Has reenactment never gone too wild?

At the 1989 reenactment of the battle of Franklin, a reenactor from Ohio died during the night in the Union camp and was not found until morning. (I believe he had a heart attack). Also, in the middle of the battle on Saturday, we were fighting in the middle of a big field that had waist high grass. Wadding from some of the blanks set the grass on fire, and within a matter of minutes, there was a roaring fire in that field. They had to march us off the field and call in the fire department to put out the fire. I also heard a number of tents in the Confederate camp went up in flames due to the fires being lit much too close to the tents. (It was extremely cold at that event - got down to about 16 degrees Saturday night, with a very strong wind making it feel even colder)
 
A couple of years ago we had a wild event of screwups all due to the chronic lack of safety, coordination, willful disobedience of the scenario, and all around being the worthless specimens of humanity Dismounted Cav. can be when they feel like it.

The event this happened at has several battles in one day, and two separate events due to local politics, the one we were at has a parade and town "skirmish" afterwards in the morning. We were good ole boys in blue, (I've made myself some new Confederate uniforms and for the past several years I've not been able to wear them at an event when I make it to one because reenacting politics dictate we be Yanks so some guys from Arkansas will come, personally I call BS on that), getting back on track, the scenario had individual companies firing volleys at our Reb tormentors, then peeling off and falling back to enable the next company to move up and fire. Our company was to be the one that bayonet charged the Confederate "barricades" and we were supposed to take heavy casualties, and the Confederates flee. Well we charge, one of our corporals did an AWESOME dive over the barricades to the brick street below as the Reds fled, and most of company is "dead" or walking wounded as the other companies move forward, I was still "alive" and moving forward. Then stuff went wrong, way wrong for me. The Rebs who'd retreated were supposed to keep retreating, then this dismounted cav. bunch decides to be a bunch of heros and hold they're ground, I'm still running forward and I think to myself "Wait a sec are they going to fire this close!" and they fired. The two of them directly in front of me, one with a revolver, the other with a sawed off shotgun were aiming directly at my face when I was maybe five feet away. When they fired in my face the force knocked my entire upper body, along with natural human recoil of such things, sent my upper body fly backward while feet went straight up in the air.

I am truly lucky and blessed to have not lost my sight, for an hour I couldn't see anything, and it was two more hours before I could see as well as I normally can, and I'm also extremely lucky I didn't have permanent powder burns on my face, (but I was in blackface for a while). To the credit of the officers of that unit, their Captain did run over two me while I was rolling on the street holding my face, and the guys who done it laughing their behinds off, to make sure I was okay and said "My God are you alright?! You got a little too close." to which I stopped moaning and groaning long enough to scream "YOU SONS OF ****** WERE SUPPOSED TO BE RETREATING!!!!" and he said "Well you don't have be so mad about it!"

Yeah real screwy weekend....
 
Oh and as a follow up to that last post, it only went downhill from there.

Flash forward to the afternoon, and I was still a Yank (still with a somewhat black face), and we're doing the afternoon battle. Our battalion was sent out on the flank while the artillery did their thing, and after marching through knee deep mud, (real glad I went farb and bought some "cavalry" boots as some folks were losing brogans), and we reach our point at a relatively open stand off woods, stacked arms and let everyone shake off the mud. Directly in front of us across an open field about 400 yards off was a Confederate artillery position and the ground pounders in charge of protecting them was, you guessed it, the same Dismounted Dip****s (forgive me I've never cared too much for Dismounted Cav. and ever sense that weekend and all the other normal shenanigans over the years I developed a little bit of a bloodlust). The artillery position was supposed to be firing at the main US force, but then after a short time we noticed they changed direction, and as I had a spyglass handy, I went up and with our Lt. Col. took a closer look at what was going on.

We're trading the glass looking trying to figure out what was going on, and too our astonishment it looked like the CS artillery position was deliberately aiming their guns at the CS dismounted cavalry! I was still a little hotheaded over the morning dose of blackpowder to the face, and the Lt. Col. said "Why are they doing that?" to which I replied, to the laughter of the whole battalion, "Its the Dismounted Cav. no likes them." To this day I still don't know for sure what that little Confederate on Confederate action was lol.

Moving on, It came time for us to launch our flank attack, which we marched through a swamp of mud to do, (good times), and as we neared the position dismounts were running tree to tree in the woods firing off at us while falling back. They then started falling back into the open on their left, with us crossing a creek in pursuit. As they fell back their path took then to the top of a small hill, and our Lt. Col. had his back to them while facing us barking orders and getting our line formed back up. Now our Lt. Col. is a collector of swords, and he is not in the habit of using the cheap India made knockoffs most officers opt for, and that weekend he was carrying an original Napoleonic French sword, a curuassier sword if I remember right. Back up on the hill one of the dismounts pulls his bonna fide cavalry saber, (it was a bayonet of a WW2 Japanese Type 38 rifle), and breaks ranks and charges down the hill waving his Jap bayonet like a fool, charging our Lt. Col. directly while his back was turned. We were loading our muskets, and when we saw it, several of us immediately yelled out to our Lt. Col. to watch out, which he couldn't here us, and through peripheral vision he saw the nut running up behind him and instinctively he turned and swung that sword as hard as expected. The dismounted idiot barely got his cute little polished WW2 bayonet up to his head in time to avoid it being cut off. After this happening our Lt. Col. knocked the idiot to the ground and held the sword to his face and told something to effect of "You dumb SOB this ain't no toy! I almost cut your stupid head off!" as I recall as we marched past him more than a few of us had choice words for him.

By the way in case no one noticed I don't care for Dismounted Cav. anymore. Used to I was live let live, so what they'll learn their lesson one day, but after years of them not learning to behave and that weekend, yeah myself and a few other showed a LOT of restraint in not running through they're camp at 2 a.m. with torches. If someone reading this is a dismount and doesn't like what I've said, I'm sorry, but it was experience that taught me.
 
Sounds like the same bunch of dismounts that show up at some of our events, they're all the same

And they wonder why they're banned from a lot of events, and hated at all the others by so many.

There needs to be some kind of campfire song describing them. Lord knows they provide plenty of material to work with.
 
I remember both that 90s tactical that set off the car alarms, and the cavalry sitting in front of the spectators at Cedar Creek! I also burned off my right eyebrow there once. Forgot to blow the loose powder off the top of my Sharps breechblock before firing. When I got home, my wife said "what's wrong with your eyebrow?" and I replied "what eyebrow?" We were both right.
 
Quite a few years ago a group wanted to reenact the first battle of Boonville, Missouri. On the first day, they correctly let the guys representing Lyon's force win. On the second day, they let the guys representing the Missouri State Guard win. Play acting at its best!
But there was nothing historical about it. By the way, this was years before the 150th anniversary reenactment. I wasn't at that one, but my wife worked a volunteer booth there. I have no idea whether it was historically accurate or not.
 
It isn't just "battles".

I remember being on guard duty at the weeklong Red River campaign event in Louisiana, 1999. I think it was the second night, so the "campaign" hadn't really started yet. Guard duty was just "filling the square" - until I saw the sentinel at the next post poking around in the meadow with a flashlight.

"What's going on over there?" I said.

"I think I heard a rattlesnake, and I'm trying to find it" was the reply.

OK - standing around in ankle-high weeds trying to find a poisonous snake in pitch dark? What could possibly go wrong?

"SERGEANT OF THE GUARD!!" I hollered.

After about 5 minutes, he appears. "What is it, Private?" Trying to stay in character, y'know...

"The next guy in line is trying to find a rattlesnake with a flashlight, Sergeant."

"PRIVATE!! HAVE YOU BEEN DRINKING?"

"No Sergeant!"

"WELL I HAVE -- AND I THOUGHT YOU JUST TOLD ME SOMEONE WAS LOOKING FOR A RATTLESNAKE WITH A FLASHLIGHT!"

"That's exactly what I said, Sergeant!"

"OH S---! That's what I thought you said!!" And he ran off into the weeds and "dealt with it"...
 
Over the last 50 years of ACW reenacting in the UK there have been many incidents, some involved fatalities but many more of these incidents, some serious, resulted in life changing injuries. For the most part these were the result of participants disobeying orders and/or doing something stupid. However a proportion of these were some people getting far to carried away with the battle and going way over the top trying to right some imagined wrong.
 
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