Struggles of Secession--Westville GA 1863--Oct 20-24, 2010

[toptimlrd]

Re: Struggles of Secession--Westville GA 1863--Oct 20-24, 2010

Looking forward to it Jim, I think I may have gotten the bride to agree to come as well. I may shoot you a line soon to discuss our impression.

[majdoc]

Re: Struggles of Secession--Westville GA 1863--Oct 20-24, 2010

Jim
You know I'll be there.
Am working on Doc's good ole impression, with a few surprises as well.
Should be a lot of fun any way you look at it.

[btfire]

Re: Struggles of Secession--Westville GA 1863--Oct 20-24, 2010

There is a new event website at www.strugglesofsecession.com

[Creel]

Re: Struggles of Secession--Westville GA 1863--Oct 20-24, 2010

What are "trade goods" descibed in registration form and what are they for?

[Matthew Young]

Re: Struggles of Secession--Westville GA 1863--Oct 20-24, 2010

I think I will reprise my role as the unsuccessful defense attorney. I still have the sign that Chris Henderson made for the law firm.

The question now is, what side of the fence do my loyalties lie? With the conscription agent or with the local populace?

- Matt Young (aka Mr. Evans)

[Jim of The SRR]

Re: Struggles of Secession--Westville GA 1863--Oct 20-24, 2010

“Notes”:

Part of your registration money will be issued out at check-in in the form of repro “Notes”. Think of these like real money for the weekend. These will be specially marked. You may purchase additional “Notes” at check-in in $5 increments. Unused “Notes” and half the funds used towards purchasing additional food or blockaded goods will be donated to Historic Westville. . These “Notes” will be used to as “currency” throughout the weekend. There are no refunds for unused “Notes” (except for pre-approved, sutlers/suppliers). “Notes” can be used to purchase various items. Here are some examples:

- Food items at the General Store, Butcher, tavern, etc (but are double the price).

- Personal items from the General Store.

- “Tavern” drinks.

- Blackmarket food and goods (prices may be double).

- Items from any other tradesman/shopkeep.

- Clothier, blacksmith, leatherworker, seamstress, laundress, cook, etc.

- Tickets for period entertainment.

- Purchase items from others.

Let me know if you have any further questions,
Jim Butler

[Lance Stifle]

Re: Westville, GA - Oct. 2010

Hello Bushrod
I'm in the process of "shopping around" all the events Sept-Oct next year for my visit over there.

I'd be prepared to shift my window to later in October if the Struggle for Succession event is something really worth experiencing.

Realising my lack of experience with your "doings" over there, I rely on others recommendations.
It would be a good opportunity to meet up with you and others.
Let me know what you think.

Thanks mate
"Lance Stifle"
(Kim Stewart)

I am there! Sign me up!

I agree with what the others have said...

PLEASE try and make this a full 4 day event!

Think of the possibilities.

And, the longer event would work well for another preservation aspect to the event. I'm sure we could talk others with craft skills into attending and ACTUALLY working on some small preservation/refurbishment project. Mending siding, fences, or just simply cleaning the area where you are "working" or living! I'm sure the folks at Westville would love to have several hundred volunteer man hours sprucing the place up! I'd be glad to do that in return for a four day event on site in 2010.

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Westville, GA - Oct. 2010

I can recommend the event... the folks who attended the first go-round at Westville had a tremendous time, and have been researching ever since. It's a pretty fantastic spot for citizen history, and the organizers did a great job.

[Lance Stifle]

Re: Westville, GA - Oct. 2010

Thank you Elisabeth,
while I'm over there I won't have a varied wardrobe of period clothes and gear, my plan is to limit myself to a basic mid-war confederate soldiers uniform/clothing.

I have read up on the new site for the event, but can't see where I would fit in (a convalescing soldier will be too inactive for me) with that in mind would it be possible to portray an ordinary soldier on furlough ?
If that's acceptable then please consider me committed to attend.

Thank you for your consideration.
"Lance Stifle"
(Ken Stewart)

I can recommend the event... the folks who attended the first go-round at Westville had a tremendous time, and have been researching ever since. It's a pretty fantastic spot for citizen history, and the organizers did a great job.

[Jim of The SRR]

Re: Struggles of Secession--Westville GA 1863--Oct 20-24, 2010

Although men in uniform would be limited, there are some opportunities for roles in uniform. We will have a handful on convalescing soldiers and also some deserters. My research shows that many soldiers were purposefully in uniform, under false pretenses, to avoid being conscripted.

"Deserters who fill our hotels and lines of travel are to immediately return to their commands. Local officers, sheriffs and constables should begin arresting deserters and they will be reimbursed by the Confederate government for your costs. Idle and unproductive conscription officers are to return to their commands immediately." Governor Joe Brown of GA

We will have special rules for Deserters and the Home Guard/Sheriffs who seek them.

Also, all but one of the companies from Stewart County were in the ANV, so uniforms must be ANV and NOT AOT. But my recommendation is that for this event, you will need to start building a basic civilian impression. The 'Men's Dress Guidelines' on the webpage is very informative.

Thanks,
Jim Butler

[DBAR1918]

Re: Struggles of Secession--Westville GA 1863--Oct 20-24, 2010

Somebody witness my mark! I'm in again. Last year, I had a great time as the town gunsmith. Here are some recommendations for a town event after 37 years of reenacting and running Rippavilla Plantation for a couple of years. One of the problems we should consider are roles for the large percentage of vigorous, young males in the hobby that would need a valid scenario to justify participation.

Conscript Camp. In Fall 1863, a few of these were still in operation across the Confederacy until the dwindling pool of non-exempts dried up. Disabled and overage officers and NCOs ran these as camps of instruction.

Parole Camp. These still operated on both sides until Grant almost choked the exchange cartel to death in 1864. These men had to be fed, clothed, and paid until "duly exchanged". While they could not take up arms, they could WORK. Have you ever wondered where Parole, Maryland, got its name?

Convelescent Facility. While numerous larger cities had hospitals for the wounded and sick, those able to get out of bed were either farmed out to accepting families or dispersed to smaller towns and villages to recruit their health before returning to front line units.

Government Works. Beginning in early 1863, the Confederate government nationalized almost all military contractors since private production had nearly ground to a halt. Exploding inflation prevented any profit on state and Confederate contracts. Army and Navy agents competed with each other bidding on raw materials at prices the contractors couldn't afford- or simply pressed what they needed. The Army refused for almost two years to exempt or return to mills and factories skilled laborers from the ranks required to produce needed goods. The Constript Act of Spring 1862 exempted few trades and expanded the target age groups several times before the "Cradle to Grave" acts of 1864 and 1865. By 1863, exemptions for military-age workmen nearly ceased. Rather, volunteers or conscripts were kept on the rolls of their units and then detailed work in arsenals, ordnance works, mining, etc. If they proved lazy or late- they were shipped back to their units at the front. There were no strikes. Those military men were paid their military wages, wore uniforms, and had rudimentary weapons and accouterments available to allow them to serve in an Arsenal battalion or other local defense unit. The secondary duty of post commanders and the commanders and foremen of works was to maintain a roll, drill the men, and lead them out to defend the works in the case of a raid. There would be men of all ages (and disabled men) assigned to ordnance, quartermaster, and commissary activities.

Slave patrol ("patterolers"). The slave patrols continued in each Beat of each slave-holding county until complete emancipation in 1865. Some would argue that they continued as a "night-rider" habit through Reconstruction. Since the 1700s, local free men of militia-age were required to ride or walk as pass-checkers on odd nights to intimidate slaves from running away and to return suspected runaways. These patrollers got younger and older as the war continued and began to keep their eyes open for deserters, bushwackers, and escaped POWs. The book and film "Cold Mountain" describes men performing similar duties as thugs and exempts, but they were the only form of law enforcement in the Confederacy when the military age men disappeared.

Women and children. There were no child-labor laws in the Confederacy. Almost all of the cartridge rollers and bundlers, mill workers, piece-work sewers, dyers, and many other tough jobs across the South were performed by "non-traditional" laborers. With husbands not able to send their nearly-worthless $11.00 per month private's pay home to support families- or killed in battle or died of disease- many women and orphans desparately needed employment. Hard war was invented long before poison gas and the atomic bomb.

Since I live less than 50 miles from Westville and work at Fort Benning, I look forward to work days and an extended event.

Dave

[Outrider]

Re: Struggles of Secession--Westville GA 1863--Oct 20-24, 2010

"These patrollers got younger and older as the war continued and began to keep their eyes open for deserters, bushwackers, and escaped POWs. The book and film "Cold Mountain" describes men performing similar duties as thugs and exempts, but they were the only form of law enforcement in the Confederacy when the military age men disappeared.'

I respectfully disagree.
Period Law enforcement is an interest of mine and having looked into law enforcement in Georgia during the antebellum and war years I can tell you that NO county was without a duly elected/appointed Sheriff's department. Not only were Sheriff's charged with keeping the peace, capturing fugitives, maintaining county jails etc ( their normal functions) but during the war were given by the State , additional powers to hunt down and capture runaways and deserters. Often times they WERE THE ONES who recruited and kept "homeguard patrols" in the field. Cold Mountain is inaccurate in many ways but one that has always stuck in my craw is the idea that homeguardsmen were a bunch of cold blooded murdering thugs. Actually, those "patrols "were made up of mostly older farmers , shop keepers and other regular joes with valid exemptions either age /health related or job related and they were (as near as I can tell) often not exactly enthusiastic about doing their "duty".

I will post some sources when I have more time but In Georgia during the CW something like a little over half of all County sheriffs resigned to join the confederate army, with all evidently either naming a replacement, having one appointed, or special elections were held to fill the position. There was at least one case of a temporary Sheriff's position being held until the elected Sheriff returned from the war to resume his duties!

My point to all this is there was never a time in Georgia during the war that there was not legal and properly organized , functional, law enforcement. According to the Georgia Sheriffs Assoc. there were as many Co. sheriffs in Georgia in 1861 as in 1863 as in 1866 .I can find no accounts of Homeguard ever acting in that capacity alone. Thats not even to mention all the TOWN and CITY sheriff's, marshalls, constables etc.

[Mark Choate]

Re: Struggles of Secession--Westville GA 1863--Oct 20-24, 2010

I agree with what Paddy is saying. Cold Mountain, just as with other modern Hollywood projects, want to portray the essence of the southern man, whether it be the soldiers or those who could not or did not go off to war, as being of a "base and deplorable" nature. Also, I agree that there was a formal representation of law enforcement throughout the south. Here in Tennessee, with the early fall of Nashville it was present, but also in the deeper south (ie. Ga. Ala. etc.). While I don't offer it as historic proof, the novel, "Gone with the Wind" mentions remnants of law enforcement after Atlanta fell.

Were they often corrupt? Yes. Were they few in number? Always. Did they exist? Absolutely.

Mark Choate

[DBAR1918]

Re: Struggles of Secession--Westville GA 1863--Oct 20-24, 2010

Patrick and Mark:

As a professional military historian and former plantation director, I couldn't agree with you more regarding the dubious "entertainment value" of the film version of "Cold Mountain" and its portrayal of the homeguard in that one small valley in North Carolina. That's what I said. That's why I've tried to keep my film portrayals and consulting as accurate as possible for the past twenty-nine years.

I'm not certain where we disagree in our posts. The slave patrols were not designed to replace the country sheriff, or any other rural Georgia law enforcementagencies. Rather, they supplanted that gent and his subordinates. One wartime COUNTY sheriff covering a very large geographical area 24/7 with few vigorous males present to protect families and the community cannot do his job by walking the streets in one small village in a corner of his vast responsibility. You are right, most folks think of the postwar Trans-Mississippi West when they hear of sheriffs, sheriff's deputies, and marshalls. Most do not realize the details of the original functions of county administration- beats, beat captains, warrant issuing, tax collection, the overseers and "hands" assigned by the courts for required neighborhood road maintainance, required slave patrol duty, and a miriad of other non-military aspects of mid-century rural Southern life.

If we see one suspected deserter passing through, or witnessed one captured and held for escort back to the front, the whole week we set up Westville it might be about right. In small rural communities in the 1860s, everyone knew each other and any stranger stood out. If a stranger showed up in town, especially in a tavern, he would stick out like a sore thumb. I would gladly collect the bounty in Westville scrip offered for delivering up a deserter! Every male, in or out of uniform, would have a widely-known exemption or would have someone military to report to each day.

I look forward to seeing both of you at what promises to be another premier living history event for spectators and participants, alike. With fleet deserters passing through, we could use a well-mounted saddlebum.

Dave
aka, Captain Dave
Descendant of a Texas Cavalry Sergeant and a Deputy Sheriff

[Jim of The SRR]

Re: Struggles of Secession--Westville GA 1863--Oct 20-24, 2010

Well here is a January 10th, 2010 update on the Struggles of Secession - Westville, GA 1863 event.

- My research continues as I have been to the State Archives in Morrow four times in the past 3 months and plan 3 more visits.
- We have 26 paid registrations already. Pretty good when we are 10 months out from the event. Our goal is 180 particpanst (we will take in up to 200 registrations).
- We have Bank, Military Dept (Provost Office), Court, Broker, Black Market, Postal, Ladies Aid, Tavern, Boarding House, Cooking, Deserter, Cotton Gin, Teamster, Livery and Sheriff Coordinators for the event.
- We need a Butcher (acts as the Quartermaster for all the food issuances), 1863 Election, Docent, Refuge and Parking Coordinators for the event.
- We can always use volunteers for sign-in, parking/traffic, Refuge, Teamster, gopher volunenteers during set-up and sign in from late Wed til fri (just 1 or 2 three hour shifts).
- Beth Crabb has stated thats he and her daughter and son-in-law will be there to run the Ezra Barnhouse General Store. I am so happy she will be there in spite of John's passing. She stated that John and she had already talked about ideas for the 2010 event and she would like to follow-thru with she and John had planned.
- We have period, professional entertainment with 'The Caudells'. Tickets will be sold at the event for $5 each. The show also includes and amateur hour prior to the event. If you have a period tableux, music, recital, etc to do, let us know. I hear Miss Bodaciousnessness may make an appearance with Massa Nathan. We are also trying to get the Allendale Melodians to make an appearance as well. I just can not seem to get ahold of them.
- Guidelines for Deserters, blockade goods, Vendors, "Notes", Bank, Sheriff/HomeGuard have all been written and only issued to those roles.
- I have reviewed all of the military rosters from Henderson's book on the 5 companies from Stewart County. I have documented the status for each soldier during Oct 1863. I even know which men will be dying in our hospital and which disabled men will still be injured about town. We can't really portray amputees well, but we can at least imagine it (I even thought of tying a white piece of yarn around a limb to indicate such).
- Documented exemption letters, surgeons, sick leave documents, Relief agency logs, Impressment Documents, period newspaper articles and more.
- The website is the main source of info. A new research article on "Exemptions and Confederate Service" has been added.

https://www.strugglesofsecession.com

MOST importantly, all roles are limited in number and are approved by Vickie Rumble (Women) and myself (men). We want to keep the classes lined up 4 to 1 (Yeoman to Wealthy class). We also must spread the roles around in proportion to the number of reenactors we have and also be able to cover all the planned vignettes and scenarios for the event. So if you have a specific role you wish to play, please don't delay in contacting us to get invited and registered.

Regards,
Jim Butler unionguy1@comcast.net

Vickie Rumble thistledewbooks@comcast.net