camp. While we are on the march, I can understand the slowness of the mail. Still each letter is cherished and read over countless times.
I am assigned this day as Sergeant of the Guard so, I may have to put down my pen and paper as duty calls. It is very late though, after midnight, and biter cold. The wind howls like the winter wind in our home in Buffalo. Nary a soul is out and about, except for those of us given the duty of guarding our camp.
Please, don't feel the requests you send for me to send money home go unheeded. I know how our family needs the money I send and, will not forget to do so when we are paid at the end of this month. Don’t forget, our pay is only issued every other month and I will send every cent I can.
I must tell you of an incident that occurred on our camp. A sad story, which bore out over the last two days. Very late, evening last, there was a knock at our little cabin door. Someone poked their head in and announced, “The Surgeon says Private Silk is dying. If any of you wish to see him once more in this world, you had better go to the hospital.” Not feeling wholly myself and not knowing Mr. Silk all that well, I rolled back in my blankets and went to sleep. When I awoke this morning, there was a fresh grave in the small plot next to the hospital. Private Silk had succumbed to the lung wound he received at Mine Run. I was saddened once more by the flooding back of the memories of our fight there and those friends lost there, who I will see in this world no more. The morning bugle sounded and I packed my things for the duty I am now performing as Sergeant of the Guard. Our Officer for today is a fair man and has done his best, within army rules, to make the men comfortable in their duties on this frigid windy day. I had posted my first groups of men and had just settled down to the paperwork which is required of this duty when I was called by one of the Corporals to the furthers post. Imagine my shock and surprise when I found Mrs. Silk, trying to come into camp to see her husband. She was crying quite fitfully when I came upon her. I was a stone as to what to say to the poor woman as I escorted her to the officer’s quarters. I had no words to sooth this stranger’s grief. I could not open my mouth to tell he her husband had passed. I was glad my journey with her was short and my duty to her was soon over. During a patrol later in the day through the camp, I witnessed the coffin containing Private Silk’s remains and his wife being loaded onto a teamster’s wagon. I understand the teamster delivered them to the train depot at Brandy Station. I think you will see them before this letter. I believe I was more profoundly affected by this incident than I was when the mini balls were a flying at Mine Run. There was something very personal about this incident that I cannot understand, or explain.

I had almost forgotten, I will enclose my commission papers with this letter. I am very proud to have finally received them.

Tell everyone I am well and will write again soon. Kiss the little ones for me.

Your Son,

Nathaniel


I penned that letter on Saturday night in the guardhouse as I did my duty as Sergeant of the Guard. I was to portray Sergeant Nathaniel Peck for the weekend, which was made very easy by the event organizers. You see, each of the attendee’s was given the role of an actual soldier from the 151st NY and provided information about that soldier several weeks before the event. It’s not often any of us have the opportunity to attend a winter camp event, an event that was, to me, more of an experience then the typical event. And, this event for me started in October at Payne’s farm and ended in Newfane, New York at a little place called the Newfane Historical Society.

The Winter of 64’ event is in it’s third “go round” being held every other year in Newfane New York. The nine small winter huts and other buildings, include a cookhouse with brick bread oven, officer’s quarters, hospital tent, a guardhouse and a lawyer’s office. The well-constructed huts are reproductions of shelters found in the winter camps in and around Brandy Station Virginia during the actual winter of 1864. Using only donations, and their own labor, Dennis Shank, Scott Shotz, Jim Sauder and others of the 151st New York, have put together what has to be the best reproduction of a Civil War army’s winter camp in existence. The site is nestled on a hillside behind the Historical Society and, there were no modern intrusions that I noticed during the weekend.

The event continued the 151st NY’s journey from Mine Run and into winter camp at Brandy Station. During our weekend stay, we experienced first hand how the men of the winter camps dealt with the day-to-day issues of survival. And, I say survival because the high temperatures only reached the low teens and there was a brisk wind for the entire weekend.
Cutting and splitting wood, keeping our huts clean, and our stoves lit took on an increased importance. “Old Zeke,” as the men fondly called, Col. Ezekiel Bowen, who was portrayed by Kevin O’Bierne, kept us busy all weekend.

There was a company talent show on Friday evening songs, poems and a skit or two held our attention for the night. Lights out was followed by trying to keep warm. Saturday, Erasmus Hopkins, portrayed by Charles Heath, our battalion Sutler was open for business and happy to take anyone’s money who had money to offer. I must admit, this was the best Sutler impression I have ever seen. Erasmus had all kinds of wares and food to fulfill your every desire. A cranky man that Sutler. Maybe it was because his liquid goods kept freezing making them harder to sell or, maybe it was because of his meager heating and lighting arrangements. Well thought out by the event organizers, each of us received replica sutler tokens at check in as part of our event fee. Erasmus was all too happy to relieve us of them at every opportunity he had. The list of food an items available for purchase if listed here would be as long as an edition of the "Columbia Examiner."

Saturday morning I was detailed to be Sergeant of the Guard for the next 24 frigid hours. I am still amazed that someone would think enough of me to place me in that very important position. At this event, I actually was responsible for the lives of my friends. And, those duties were to provide me with an event experience I shall never forget. Guard duty, “the most honorable in the Army“, allowed me to, several times, look back into 1864 through a small frost covered window. A window that allowed me to experience the things I wrote of in my opening letter. I hope the next few lines will allow you the reader to look through that window with me. I'll try to pick up just after I dropped Mrs. Silk off at the Officers headquarters.

Back inside the Guardhouse, our officer (Garr Gast) was finishing up some of his required paperwork, sitting at a small desk off to one side of the room. A couple of the men were warming themselves by the stove in the corner of the room while others napped on the bunks. the Lieutenant had organized the guard into fifteen minute shifts and moved the posts out of the wind and into the sun so the men would suffer as little as possible.

The Corporals of the guard needed little direction. These men had earned their ranks through their drive and knowledge. They performed their duties as one would expect from seasoned men. After all, the Guard is run by Corporals. Despite the horrid weather, the men in their charge were well cared for.

As I made my occasional rounds by our posts and through the camp during the day men were busy in every direction I looked. A wood cutting fatigue worked all day. Another fatigue removed the coffin which contained Private Silk’s remains from it’s frozen grave and took it to the hospital tent. One of the men tried to earn extra money by exchanging shaves for Sutler tokens. The cooks scurried back and forth from their cookhouse to the brick oven, exchanging their armfuls of baked for unbaked bread. Men cleaned their quarters, aired their blankets, and complained about the cold, a stove that wouldn’t draft properly because of the wind and the walk down the slippery hill to the ice covered sinks. Everywhere there was warmth, men stood to soak it up.

Evening began to fall. A wagonload of supplies cam from Brandy Station to our Sutler. Private Silk and his Wife made the return trip with him to the station. Hot supper with soft bread made all happy. Soon darkness fell. Music and laughter rose and fell from the mistral show being held in the officer’s quarters. The company street became empty. Candlelight began to flicker from small windows, tent rooftops took on a soft glow from the light inside. Inside this cabin or that, the pre-sleep activities had begun. Men played cards around a cracker box table. A pipe was smoked. Letters from the days mail were read in silence or exchanged by friends. The guard checked to be sure the stoves and cabin’s are safe. Constant check are made to be sure sparks aren’t blowing onto the Sibley tent or the canvas roofed huts. Two men discussed this or that. Sleep overtook the men one by one. Inside the Sibley tent the men are huddled into a small “lump” with every article they own that might provide warmth tossed on top of themselves, next to a pile of wood and a small stove. Midnight approached, the wind howled it‘s sad tune.

Forgetting the cold I stepped outside the guardhouse without my scarf, mittens and greatcoat. The icy cold sent me immediately back inside for them. I remembered how one of the men had remarked earlier in the day how, "this must have been how Washington and his men had it at Valley Forge." As I started down the company street I realized there was no one out, or awake but me and the steady wind. Peering into the windows of the little cabins all of the boys could be seen by the flickering light of a candle or the red glow of a stove, sleeping wrapped tight in their blankets. As I lifted the little flap on the Sibley tent and gazed inside a warm rush of air hit my face. Their stove and pipe were glowing red and the mass of huddled men had become a head to toe circle around the stove. I chuckled to my self and thought, "They finally figured out how that stove works." Returning to the guardhouse I found the Lieutenant awake and looking over the guard book. "Get some sleep." were welcome words. The duties of the day and the cold had taken a toll on my energy.

I was awakened in what seemed like a short time by the sun coming through the Guardhouse window and a blast of cold air from an opened door at what felt like the same time. I addressed the condition of my uniform, placing it in a more suitable state then, discussed with the Lieutenant what I had missed during my sleep. Breakfast soon and soon after that we would be relieved. I immediately began filling out my guard report and had it signed.

I was glad we had first-rate cooks, I remarked to a private standing near me. We were both standing in the warm sun taking our morning meal. The wind was gone. Suddenly there were shouts and confusion all along the company street men ran this way and that Screaming, “FIRE! FIRE!” Sure enough, flames were beginning to engulf the canvas roof of one of the huts. In this whirlwind of danger and horror, I witnessed on of the funniest things I had ever seen in a camp. On of the boys, in his haste to quell the flames, had grabbed one of the “slop” buckets from beside one of the cabins and tried in vain to throw a stuck in the bucket chunk of frozen excrement on the flames. The men soon prevailed over the flames and only the canvas roof, and a pair of trousers were lost.

No sooner had our Guard been relieved when, I was reminded how much I hate rumors. Rumors that aren‘t rumors any longer, but, have turned to fact. Sitting down in our little hut and beginning to organize my things that I had to move because of my duties to the Guard, “The General sounded through the camp. Groans went up everywhere in camp. Everyone knew the moment we left, someone would take over our comfortable living spaces. “First Call“, “Assembly“ sounded and the battalion was formed. “Zeke“ announced we had been given Grand Guard duty and would be moving several miles from the camp for three or more days. Mummers went up and down the lines as men wondered out loud how we could survive in the openness of the picket line in this weather. It was no rumor that men died on a regular basis by freezing on the picket line. Many would not complain about the weight of their extra blankets on this march. “Right face,” and off we stepped. “At least the sun‘s out and the wind‘s stopped,” I thought to myself.*

So, now the frost covered window is closed. The short march ended at our cars. Kevin, Scott and Dennis thanked us for coming, thanked us for enduring the cold and putting up with them as officers for the weekend. They THANKED US! No, thank you, all of you who made The Winter of 1864 event happen. I can’t think of a man in the ranks who wouldn’t have turned around and stayed longer if he could have. Including me.



*Reader should understand this hut was constructed by the event organizers for the expressed purpose of burning it down. No one at any time was actually staying in the hut. Just as “Private Silk,” a hundred pounds of something wrapped in blankets and placed into a pine coffin were buried on the event site before the ground became frozen. The original Private Silk, however, actually did die at the 151st NY’s winter camp of wounds received at Mine Run, February 5, 1864.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: W64 Registration is Open

On 10/04 a list of registrants so far was posted to the W64 listserver.

About 20 spaces remain out of a max of about 75 available.