Rest in Peace: Steve Biondo, Sherman's Bummers (19?? - 2008)

[Canebrake Rifle Guards]

Most of you probably didn't know Steve. I don't think he re-enacted since the early 80s, but he was a dear man.

He was part of the Tidewater contingent of the Sherman's Bummers back in the 70s. He was one of my re-enacting mentors. He will be missed by all. You can read his obituary by going to http://www.independentmail.com/

If you knew Steve, sound off.

Sincerely,

Greg Starbuck

[Canebrake Rifle Guards]

Re: Rest in Peace- Steve Biondo, Sherman's Bummers

A couple of years ago I asked Steve to write his memories of being a Sherman Bummer. Steve was a journalist by trade. Here are Steve's words. GS


Sherman's Bummers: Early Authentics

A Subjective History



The academic community once derided the idea of grown men playing soldier. Civil War authorities no less than Dr. James I. Robertson of Virginia Tech, author of the definitive biography of Stonewall Jackson, would suppress tolerant grins when queried about the value of living history. Robertson did exactly that when Bummer Andy Conlon asked him the question in the late 1970s. Robertson's was a typical attitude of the time.

Academics have since changed their tune, as the reenacting veterans of the 1960s and '70s became the experts: taking over parks service jobs as historians and interpreters, managing Civil War museums and battle sites in the 1980s and '90s, lecturing in the history departments at major universities and authoring original, scholarly studies of the war and the 1860s era.

I am proud of my four or five brief years with Sherman's Bummers, early authentics who replicated an anonymous company of late war Western federal infantry. In the mid-1970s troops could not carry ramrods, much less bayonets, onto the field. The Bummers and others helped change those attitudes by showing that reenactors could be historically accurate, disciplined soldiers.

I got my first look at the Bummers at New Market, Va., in May 1975. They were the authentic Union company; we FNGs formed the second federal line. Watching them manuever, drill, stack muskets, I felt the way a recruit must have seeing veterans for the first time, a mix of admiration, awe and envy.

This is my testament to the value of living history. Like the survivors of the GAR, I saw action, marched some hot miles, escaped more work details than I deserved, and bathed in the reflected glory of those who stood muster long before.

I remember the head-spinning chaos of the cornfield fight at Droop Mountain, and the swirl of battle around Hartman's Farm at Gettysburg. Corpses piled across the smoky stone bridge at Powhatan. Stopping cars with bayoneted muskets while picketing the dark streets of Harpers Ferry. The exhilaration of the final Union charge at Saylors Creek. Marching in the rain, singing, along the old canal from Sharpsburg to Harpers Ferry. Mail in the field. Toilet in the field. The wonderful morning aromas of wood smoke, frying bacon and boiling coffee. And breathing in those sensory associations with a rush of images weeks later at the scent of wood smoke clinging to my sack coat.

The Bummers produced notable alumni not mentioned in the otherwise excellent history published on the 116th Pennsylvania's website. [http://www.hauntedfieldmusic.com/Co.I.html] Among them: Chris Caulkins, chief historian at the Petersburg National Battlefield Park, who helped create the Saylors Creek state historic site and the annual event held there since 1978; Larry Strayer, who commanded Company B of the Bummers and also founded the Blue Acorn Press; Rick Baumgartner, author of an acclaimed history of Wilder's Lightning Brigade; military hatmaker non pareil Greg Starbuck, whose kepis were worn in "Gettysburg," "Gods and Generals" and "Cold Mountain"; Tom Apple, founder of the Tuckahoe Trading Co.; color bearer Jim Poole and Andy Conlon, now a city manager in Virginia; yours truly, author of a novel of the Civil War titled, "The True Story of Manse Jolly"; Dr. Roy Carriker, professor of agricultural economics at the University of Florida; and the lieutenant we followed from Droop Mountain on to fields of glory, Steve Adolphson.

It was Adolphson, in the first issue of The Grapevine, January 1975, who reminded old timers and recruits that the genesis of Sherman's Bummers was Special Field Order No. 120, issued Nov. 9, 1864, in which Uncle Billy himself created the basis for the foraging parties that were to sustain the Army of the Tennessee on its march through Georgia and the Carolinas.

"These orders were in compliance with the accepted rules of warfare," Adolphson noted. "As the March progressed, the 'bummers' found their name appropriated by all foragers. The word grew in respectability and even Sherman, at the end of the war, referred to himself an old 'old bummer.'"

Sgt. Spence Waldron, writing in the spring of 1976, traced the origin of the Bummers to a 1968 event at a place called Whites Ferry, where the Union participants proposed to create a federal unit equal in authenticity to George Gorman's 2nd North Carolina. In that fight, Waldron took special glee in noting, the boys strayed from the script, inspiring a reputation as mavericks that stuck to the Bummers for years to come. Waldron said the Bummers actually came to be at the Fall 1969 nationals of the North-South Skirmish Association. There was disagreement over what unit association to adopt, until Waldron himself commented, "Aw, we're just a bunch of Bummers." The name stuck. Seven years later, only Waldron and Robert Koch remained
of the original dozen or so members.

Aside from possibly creating the term "farb" (the true origin of which is still debated - Gorman's North Carolinians also have a claim), Waldron said there were many things that set the Bummers apart right away.

"First off, we looked different. Our uniforms were wool and our arms and accoutrements were forthe most part original," Waldron wrote. "Camping separately was perhaps the major factor in alienating us from the majority of reenactors. We did it merely to get away from modern contrivances but others saw it as aloofness...we became unapproachable, a situation completely agreeable to the Bummers."

By 1971, the Bummers were morphing yet again as members collectively realized reenactments were not "scratching the itch we all felt," recorded Waldron. By the spring of 1972, with the Bummers' first Easter encampment at Gettysburg, the Bummers were seeking ways to expand the bounds of the living history experience. Former lieutenant of Company B, Larry Strayer wrote in 1980, "During the early years, the word Bummer meant the only
authentic, if nonconformist, portrayal of Union infantry anywhere. All others fell far short ... Camp sites and field life became new prerequisites for summer events, the first of these taking place at Chapel Road, Adams County, Pa., in 1972. Many 'westerners' bolstered the ranks at this time, marking that year
as a landmark for the group."

That desire to recreate period camp life as closely as possible led to the Bummers recognition as the "hard core company of authentics," Strayer said in his Circular No. 5. "We felt that...our officers knew the most of any in the field. And at that time, it was probably so. In any case, at Gettysburg of '76, while millions watched from all over the country, the Bummers opened the battle and covered the Union line as skirmishers."

The '76 Bicentennial event at Gettysburg was the largest scale fight in which the Bummers took part - maybe 3,000 troops total, a good brigade-sized fight. The Bummers served as skirmishers while the action was witnessed by millions live on CBS-TV, Dan Rather broadcasting the play-by-play from a tower. As the battle raged, the Bummers retired behind the main federal line, carrying their wounded, to serve as the federal reserve. At
the critical moment, we rushed into the press of troops massing at the Angle, our muskets at right shoulder shift, to stem the Confederate tide.

Yet Strayer noticed a slackening of interest in the Bummers' ranks by 1977, and an increase in the number of good authentic federal companies. By the time of Saylors Creek 1979, where a federal battalion of 225 effectives took the field, complete with a brass band, Strayer realized that a historic benchmark in the hobby had been reached.

"No longer were the Bummers the absolute best in the field...There were so many good Union troops that we represented nothing more than another well trained company," wrote Strayer. "Can it be helped that the times are changing?"

Strayer saw something else, the enormous changes that were coming in the hobby, in its growth and in the directions that this new wave of authentics were being pulled by various forces: by personal interests and campaign priorities, by age, geography, family concerns, even "the price of oil."

During those years, at different points for the many different pards who filled the Bummers' rosters over two decades, personal experiences in camp and field reached both high and low points. But few comrades could argue with what Spence Waldron said more than 25 years ago: "What outsider could comprehend the Bummers' dedication to the quest for the Civil War experience? We realized something that the farbs had guessed for a long time; that we had gone further than anyone else into the realm of life during the Civil War - while the reenactors play at it, we live it."

We had read about the experience of combat and wanted more, trying to make field and camp as perfect as possible, seeking that instant when everything seemed right - when time had dimmed and you had crossed the precipice, however briefly.

I am older now - 53 my next birthday - and virtually inactive, but the war is never far away. It lurks in every book on my night table; I hear it in the concussive pum pum of distant thunder on spring nights. Any hint of wood smoke on a fall day takes me back to those nights in camp by the fire with the boys. My woolens and leather are in good shape, but when the time comes to put them on again it will be for a soft place by the fire and a tin cup full of O Be Joyful.

- Steve Biondo

Submitted by Greg Starbuck

[Pvt Peck]

Re: Rest in Peace- Steve Biondo, Sherman's Bummers

Godspeed Mr. Biondo, hope you are sitting around the fire up there enjoying some coffee and bacon with your pards, and looking down on us with a big grin on your face!

The Bummers were legend when I got into the hobby in 77. I read every little snippet about what the Bummers or Mudsills did back then. Great inspiration for a 14 year old kid out here in California even in the pre internet days. Thanks for sharing that neat history your pard wrote Mr. Starbuck.

Ted Parrott

[1stMaine]

Re: Rest in Peace- Steve Biondo, Sherman's Bummers

Good guys all. I got my first federal dress coat from Spence Waldron, and he always was on the top end of vendors for many years.

[Canebrake Rifle Guards]

Re: Rest in Peace- Steve Biondo, Sherman's Bummers

Former Independent-Mail columnist, author dies

Steve Biondo was "wordsmith," says wife

By Samantha Harris
Tuesday, January 22, 2008

ANDERSON — Friends and family remembered author Steve Biondo Tuesday as a man whose words could stir laughter and tears.

Mr. Biondo, 57, of 1408 Forest Lane in Anderson, was a former columnist for the Anderson Independent-Mail and the author of “The True Story of Manse Jolly, Part I” and “The True Story of Manse Jolly, Part II.”

He died Tuesday after battling respiratory problems for the past week.

“He was a good writer, and a really nice guy,” said Greg Wilson, who worked as editorial page editor at the Independent-Mail during Mr. Biondo’s time as a writer for the newspaper. “His column was the most read, and he was the best known writer for the Independent in the 1980s because of his column.”

Mr. Biondo won several South Carolina Press Association awards for his column writing while at the newspaper.

His most recent work was as a reporter at the Laurens County Advertiser.

Judy Biondo, Mr. Biondo’s wife, said her husband’s writing struck a personal chord with readers.

“He was an extremely good writer,” she said. “He was a wordsmith. He had the power to make you burst into tears or give you the biggest belly laugh you would ever know.”

One of her favorite of her husband’s columns was one he wrote about becoming a father when the couple’s oldest son was born, Mrs. Biondo said.

A large part of the couple’s long-distance courtship played out in letters and written correspondence, she recalled.

Known to many as “Mr. B,” her husband “was read by many, was loved by many, and he was liked by many,” Mrs. Biondo said.

Mr. Biondo is survived by his wife, sons Evan and Zach, a sister, two brothers and his father Michael Biondo. A memorial service will be held in Anderson at a later date.

Steve Biondo graduated from Ohio University with a Bachelor's of Arts degree in journalism, and earned a Master of Arts degree in English at Virginia Tech. He was a columnist and reporter for the Anderson Independent-Mail from 1980-91. Since 1995, he has written for two weeklies, The Clinton Chronicle and the Lauren County Advertiser. He was a winner of the 2004 S.C. Fiction Project. His stories and poems have appeared in Intro 5, TimeLapse, the Laurel Review and Prickly Pear Journal; articles in Clemson World, Blue Ridge Country, Metro magazine, Anderson College Today, Carolina Living, Reader's Digest, The Milton Quarterly, Presbyterians Today and others. The two volumes of his historical novel, "The True Story of Manse Jolly," were published in 2002 and 2004.

[Bummer]

Re: Rest in Peace- Steve Biondo, Sherman's Bummers

God it hurts when yet another one of us passes on.
Thanks Steve, it was a real pleasure knowing you--and we'll meet again I know.

Spence~

[With All Due Respect]

Re: Rest in Peace- Steve Biondo, Sherman's Bummers

Fond memories of Steve Biondo take me back to the years we spent campaingning together.

The members of Sherman's Bummers of the 1970's were not the only ones aspiring to authenticity, but to paraphrase what Steve wrote, we in the Bummers were the cutting edge of that day. By the late 70's units including Thomas's Mudsills in the west and the Irish Brigrade in the east were incorporating (in their own way) many of the aspects of drill and camp that had been unique to the Bummers just a few year before. Authenticity in the "hobby" has advanced greatly since those days, but in many ways the best of what we see today stems directly from the old Bummers.

The 150th anniversary of the war is nearly upon us. It is interesting to remember, going back nearly a half century, those of us who were young men the 70's were children in the 60's. We grew up with all the hokey hype of the Civil War Centenial in the first half of the decade, juxtaposed with the ever increasing social turmoil as the 60's rolled into the 70's. Many of the Bummers had served, or would serve in the military during the police action in Veitnam/Cambodia/Laos. The rest of us knew war -- if only through the graphic daily news, the experinces of family and friends, and the ever present draft card in our pocket that reminded us that we could be there too "at the drop of a hat".

Those of you who weren't there have probably heard the stories. The "Sears work clothes" uniforms and "hippie" looks were typical among other reenactors in those days. Before there was the emerging sutler industry of the late-70's, we often used original uniforms, accouterments, and weapons ... or created home-made reproductions to the best of our knowledge and abilities. I used to wear one of the first frock coats Joe Covais ever made, and I think it would still compare favorably with the best repos today. I would have to say that Greg Starbuck's caps have improved a bit from those early efforts. And then the stuff I used to make -- in retrospect you might just say it was, uh, well intentioned.

Steve is a part of all those memories for me. And I'd say that those memories are a part of the heritage of today's authentic campainer. I raise a toast to you old friend.

Andy
The Rest