AAR Bummers

[Mike Nickerson]

Re: AAR Bummers

.... Also, can Cav guys die or, at least, back-off when the know they have been bested by infantry with repeating rifles spitting rounds at them like no tomorrow? Pretty Please? I know it is way-easier for infantry to toss themselves on the ground in Oscar-winning fashion and die and one can't readily do that on a horse, but there needs to be some sort of 'ride-off and pester the infantry guy no more once he has blasted you about 14 times over again to your one-or-two-shots'. I can't outrun mounted soldiers no matter how hard I try... lesson learned....All the best- Johnny Lloyd:wink_smil

You have a point, there was two Critters that later excused themselfs as dead following the first "Cabins on the hill" fight. I do have a question in return: Did y'all read the ROE page?

[QUOTE] - "FORAGERS/CAVALRY INTERACTION:

If you are in a small group and happen to get cut off by cavalry, lay down your arms and listen to what the commander of the horsemen tells you to do."]

Did not the mounted, dismounted and GA Militia not outnumber the 97th and were we not mostly shooting captured repeating rifles 'like no tommow'?"

Mike Nickerson

[6Pdr]

Re: AAR Bummers

Come on gimme a break......... We were just going to ignore the cav if they showed up.

[Jim of The SRR]

Re: AAR Bummers

Carrie and I had been planning this scenario for at least a year and a half and we were all very curious as to what some of the reactions would be to a woman giving birth in all the chaos. Some had backed off and had shown respect for a woman giving birth to an innocent child and others could have cared less.

This was one of the most unique and personally morally challenging encounter I have had in over 15 years of reenacting. I saw the struggle with my men as they tried to get in the cabin. I pushed them aside and quickly saw what was happening and demanded all of my men out of the cabin. As quickly as we departed another group of Yanks were pushing into the cabin. With the militia then attacking, all men were then needed to fight the militia.
The great thing was how groups of men devolved into mobs driven by hunger, frustration and anger. I can see how some men took some food and left and others went on full out rampages with no moral compass at all. Since we were not under a full military control, it was also difficult for officers to control their men and some did not care to control them. I intervened a couple of times in regards to defense of the women, but other than that I let the men forage liberally. I can truly have some small sense of what the situation may have really been like.
Thanks to the civilians for this scenario as well as all the other great first person. Hopefully, we played the part to yoru expectations as well as y'all did for us!

Jim Butler

[Outrider]

Re: AAR Bummers

I dont much like writing AARs so I wont but I just wanted a quick response to a couple of comments I have read regarding the cavalry of which I was a proud Member.

"Our bullets for some reason could not pierce the flesh of horse's or men in the Texas Rangers so we quickly found ourselves on the ground with force"

AND

"Also, can Cav guys die or, at least, back-off when the know they have been bested by infantry with repeating rifles spitting rounds at them like no tomorrow? Pretty Please? I know it is way-easier for infantry to toss themselves on the ground in Oscar-winning fashion and die and one can't readily do that on a horse, but there needs to be some sort of 'ride-off and pester the infantry guy no more once he has blasted you about 14 times over again to your one-or-two-shots'. I can't outrun mounted soldiers no matter how hard I try... lesson learned. "

Respectfully Sirs, this goes both ways and DID go both ways. There was a lack of "hits" enough all around. This doesnt bother me in particular as I believe THAT whole mess to be the silliest thing we do in reenacting but you fine fellas forget, or may not have been aware, but half our number were also armed with captured repeaters as well as multiple pistols per the ORIGINAL Shannon's Scouts which was who we were NOT militia cavalry and not Texas Rangers. Yes it is easier and less dangerous to take hits on the ground but I for one have taken hits mounted numerous times but that is not the issue here I suppose. I was there involved in the scrape you mentioned and I didnt see one of you boys go down from the fire of OUR repeating weapons or pistols while mounted. However, I couldnt help but notice at least one lad who apparently forgot he had a repeater and let some wore out cavman with a empty shotgun take him prisoner and he with several rounds in the weapon including one in the chamber. As for a man using his horse to intimidate and bully an insolent murdering thieving yankee scum around well.....wouldnt you?
thanks, I let yall have all this back now...

Patrick Paddy McAllister
Critters/ Shannon's Scouts

[MercyAngel62]

Re: AAR Bummers

This was one of the most unique and personally morally challenging encounter I have had in over 15 years of reenacting. I saw the struggle with my men as they tried to get in the cabin. I pushed them aside and quickly saw what was happening and demanded all of my men out of the cabin. As quickly as we departed another group of Yanks were pushing into the cabin. With the militia then attacking, all men were then needed to fight the militia.
The great thing was how groups of men devolved into mobs driven by hunger, frustration and anger. I can see how some men took some food and left and others went on full out rampages with no moral compass at all. Since we were not under a full military control, it was also difficult for officers to control their men and some did not care to control them. I intervened a couple of times in regards to defense of the women, but other than that I let the men forage liberally. I can truly have some small sense of what the situation may have really been like.
Thanks to the civilians for this scenario as well as all the other great first person. Hopefully, we played the part to yoru expectations as well as y'all did for us!

Jim Butler

Thank you Mr. Butler. I am thrilled that you guys enjoyed it as much as we did! It was quite an experience that I wont forget!

[Mike Ventura]

Re: AAR Bummers

Mike Nickerson--

Seems that some yankees not only don't read the ROE (Rules of Engagement) for the event, but they can't read maps either! ;-)

[thad gallagher]

Re: AAR Bummers

Wow... I thought that bread was a little sandy, Thad...

No matter, I was hungry as all hell.

:wink_smil-Johnny

Yep, gritty but delightful. But at that point, very filling and a change from peanuts.

[BrianHicks]

Re: AAR Bummers

A few quick comments.

As the Adjutant for the 11th Regt. Georgia Militia, I received the morning reports each morning. The aggregate for the 11th Ga. was 88 men on Saturday Morning, and 85 men on Sunday morning.

We had two men desert on Friday night (they are not counted amongst the 88 on Saturday morning.. their desertion was part of the event scenario).

We had one man take french leave on Saturday afternoon to stay with reletives he had found amongst the refugees on Saturday.

We had one man sick, and departed (I have no details on the type of illness of injury).

And the cause of the third man not present on Sunday morning eludes my memory.

There were 10 men with the Mtn. Howitzer, and I was told at various times, 27, 34 and 42 cavalrymen were present.

How many where registered, as compared to how many were in the ranks? I don't know.

Rations. I received about 3 ounces of dried salami, 2 ounces of smoked beef, along with about 3 ounces of bread and exactly 4 slivers of dried apple and 2 slivers of dried pear on Friday night as my issue for Officers rations. I neither drew, nor had the opportunity to avail myself to any additional food stuffs, with the exception of about 5 handfuls of peanuts on Saturday evening, a small serving of scrambled eggs with cheese from Miss Sylvana's skillet on Sunday morning and one corn on the cob, on the husk, taken form around the Federal Prisoners fire after they had been liberated, and I was then a prisoner of the Federals (I had remained behind t try and shield Miss Sylvan during the fighting around their cabin). As you can see, the foragers in blue weren't the only ones starving. Two Companies from the militia enjoyed chickens while the other three companies were on the southern end awaiting the arrival of the 3d Division. The rations that where cooked or issued to the Militia on Saturday eventing, was sparse at best, and after the men had received their meager issue there was none left for the Officers.

Those who know me, know that I spent a previous life training to be miserable and therefore always bring supplemental rations for myself. So... I did provide for the contingency of stavation as described above, but with my sharing and giving away what I had brought, it left me with one smoked sausage on Saturday morning with a handful of cheese, and one sausage which I shared with a Federal Officer who was a prisoner on Saturday night, and I gave him a second sausage which he gave to one some of his fellow prisoners which served a breakfast for a few of the on Sunday morning.

Having helped Kiev distribute some of the rations on Friday, I think we put out across the property: 17 whole country hams, 4x 50 pound bags of dried corn and 3x 50 pound bags of shelled peanuts. Hal Merrit provided what I think came to 15 live chickens, and another fellow brought in a dozen or so more, so there had to be at least 24+ live chickens out there for the plucking and eating. There was much more food distributed amongst the civilians for them to hide and share, but I wasn't involve with that endeavor, and can't tell what all was available.

I greatly enjoyed the event. Came home with a loss of my voice due to the chill of Saturday night, but I had a great time, got wore out and sick, but would gladly do it again.

The men who made this event happen did a Herculean effort, and I am greatful for their hard work. Thank you.

'Caution: If you didn't like Bummers, then you won't like this event.'

-Johnny Lloyd

[oldrebel]

Re: AAR Bummers

Hello to all and I hope everyone made it home safe. As for the Bummers event, I think it was a great event ! I have seen a lot of complaining on here about the terrain being rough and dangerous, units could not find food and water, etc. I am a trooper with the 7th Tennessee cavalry and was attached with Shannon's Scouts as the 7th Texas cavalry. Have any of you infantrymen ever tried riding a 1200 pound horse in black darkness where you can't see the man or horse in front of you ? The only way you know they are there is when you see a spark on the rocks from the horse's steel shoe ? Also have any of you ever really roughed it by really eating out of your haversack and living entirely out of your saddle for 2 days with very little to no sleep at all ? We were not fortunate enough to have water and food stashed for us so we could have a sit down social gathering meal !! We were portraying authentic cavalry, just like my great,great,great grand father and his brothers did in the Civil war. Do you people think that they had water and food stashed for them every where? I know our unit came past at least 8 or 9 water and corn and sweet potato crates. You would have had to be blind not to be able to have found any water or food. The infantry definatly should have found the stashes. We were usually passing them at a trot or a gallop and we did not stop and pick up any food for ourselves. As a matter of fact we were not given any food at all by the civilian people and were only given a ham to eat by the staff and none of us had anything to cook it in as we were told the civilian people would feed us. We cooked the ham on a stick like a weenie roast and ate out of our haversacks which consisted of dry jerky, dry fruit,peanuts , hardtack etc. Did we have a good time ? NOOO, WE HAD A DAMN GREAT TIME !!! We ran the blue belly federals hard and tried to run them in the ground every chance we got. They tried to run down steep hills because they thought that us Reb's would not follow them but they were wrong !! We ran our horses down the steep hills over the rough rocks, never knowing if our horses were going to fall and kill or mame us, but we proudly did just like our kin and hopefully we did them justice and they are proud of us. To all of you Federals that put up a fight under the rough conditions and toughed it out with little water and little food, we take our hats off to you and hope we can share the field of honor with you again in the future ! To all of you P****y's out there that are complaining about roughing it a little, stay with your farby events, sleep in your wall tents on your air mattresses, and have your wife cook you a full course supper and tuck you in! Let the real men have the authentic events ! Thank you Guy Muskgrove and all the Bummers event staff for trying to make this a great event. I am sorry that you can not forecast the future for everyone and tell them when the river will rise and give them all a personal guide to help them find their way to a steak and potato dinner with apple pie for desert , and fill their canteens for them and tuck them in at night in these kinds of events !! Enough said !!

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: AAR Bummers

[QUOTE=Mike Nickerson;163186]You have a point, there was two Critters that later excused themselfs as dead following the first "Cabins on the hill" fight. I do have a question in return: Did y'all read the ROE page?

- "FORAGERS/CAVALRY INTERACTION:

If you are in a small group and happen to get cut off by cavalry, lay down your arms and listen to what the commander of the horsemen tells you to do."]

Did not the mounted, dismounted and GA Militia not outnumber the 97th and were we not mostly shooting captured repeating rifles 'like no tommow'?"

Mike Nickerson

Yeah... understood, but that leaves absolutely no way for us infantry to fight horsemen- you will win every time unless ya'll want to run off on your own... According to the rules, you could arrest a whole reeenactor company (sometimes less than 10 to 15) if you wanted to with just one or two horsemen. Define "small group"...

How about a repeater or a whole company of repeaters... doesn't that count for anything...? Guess not.

I know what the 'rules' said there, but aw, please... something's out-of-balance here... :D

Nevertheless, I conformed to the rules above once they caught me... I was tired, without food and without anyone to find my way with. I don't have a problem with the rules even when they are kinda lopsided.

Realistically, my point is, cavalry have game rules advantage... It would be nice to see some sort of balance to the rule above, like if infantry is organized as a unit enough (shoulder-to-shoulder in cavalry defense line with x amount of people in the line, etc.), then cavalry must turn-back to simulate a breaking of the horse charge, or something to that effect. In the said case, I would have lost anyway because I was alone and my unit was scattered...

Really fun being chased, though... wow, never done that. Felt like a movie... that was a helluva period moment.

No matter... It's all about the fun anyway.

All the best- Johnny Lloyd:wink_smil

[ajroscoe]

Re: AAR Bummers

Since Mr. Lloyd has a very valid point about cav, I'd point out that the ROE were clarified vis a vis cavalry as:

This rule applies both ways, but in terms of cavalry specifically, we wanted to emphasize that if there are a couple of soldiers facing several cav, realistically, the gig was up for the infantry.

Seems to me in a fight of anywhere near equal size, the cav at the range needed to fight in heavy woods are just big targets. If a whole foraging party was alert and determinedly firing at close range at cav, according to these rules, the cav was just as liable to take hits, surrender, etc.

[Andrew German]

Re: AAR Bummers

As one of Shannon's Scouts, I'm not sure whether to post this here or on the cavalry thread. But my point is that as an Eastern theatre federal cavalry reenactor, I had a wonderful experience riding with our Southron brethren in an unaccustomed role. Three of us from the 1st Maine made the long drive to play and were not disappointed. Riding with a fine group of gentlemen under Guy Musgrove, and most specifically fighting with Ethan and Jerry's bunch, was a real treat. We rode before light and after dark over some of the roughest terrain we've experienced, scouting, holding positions in case of federal advance, charging when we located federal units, dismounting to fight on foot, and generally making ourselves seem larger than life.

At the same time, some of my most vivid memories are of the excellent civilian impressions we encountered (as well as the food they offered us), the realistic swirl of activity among civilians, militia, artillerymen, federal prisoners, and passing cavalrymen around the "store" on the heights, the friction between militia and scouts as we passed each other, and particularly of the incredibly vivid impression of a soldier's death delivered by a federal infantryman as we engaged the rear guard on Sunday morning. It was a very moving impression, for which I hope we did justice in trying to comfort the enemy in his final moments.

Not to deflate our reputation, but when we rode in to capture the foraging party at the twin cabins it was a fortune of war; we'd been scouting far to what we thought was the right and returned to find we were in the rear of the engaged feds. It may have seemed coordinated but it was luck.

And finally, we did have fine plans to flank the rear guard on the hill at the end, but we got slightly uncoordinated (and didn't hear the holding fire), so the concluding pistol charge did not happen. It may have sounded as if the whole cavalry was driving the rear guard down the hill, but there were only three of us dismounted skirmishers at first, and only six by the time we broke contact. The rest came down the hill as horse holders and mounted reserve.

To sum it all up, it was a very demanding event from our perspective, but a very satisfying unification of so many aspects of the progressive elements of our hobby. And I can't deny that we're always happy when the cavalry gets more than its due.

Thanks to all, mounted, infantry, civilians, and organizers alike.

Andrew German

[John5]

Re: AAR Bummers

My pard and I were members of the 1st MO Engineers. Being both armed with Henry rifles we were placed with another man at the rear of our column to provide security. The march was over steep, rock strewn, broken ground. No wonder them secesh was so angry all the time, the land was not fit for a billy goat! We found two caches of food straight away and were in good spirits. We were also low on water, but having experienced this a time or two on the march we conserved what we had and made the best of it. We found the village Saturday afternoon and set in. After a brief skirmish with what I can only describe as the most ragged assed rebs I ever saw, we camped for the night, (I later found out from my Sgt. them rebs was militia) Sunday we left straight away and secured some high ground and a road junction to cover the rest of the Divisions. After the boys passed through some reb cav tried us. Our Henrys saw em off quick. I think I knocked three or four out of their saddles. Can't be sure as we were firing as fast as we could. I did not expect to see them again as I mistook them for mounted militia. I will tell you them rebs were persistent. They swarmed us like a pack of dogs nippin at our heels all the way down the damned mountain! Only when we reached the safety of our lines did they fall back in good order. They were brave fellows and I later found they were some of Wheeler's Cavalry! Glory to the 1st!

[Chip]

Re: AAR Bummers

Being a descendent of a soldier who marched in a regiment with the 3rd Division of the 15th Corps, (4th Minnesota), I was first and foremost looking for historical accuracy in terms of what they actually did during the time period between November 17th and 19th, 1864. I refer to this time window simply because they primarily ran across somewhat similar terrain near where they pontooned across the Ocmulgee River. (Planter’s Ferry & Seven Islands)

Historically, the forage parties during this part of the march were relatively small parties and methodically set out very early in the morning to try to easily make it back to their respective regiments by sundown. The overwhelming documentation during this part of the march indicated that they stuck to good roads and retreated at the very hint of even a small assembly of enemy forces, be it militia or regular cavalry. The regiments/brigades put up markers as they went and notched out their brigade designated symbols to let their forage parties know if they had passed that location or not. (Sanborn – History of the 4th Minnesota)

The documentation available of that time frame also showed that they were able to forage much more food than they actually needed and that the livestock they had herded along were not being used up at the projected rate. (Burke Davis – Sherman’s March p. 43)

Additionally, Sherman’s, “cease harassing the civilians,” order was not read to this division until November 24th, which meant that there were very few restraints placed on the behavior of the men while on foraging duty during that time frame. (Sanborn p. 342)

Seeing pictures of the terrain convinced me to throw my hat in.
OK, so there I was with my pards, anticipating a very carefully put together and thoroughly thought through event...

Friday night was a typical encampment… typical picket duty of 1 ½ hours, enough firewood, had to give back half of our fatback rations, but no big deal.

Saturday morning started with enough time to adequately get the gear packed with ease.
Then we began our march along the river road. Less than half an hour on the march, we ran out of road and blindly, "stepped into," what has now been proclaimed as Uncle Billy’s Goat march… Since my section was honored to be on the flank/end, we were the last to pass over the, now sloppy and slick, mountain trail.

At this point, a domino effect was set in motion which diminished the historical accuracy of the rest of the event down to the mainstream level, and I won’t bother to rehash the safety issues that have already been discussed at length.

I do believe that the event coordinators set up the event correctly, but there was nobody in a leadership role on the Federal side savvy enough to save us from the end result, being a logistical debacle.

I don't think that any of us will forget this event any time soon, but being a physically challenging event does not necessarily make it a good event by default. HISTORICAL ACCURACY separates the average events from the GREAT events.

Chip 59th Indiana

[New Jerseyman]

Re: AAR Bummers

I'll try not to repeat stuff others have said. Our mess was part of the 15th Michigan, 2nd Div. We had a medical situation with one of our number as a result of the hike/climb and the lack of food Saturday morning. Finding no water or food at the end of the hike/rock climb, we determined to walk off with our man. We bivouacked at the registration area and decided to head out early Sunday for Andersonville, to view the site and lay a wreath in the cemetery. Two points:

1) We were plenty game for authenticity and strenuous activity, but there was an unfortunate breakdown in the planning that left us and much of our division without water and the opportunity to find food well into the afternoon Saturday. We heard other units engaging elsewhere on the field but we went the whole day without seeing a single Confederate or civilian.

2) The river walk was hazardous, one false step or slide from a real disaster. Seems like it would've been a better plan to hike the Federals from the Friday night campsite directly up the ridge into the scenario areas instead of circling around the ridge along the Flint River.

I'm glad others had a good time. Our men enjoyed each others' company -- especially the opportunity to spend some quiet moments at Camp Sumter. I just wish things had broken differently for us on Saturday, so that we could have experienced what some others did. I'd like to hear more from others in the 2nd Division.

Mark Green