How do you motivate others or improve the hobby?

[Hank Trent]

Re: What is your attitude towards first person?

Howdy folks,
I am new to this forum, however, I have been reenacting for over 20 years. As for 'first person" it is easy for me as I have taken the personna of my great great grandfather, so the stories are second nature for me. I feel for all y'all that have to brew it from scratch, I salute you.

Mike Rodriguez

Before you feel too sorry for us poor people, you might consider some things, and see if it's really as easy as you think. :)

Some difficulties that would occur to me, if I limited myself only to portraying one of my great great grandparents:

I could only attend reenactments where my great great grandfather was actually present and the portion of the action being portrayed included him. Since most every history-heavy event portrays a different regiment and/or geographic location, that would mean attending very few events, if any. Ironically, I had two great great grandfathers who fought at the battle of South Mountain, but neither was in a regiment being portrayed at the upcoming Burkittsville reenactment this fall, so I still couldn't attend that event as one of them.

The alternative, if allowed by an event, would be to portray a fictional person based on my g g grandfather's life, but that would open up the whole issue of how much about him to change, and how other aspects of life might have been different if he'd joined another regiment, moved to another state, been wounded or not been wounded, seen heavier or lighter action than he really did, had different friends, etc.

Then there's the problem of events that expect participants to portray actual historic people. If my g g grandfather wasn't there, I coudn't attend those at all.

Once the event begins, there's another difficulty. If I can portray a fictionalized version of my ancestor, other reenactors may also be portraying fictional people, and thus none of my g g grandfather's actual fellow-soldiers might be present. For example, if I knew from oral history that I gave my dog Spot away to the family of my best friend Pvt. Smith before the war, I couldn't necessarily expect to find someone portraying Pvt. Smith, let alone expect an intelligent answer if I asked him, "Have you heard from your family whether Spot's still alive?" since nothing in his research on Pvt. Smith might have turned up the factoid about Spot.

So in isolation, even if I could do a great portrayal of my g g grandfather, as soon as I interacted with others, my level of realism and accuracy would be limited by their knowledge and ability. Again, the decision would come--do I portray a fictionalized version of my g g grandfather who, in this alternate universe, happens to be friends with whoever is being portrayed by these reenactors? Or do I stick with the historic facts about my g g grandfather, even if it means he's a stranger to all these people and his real friends are elsewhere?

And that's assuming that I have access to an infinite amount of detail about my g g grandfather's life--which is a big assumption. Some historic people are easier to find details about than others, but a stranger who left voluminous diaries and memoirs and lived in a village and fought in a regiment with other well-preserved records, is not necessarily going to be harder to research, than a blood relative. And sometimes we get so excited about all the things we do know, that we forget how much we don't know and probably never will, even though it was second-nature to the people we're portraying--everything from what their favorite food was, to what they thought about their sergeant's ability, to whether they were a virgin when they married. So even if I had massive amounts of oral history about my g g grandfather, I'd still need to decide how many other details to fill in with fictional information and what would be the most typical guess based on the facts I do have.

Not that most reenactors want or need to care about all those issues, but they're the kinds of quandries one runs into, when trying to answer the question "what would be most accurate for this event?" If it was easy, I'd have gotten bored and quit a long time ago. :)

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[T_Leggans]

Terry Leggans

Are you going to be there this weekend. Ryan and I are planniong to be there saturday sometime. See you later buddy .

[tenfed1861]

First Person

Gentleme,
I need help with my first person.I have history down.I have an idea of what I plan on saying.My only problem is to start it.If I can just get started,then I can keep it going all weekend,but I do't know how to start it off.Do any of you guys have a tip?
Cullen Smith

[Wild Rover]

Re: First Person

Get a fire started, make a good smelling meal, but tim eit perfectly so that just before it is done, you hear assembly being played.....ought to get you off on the right foot!

Pards,

[FootsoreFederal]

Re: First Person

What try to do is bring up a subject and sort of let it grow from there. For example, complain about the food or lack of it. Or talk about something you read in Harper's Weekly or a letter from home. You know, something along those lines.

Hope this helps you out a bit.

[HOG.EYE.MAN]

Re: First Person

Here's a tip:

Keep your mouth shut and pay attention to your commanding officers.

You're thinking about it too hard Cullen. It's going to end up coming out cheesy if you worry about it too much. Go with the flow and let someone else start if off, then jump in when you can.

For soldiers, sometimes the best first person comes when you're actually doing stuff...... For instance: Clean your rifle, cook food, take care of your mess, fill canteens, etc, etc. Maybe while doing these tasks, you'll think of stuff to say.

Sitting around trying to think of what to say can be a bit tough if your not good with first person.

Best tips yet!!!

(PS. Obviously, my tips don't include civilian life.)

[ArtilleryNick]

Re: First Person

If you have the history portion down, you've got the biggest challenge completed. As far as getting it started, just go about things in camp that the troops would've been doing in 1862, or whenever. The suggestions given previously are good, but I would like to offer my two cents. Now, I'm not certain as to if your persona is of a soldier who can read or write, if it is than continue on. If not, stop right here. What I think would work well is to keep a journal of your experiences. Just write in that the way things are going, how bad the food is, how the officers are all bad, &c.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: First Person

I agree with some of the other posts here. First-person is often more "believable" and less hokey if you keep it rooted in the here and now--such as rations, the march, talking about your officers, etc. than in the type that goes something like, "Y'know, I sure do miss my little Katy back home!" This is ridiculous because none of your pards has any idea who Katy is "back home".

Some folks adopt a "persona" using the name of a real soldier. I guess I've never been a big advocate of that, because you have no idea what that original soldier was really like, unless you have access to loads and loads of his letters, and even then it's still something of a stretch. When I've done first-person I've always used my real name and simply based my "Civil War persona" on me, projected back into the 1860s.

I've seen some fellows, primarily in my former mainstream unit, try to adopt a persona that is almost entirely the opposite of what they are really like, and that's not only hard, but it's difficult to pull off, and it often come off poorly because no one knows how to react when someone in the reenacting group pulls a "Sybill" act (multiple personalities). To my thinking, projecting yourself, your own history, the way you act in certain situations, and your family, back into the 1860s is the easiest way to engage in first-person, with the most realistic results. So, forget about "developing your pesrona" and filling out those forms that some groups develop to "help you make up your first person portrayal" and instead learn more about what life was like in a rural town in the 1860s, or in a city, or wherever it was your "persona" came from; keep it "real"; and try to keep first-person in the "here and now".

[tenfed1861]

Re: First Person

Everybody,
thank you.I know how to do it.I've got all my history down,I just need tonow figure out when my parents were "born."As far as reading and writing,my persona was a college student before the war.I guess I'll know how to get started know.If you have any more advice,please keep posting,I can use the help.
Cullen Smith

[LindaTrent]

Re: First Person

"Y'know, I sure do miss my little Katy back home!" This is ridiculous because none of your pards has any idea who Katy is "back home".

I agree that this would be a problem, but then again, can one document that the typical average soldier always talked only about the here and now and never about his family, friends and loved ones? From the limited amount of research that I've done I've found that companies tended to be raised out of the same general area, and that often times many of the boys knew one another before the war.

Take, for example, my great grandfather's regiment, 117th OVI/1st OHA. Company A was recruited mainly from Pike and Ross Counties, while B was mostly Pike County; C & D were Jackson County, etc. My great grandfather's company was G out of Gallia County. Now granted this is a good sized county and I'm sure that a good number of the boys didn't know one another, but a good number of them were also fast friends who joined up together.

I have several letters that my 2 great grandfamily wrote to my great grandfather, and in the letters they wrote things like, "tell Elias and George Tipton that there folks are all well George Tiptons wife has moved to McCarrolls house …” They also write frequently about his colt, how much it’s grown, it’s training, how much it’s worth, and how they won’t sell it since he needs a good horse when he gets home. They tell about the new preacher, who died, who’s sick with the measles, mother’s new baby…

The most authentic way to do first person, in my humble opinion would be to create backgrounds for members of each company/mess. Again, from my great grandfather’s company, at least 6 of the men were called the Sandfork Boys, because they came from the same area of Patriot, Gallia County, along the Sandfork Creek. They all enlisted together, and are all repeatedly mentioned in the letters from the homefront.

it often come off poorly because no one knows how to react when someone in the reenacting group pulls a "Sybill" act (multiple personalities).

This is a problem anytime one attempts to switch back and forth from first to third person throughout the day (or have multiple first person impressions at the same event). It’s hard for one’s comrades to distinguish when a person is in character and when he’s not. If one takes on a character one should be that person 24/7. If one is portraying a temperance man, than one shouldn’t turn around “after hours” and drink. If one is portraying a preacher, than one shouldn’t do things against the beliefs of the religion of which one is portraying. The best solution to the Sybill problem would be to pick a character and stick with it 24/7 and not have any other “personality” from the start of the event until the end of the event Sunday morning or noon.

The biggest problem that I find when attending anything less than an immersion event, is finding others who really want to play along. To me, a person (soldier or civilian) didn’t instantly pop into existence between 1860-1866, they had a life before hand, almost everyone had a family, and/or shared memories with a comrade. First loves, hunting and fishing experiences, a devotion to a certain religious belief, political belief, and/or cause. Something that made/makes being a soldier worthwhile.

This is what we (civilians) have been doing for the past several years, since the semi/immersion events have really taken off. We develop completely different characters (sometimes real, most times fictional), often entirely different than ourselves. We develop family trees, common backgrounds, develop best friends, town gossips, town people of questionable morals, we have characters ranging from all social classes, some mechanics, farmers, preachers, doctors, lawyers, farmers, etc… We study this all out, have first person chats to get to mesh out more about our individual characters and how they feel about each other, and learn only what we each wants the other to know. We do this for about 3-4 events a year, and stay in character from the start of the event to the end of the event, no breaking, no backstage, just pure immersion from the minute the event starts to the minute that it ends. It’s not really hard to start up a conversation because by the time we arrive we all know each other’s character and know we’re all in first person that we just do it and it works.

The Struggle for Statehood event was a prime example of how it can be done by both civilian AND military. And numerous other events have proven how it has been done by the civilians, and successfully. It requires a lot of work and research, but in the end when we get to put that work into action it's a ton of fun!

For more on building sustainable and believable first person characters see:

http://struggleforstatehood.homestead.com/SandBC.html

Linda Trent
lindatrent@zoomnet.net

[Bill Cross]

Re: First Person

There she goes, pimping her events again! :tounge_sm

Hey, Linda! You're WAAYYY to radical for most of this crowd. The notion of doing real firper is simply too complicated for many military reenactors, though you civilians seem to be able to create whole worlds with realistic dimensions. Does it always work? Nope, there was, for example, a sense of the madhouse at "War on the James" with so many refugees congreated under the Federal command. Come to think of it, there were two women there who were portraying refugees from the local asylum for the insane, an historical fact. Oh well!

But when it DOES work, the effect is sometimes electric. Your husband was a captain in the Home Guard, and he stymied the Federals for an entire day as we attempted to discover what he was up to. And your bout of cholera (feigned to fool the Yankees) gave those guarding the refugees more to do than simply stand around gathering wool.

The long and the short of it is that firper is just like any other aspect of creating a good impression: it requires some research. Who are you portraying, what could that person have known, how can you recreate a bit of that time period? It's harder than finding out what cartridge box the unit was issued, and in some ways, scarier because it's open-ended.

Some of what one learns along the way, however, can be used as the basis for later impressions. I did my first "immersion" firper at McDowell 2001. I was a German from West Virginia, of about the same age as yours truly, so I did some research into immigrants from the Fatherland. Many came here after the failed Revolution of 1848 ("48ers" as they called themselves), and I've used that information twice subsequently: at a PL LH at Gettysburg and at the last McDowell when, once again, I was a German, this time the captain who raised Company D of the 82nd OH in Marion County. John Rieg was an historical personage, and I was able to find out some general information about him, but mostly I had to fill in the blanks with things I could research (he was from Baden, so I brushed up on some Baden dialect, for example).

I don't think we can expect most folks to learn a foreign language to perfect an impression, but often times it's a matter of using what you already have at hand and weaving it into what you have learned about the period. Which brings me back to the goal of this forum: to promote research. Seems the non-advocates of first person are inadvertently undermining that goal.

Keep up the gad-flying, Daughter!

[Hank Trent]

Re: First Person

I think there are two different issues here: What's the easiest and simplest way to achieve a minimum acceptable level, when attempting a historically accurate impression? And, what's the best way to proceed toward the unattainable goal of the most accurate portrayal possible, even if it requires a significant amount of effort, study, planning and practice?

But as far as the question of getting started at an event, you can get started anytime, merely by beginning to react to each situation as if you were someone from the 1860s. In some cases, there may be no visible difference. Following a command is following a command, in any century. In other cases, the difference might be so subtle as to be almost unnoticeable, like silently acting sore Friday night because you've marched all day with the regiment, even though you're actually rested and ready to go after sitting in the car all day, like everyone else.

In other cases, the difference might be obvious, like when you need to respond to someone commenting over supper, "This reminds me of [event name]. Did you go to that one?"

At a lot of events, alas, behaving accurately mostly becomes remaining silent without contributing to the modern conversation (or politely faking that you understand what people mean with a shrug or a nod) because the person you're portraying has no clue what everyone is talking about. But you can at least do that, and take comfort that accuracy is its own reward and you're enjoying your own internal experience as best you can.

If you mean, how can you get started influencing others to also behave accurately, so you can enjoy their comraderie and not feel like an 1860s outcast in a 2004 world... I'd suggest beginning by making some inconsequential and easy-to-respond-to comment that nonetheless drops a heavy hint that you're living in the 1860s. Don't change your tone of voice, don't act theatrical, or do anything else different, just speak naturally. Something like: "Can I get in here by the fire? I didn't get a chance to take off my socks before we had to cross the Potomac this morning, and I'm still trying to dry them out."

The best response you can hope for is that others will realize you're hinting that it's time to get in character, and they'll switch into character as well. More likely, it'll take several continuous hints, and some gentle manipulation to keep the conversation from shifting modern again.

Worst response: some clueless person will try to dominate the conversation with responses like, "You really waded the Potomac this morning? Wow, that's hardcore. Do you like to do that kind of thing, march into the event beforehand, to really get the experience?" Or, equally bad: "Oh, you're doing that first person stuff. I never could get into that. There was a fellow I used to know who did it a lot though. I remember at 140th Gettysburg, we were in the parking lot, and..."

In that case, one option is to continue responding as you think the person you're portraying would, if he got that reaction, while continuing to drop hints about what's going on, to try to influence others to be more accurate. For example, in answer to the first response, you might say, "I don't mind the marching--it's not any worse than walking behind a plow, and that's what I'd be doing all day if I were home--but I hate getting wet feet." With luck, maybe some others will catch on, and help influence the clueless one to shape up. Or if it seems hopeless, you can just fall silent again and realize that you're going to be spending the weekend with people who are in a different hobby.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[hiplainsyank]

Re: First Person

Bill,

Your mention of the German 48ers reminds me of something I've noticed before. I've noticed that the "48er German" often gets mentioned in recommendations for German impressions. While there was a spike in emigration to the US after the failed REvolution, there were tens of thousands of Germans in the U.S. before that.

I'm a Lutheran pastor (with some German heritage) and there were a number of German Lutheran colleges and seminaries established well before the Civil War, before the Revolution of 48. There were at least half a dozen or so seminaries, with even more colleges. There are heavy concentrations of Lutheran churches in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and the Carolinas that trace their heritage to early to mid-1800s (or earlier). While Lutherans tended to organize into geographical synods, and while it was a little later than most other Protestant denominations, a few synods were anti-slavery by the the 1840s, and northern and southern synods broke ties with each other when the war began. And this doesn't even get at the Roman Catholic portion of German immigrants.

So many Germans in the US. would not have been elite and unchurched intellectuals but your average poor, religious European immigrant. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the 48er impression among German impressions should be a small minority.

Just a few thoughts.

[tenfed1861]

Re: First Person

I'd like to thak everyone for their help.I've got a great way to get started.Like I said,I've got all my info down pact:
Born-July 27,1843,(same as my ggg-grandfather)
Fathers occupation-school master
Mothers-seamstress
Had two brothers,born March 12,1839 and Nov. 8,1841
Was a smart boy.Went to school all his life.In Sept. 1860,went to school at U of __.One brother went to Harvard,enlisted in a battery.Other brother went into the preisthood.Enlisted Aug. 12,18__.Was in the battles of ________.
Plans for after the war are to go back to college,study history and lit. to become a writer.

I'm sure some doesn't make since,and I'm still working on it,but I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks.
Cullen Smith

[Hank Trent]

Re: First Person

I'd like to thak everyone for their help.I've got a great way to get started.Like I said,I've got all my info down pact:
Born-July 27,1843,(same as my ggg-grandfather)
Fathers occupation-school master
Mothers-seamstress
Had two brothers,born March 12,1839 and Nov. 8,1841
Was a smart boy.Went to school all his life.In Sept. 1860,went to school at U of __.One brother went to Harvard,enlisted in a battery.Other brother went into the preisthood.Enlisted Aug. 12,18__.Was in the battles of ________.
Plans for after the war are to go back to college,study history and lit. to become a writer.

Given those facts, what I'd look for are things that set you (i.e., the person you're portraying) apart from others, or that make your outlook on life different from those around you. Then use those things to come up with ideas to interact in interesting ways with others. For example...

Being well educated, you might be someone who reads and writes letters home for the less literate. Or are you a snob who has trouble hiding his perceived superiority?

Is the whole family Catholic, or just your brother? If you're a Catholic among protestants, do you actively engage in religious debates, or try to hide your religion, or something in between? How do you deal with anti-Catholic prejudice?

The bio looks like it could be the background of a sensitive, maybe even pampered person, who might have trouble fitting in with rough and ready farm boys on campaign. How are you coping with that? Do you feel pressure to overcompensate to prove you can do it, or are you barely getting by?

Are you keeping a journal now of your war-time experiences? Do you share with others unique insight on experiences, compared to heroic battles or campaigns in ancient literature? Do you miss having others with similar education to talk to, or have you found some equally educated friends?

Since your mother has to work at a low-paying job, the family may be strapped for cash. Do you try to send as much money home as possible? Do you resent not having extra spending money to fritter away, or are you grateful to be able to help out? Are you under a lot of family pressure to succeed and live up to their expectations?

All those are just suggestions to start brainstorming. But they show ways the bare-bones facts can be used to suggest how the person you're portraying relates to others around him, and how he might act and react during various daily activities.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net