Could it ever really feel real?

[Quinn]

Thought for discussion. If you had a full unit in all correct gear, speaking only in period terms, eating only period food, in the middle of a place where modern civilization cannot be seen for miles, could reenacting ever feel exactly like they felt? Could you conjure up the fear, hate for the other side and other emotions that were felt during the war? If you have done so what was it like? Thoughts?

 

[phil1861]

No, not really and usually not even in a scripted or tactical battle.

You wait for a magic moment, some brief moment where you'd swear it was real or you're transported by your senses into something you'll always remember.

You collect them, like photographs only you keep them on the film roll in your memory.

One of mine was at 135th Antietam. It was early morning after reveille and I'd wandered from our camp (period correct with company streets) to the sinks and mounted a small hill. The early morning mist was hanging close to the ground giving everything a mystical quality. The camps stretched across every open space not cut by trees on the Union side. Men were out and about and you could imagine a misty morning at any of hundreds of thousands of military camps during the war in the fall or in McClellan's camps along Antietam Creek.

Another was at the 135th Chickamauga, I forget who we were portraying, but we quick marched to what was supposed to be the LaFayette Road and quickly dug in using bayonets, cups, plates, hands. We knew the Confederates where coming but no idea when. We just knew we were to hold the road and we needed to use every advantage. We had ten minutes before the Confederates came at us but we had a nice kneeling position created by the time they showed up. There was a real sense of urgency, not panic, but urgency.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

I remember a friend of mine in AIT in the Army was a RevWar reenactor (he said it was very distracting learning to march during Basic Training because in RevWar, all marching commands are called off the left foot, never the right, whereas in modern d&c right-turning movements are called off the right foot...) He was infantry facing a British cavalry charge, and he said that the sight of horses thundering towards you made it very, very real...

 

[Republican Blues]

The closest to real I have seen it was this past weekend, when it DID get real.....and really ugly, really fast.....

 

[Glorybound]

No, not really and usually not even in a scripted or tactical battle.

You wait for a magic moment, some brief moment where you'd swear it was real or you're transported by your senses into something you'll always remember.

You collect them, like photographs only you keep them on the film roll in your memory.

One of mine was at 135th Antietam. It was early morning after reveille and I'd wandered from our camp (period correct with company streets) to the sinks and mounted a small hill. The early morning mist was hanging close to the ground giving everything a mystical quality. The camps stretched across every open space not cut by trees on the Union side. Men were out and about and you could imagine a misty morning at any of hundreds of thousands of military camps during the war in the fall or in McClellan's camps along Antietam Creek.

Another was at the 135th Chickamauga, I forget who we were portraying, but we quick marched to what was supposed to be the LaFayette Road and quickly dug in using bayonets, cups, plates, hands. We knew the Confederates where coming but no idea when. We just knew we were to hold the road and we needed to use every advantage. We had ten minutes before the Confederates came at us but we had a nice kneeling position created by the time they showed up. There was a real sense of urgency, not panic, but urgency.

Great writing Phil, very descriptive, easy to visualize. Good post.

 

[1SGDan]

Could it ever really feel real?

LETS HOPE NOT!

 

[Bob Owen]

Actual combat is the only thing that can feel like real combat. One cannot even come close to knowing it without firing a weapon to kill another while that person is trying to kill you. There is no substitute for the real thing.

 

[PartywithArty]

Closest ive ever felt to "real" was a battle at Ft.Pillow. It was unscripted and we had no idea what the yanks were gonna pull out of their sleves or when they were comming. the night before i had wonderd to another companys camp and met a few cavalry boys. We sat for hours that night around their camp fire talking and becoming friends. The next day during battle,it was tough watching the yanks over take us,and watching my newly made friends die. I knew it was just play and they were gonna get back up,but standing there beside the cannon and seeing this happen before your eyes was very unnerving. Just a weird feeling..

 

[Dave Hull]

Absolutely not. In fact, it does not even come close to a modern field exercise. For folks who have never served, or never served in a combat arms unit, or served in the Guard or Reserves prior to the Gulf War, they may be able to project a spot on accurate event with real combat or at least field time. I mean no degree of disrespect in that statement, but at the end of the day on Sunday, you are packing your kit and hitting the road. You know that, just as you know the guys on the other side are not really shooting at you, in fact for the most part, they are not even firing blanks in your direction, but 40 feet over your head.

You set up in your company AO within ear shot of the opposing forces. You pass them on the road to the sutlers. If you go totally hardcore and eat nothing from Friday night until you leave on Sunday, you would not be looking at the grasshoppers as a main dish for supper. There are no elements of surprise or real privation. For that matter, there is no risk of getting completely lost because your Lt cannot read a map or use and compass, and refuses to listen to the men who have been doing it since he was in grade school.

One could ratchet up the realism if they could spend a month in the field chasing the other guys across three counties. You could do long road marches of twenty plus miles. You could do some of these marches at night when it dark as a well diggers arse. I guess you could even add paint balls but you still have no real fear in your mind if you have ever heard a round crack over your head, or worse, hear one slap into you or your buddy.

The only fear I can conjure up is what will the traffic be like on the drive home. Loathing? I do not know that I would have despised the guy on the opposite side of the field even in 1861-1865, as there would have been a good chance that I was shooting at a family member or friend. As for the isolation required to feel completely cut off from the 21st century, the event would have to be held in Montana or Wyoming or an equally desolate state. In order to get the misery index just right, all even number troops would have the drizzling dysentery and the odd number troops would be bound up tighter than Dick's hat band.

To me, reenacting is a salute to those men who fought, both North and South, without judging why they fought. It gives the public a chance to see what a piece of ground looked like with men moving and firing at each other. You and your fellows have a chance to help educate folks who, through no fault of their own, know little or nothing about the ACW.

Do not get me wrong, I have a blast doing events. I enjoy going to events as a spectator. I enjoy talking about our history with anyone interested in discussion the war. But even in my most creative imagination, I cannot conjure anything much more than a Boy Scout camp out, with a bunch of fellas who I truly enjoy being in the company of.

 

[Quinn]

My very first reenactment was at Spotsylvania. We were in a trench and getting ready to open fire on the Rebels on a hill. An old Sgt. I was next to who had been reenacting for years could tell I was kind of nervous and right before the command to leave the trench and take the hill was given he looked at me and said "dont be nervouse kid, keep your head low and stick close to me and you'll get through this". for a moment I really got a sense of being a newbie about to go into their first battle. Very cool thing to have happened to me. That I think is the closest I have ever been to real.

 

[Pvt.A.Wells]

It is those little moments that you remember. Not really transporting you to the past, but giving you insight to the perpective of the day. Case in point, Mills Spring Ky, this year. The event took place on the same cold Jan. day that the real battle took place, over the exact same ground. The scenario was the battle at the fence rails. The air was damp, cold, and a mist was up, just as it was then. Once we got to the fence our muskets was mis-firing due to the moisture, much like the confederates with thier flintlocks did. We made multiple attacks on the position and for a moment I felt the feutility of the attack. I gained a understanding and repect for the bravery it would have took to make that assault. Why it failed, and how to a small degree how it must have felt to be there, cold, damp, tired, and desperate.

S.D.Swart, citizen, soldier, sailor.

 

[Pvt.A.Wells]

The closest to real I have seen it was this past weekend, when it DID get real.....and really ugly, really fast.....

Oh, I bet that is a story to hear.........

 

[Bob Owen]

Awarded one of these and you have really seen the elephant!

 

[Republican Blues]

Oh, I bet that is a story to hear.........

Lets suffice it to say, they charged into us, muskets clubbed, one of us was told "I WILL hit you", threats and a standoff ensued, and it had the potential of a few people probably still being at the event site picking up their teeth, if not in various hospitals and jail cells around Gordon County, GA.

 

[Pvt.A.Wells]

Lets suffice it to say, they charged into us, muskets clubbed, one of us was told "I WILL hit you", threats and a standoff ensued, and it had the potential of a few people probably still being at the event site picking up their teeth, if not in various hospitals and jail cells around Gordon County, GA.

That is the reason why I only do hand to hand with units I know well, and know me. My "friendemies".

 

[Dave Hull]

Lets suffice it to say, they charged into us, muskets clubbed, one of us was told "I WILL hit you", threats and a standoff ensued, and it had the potential of a few people probably still being at the event site picking up their teeth, if not in various hospitals and jail cells around Gordon County, GA.

Sounds like a typical Friday or Saturday night in Columbus Georgia or Fayetteville NC (insert your favorite military base here) around last call.

 

[ExNavyPilot]

Awarded one of these and you have really seen the elephant!View attachment 4788

Bob--

You certainly "saw the elephant," only you saw it from above.

You Cobra jockeys weren't awarded the CIB as that was just for infantry or special forces, right? Did you guys get something else, like an Air Medal (with valor device)? I'll bet you had your share of lead and steel coming at you (I'm thinking of that picture in another thread of your Cobra with flack damage) and did your best to return that amount with interest...

I never flew my P-3C in combat so I never saw the elephant. However, while tracking a Soviet Oscar II SSGN in the Bering Sea in peacetime, I do remember seeing a whale or two....Not quite the same thing....

 

[Joshua Horn]

I have not yet had the opportunity to take part in the reenactment, but I was reading "Co. Aytch" last night, and one part really stood out in the fighting at the Dead Angle at Kennesaw Mountain.

I had just discharged the contents of my gun into the bosoms »f two men, one right behind the other, killing them both, and was re-loading, when a Yankee rushed upon me, having me at a disadvantage, and said, "You have killed my two brothers, and now I've got you." Everything I had ever done rushed through my mind. I heard the roar, and felt the flash of fire, and saw my more than friend, William A. Hughes, grab the muzzle of the gun, receiving the whole contents in his hand and arm, and mortally wounding him. Reader, he died for me. In saving my life, he lost his own.

 

[Samuel.Sohm]

Bob--

You certainly "saw the elephant," only you saw it from above.

You Cobra jockeys weren't awarded the CIB as that was just for infantry or special forces, right? Did you guys get something else, like an Air Medal (with valor device)? I'll bet you had your share of lead and steel coming at you (I'm thinking of that picture in another thread of your Cobra with flack damage) and did your best to return that amount with interest...

I never flew my P-3C in combat so I never saw the elephant. However, while tracking a Soviet Oscar II SSGN in the Bering Sea in peacetime, I do remember seeing a whale or two....Not quite the same thing....

Don't feel too bad, Not everyone who "Saw The Elephant" got a CIB. Medics, MPs, Engineers, Even chaplains saw serious action in Iraq and Afghanistan and never were awarded a CIB. We have the good old overawarded CAB for that.....

 

[Bob Owen]

Bob--

You certainly "saw the elephant," only you saw it from above.

You Cobra jockeys weren't awarded the CIB as that was just for infantry or special forces, right? Did you guys get something else, like an Air Medal (with valor device)? I'll bet you had your share of lead and steel coming at you (I'm thinking of that picture in another thread of your Cobra with flack damage) and did your best to return that amount with interest...

I never flew my P-3C in combat so I never saw the elephant. However, while tracking a Soviet Oscar II SSGN in the Bering Sea in peacetime, I do remember seeing a whale or two....Not quite the same thing....

Even though I was an Infantry Officer, I wasn't awarded the CIB which is reserved for infantrymen for ground combat. I was awarded two DFC's, Bronze Star, sixteen Airmedals (one with "V" device) for aerial combat. These were awarded for specific events. Now the aviators who fly in combat get the Combat Aviator's Badge. Believe me, I would rather be up in the air than on the ground. Those ground pounders had my total respect and all the aerial weaponry that we could cover their butts with. I actually saw several elephants in the jungles of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.