Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Gettysburg Civil War Museum weekend, 2008

These are scenes from the 1st Maryland Cavalry Battalion's annual weekend camping at the Civil War museum in Gettysburg. We do this each year to teach living history, and as a fund raiser for our unit, and to draw visitors into the museum. Here's Lou and Tyler in the display area for the Revolving Battery gun. This battery gun is not a reproduction though it has been restored. It's a treasure of history and heritage.

Mark posing for the camera following the weapons firing demonstration. The soldiers do firearms demonstrations as well as saber drills and engage the spectators in the saber drills. We also have a recruitment area set up to sign up new soldiers from among the spectators, complete with cash payment in reproduction bills of the era for their enlistment.
Here's Patty, who, with her husband Jim, are new members of our unit. Patty brought a beautiful quilt to work on during the weekend and shared with us some of her other creations. I'm hoping that I'll get the time to work on one or another of my quilts since she has helped to motivate me.
It's me, sitting out in front of the museum watching the camp. I was knitting most of the weekend, but it was just too hot to play with the wool during the afternoon. One of the most asked questions of the ladies is always "aren't you hot in that?" The answer is that we're not much hotter than the folks in shorts and tee shirts because the dresses and undergarments are all cotton which breathes well, but it was very humid and sunny so everyone was hot, both in modern and period clothing.
Here's Rusty who is the head of artillery and owner of the Revolving Battery Gun you see here as well as the Mountain Howitzers that the unit uses during battles. Rusty is the Artillery commander.
A view of camp life, the guys are playing cards under the fly in front of the military commander's tent while some of the ladies that are visiting look on. We have several areas where we all tend to congregate and tell jokes or stories or play games and such. Usually we have a camp fire when we're out in the field but for the safety of all the people walking through our camp here we don't have one for this event. Our cook takes good care of the stomachs of the members when we're out in the field, in fact, we have been known to have deserters from the Union lines defect to our unit when lunch and supper are just about ready!
This is one of my very favorite dresses and one that I definitely enjoy wearing. When we went to lunch we had lots of people asking to take pictures of us walking down the street. There were lots of tourists in town from all over the world, and I posed for a whole lot of pictures along with other members of our unit.
Gerald, Gerry and Dan discussing battle plans over the Parrot Gun that is a permanant fixture out in front of the museum. Gerry and his son Gerald are new members of our Unit this season as well. Gerry has been in several Civil War movies including "Gods and Generals".
This is another shot of our camp including the gun rack that shows visitors the different types of muskets used during the 1861-1865 period.
The ladies in discussion outside the museum doors. That's Patty in the beautiful Green Silk day dress, and Linda in the gold day dress and me in the blue one you've already seen. We had a fun weekend and it was great to renew friendships and share time with our friends again.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the picture of the ladies "gossiping" in front of the museum. From the expression on your face, the news must have been really juicy!!

Jennie said...

That looks like too much fun. I love your dress. You did a wonderful job on it. Can't wait to read about future adventures.