Impressions Starting a General Hancock impression

[Capt7thWvCoA]

Hello everyone, I am thinking about starting a impression of General Hancock. Any advice for me?

 

[Pollaco]

I would say walk with a limp. Remember the nail in the thigh.

 

[bayonet]

grow a nice mustache and goatee

 

[Capt7thWvCoA]

grow a nice mustache and goatee

Already working on it lol

 

[Pollaco]

Is this a solo thing or are you going to have Almira along?

 

[DBF]

Seems like I read somewhere that he was estimated to be as tall as President Lincoln which would put him at 6'4". You should at least (hopefully) be heads and shoulders among men. As this description of him states:

"He is tall in stature, robust in figure" and don't forget he was one of the best at cursing and always wore white, clean shirts.

Good Luck!!

 

[Pollaco]

Grant said that Hancock was "a man of very conspicuous personal appearance".

 

[Pollaco]

This probably won't be of any help in your impersonation but while reading about Hancock his biography stated that he had an identical twin brother, Hilary.

 

[Belfoured]

Hello everyone, I am thinking about starting a impression of General Hancock. Any advice for me?

I'd find a remote location and start bellowing a fine litany of what back then were politely referred to as "oaths".

 

[Cavalier]

I wish I could do that! Good luck with your project. And please post pictures if possible. You probably need to stock up on white shirts too.

John

 

[infomanpa]

Look at my profile pic. I have a head start on you.

 

[Rebel_Giratina]

Work on your period swearing! Even dropping the F-bomb if it's appropriate....

 

[gc45]

Work on your period swearing! Even dropping the F-bomb if it's appropriate....

Did men swear back then, same as today?

 

[Cavalier]

@gc45 Well they swore. But I have been trying to find out just what form their swearing took myself. With no luck. I have assumed it would be very different than ours is, but that's just an opinion. I know a couple of phrases that I can't repeat here of course, but for instances, was the f bomb common then? I don't know, but I'd love to find out.

John

 

[Capt7thWvCoA]

Is this a solo thing or are you going to have Almira along?

I'm going to try and convince my fiance to join me lol

 

[gc45]

@gc45 Well they swore. But I have been trying to find out just what form their swearing took myself. With no luck. I have assumed it would be very different than ours is, but that's just an opinion. I know a couple of phrases that I can't repeat here of course, but for instances, was the f bomb common then? I don't know, but I'd love to find out.

John

We do know that Scotland brought the F-word into the english , referring it to it as, fornication under the consent of kings. The actual word itself came from germany in the 1500's. One can onlt imagine this and other nasties of the day came forward to modern times..

 

[Library Lady]

You might find this helpful (or at least amusing):

Profanity | Civil War Potpourri

Many written accounts refer to descriptions of soldiers and their officers using profanity in battle situations. In the custom of the times, written accounts of the words used were often "bleeped" out by simply using dashes to substitute for the letters in the word, like d----d for "damned,"...

civilwartalk.com

I wonder if my colleagues at the Ask Us desk in Adult and Teen Services get asked to look up stuff like this?

Edited to add: Just Google "Swearing in the 1860s" and see what comes up. You won't be sorry you did.

 

[drezac]

I would suggest checking on his rank at various time periods during the war, and alter your impression so that the rank matches the time period of the event. There is someone around our area that does a Sherman impression, but he wears a rank that Sherman did not have until after the war ( and there are many of us that have noticed that notice that, and admittedly it lessens our respect for what he does). I think that when doing impressions of high profile officers, matching the rank to the time period is often overlooked but should be a part of the impression, since in most cases they progressed in rank during the war.

 

[bayonet]

I would suggest checking on his rank at various time periods during the war, and alter your impression so that the rank matches the time period of the event. There is someone around our area that does a Sherman impression, but he wears a rank that Sherman did not have until after the war ( and there are many of us that have noticed that notice that, and admittedly it lessens our respect for what he does). I think that when doing impressions of high profile officers, matching the rank to the time period is often overlooked but should be a part of the impression, since in most cases they progressed in rank during the war.

Back when I did reenacting there was some guy that would show up as Lincoln at the Battles we did. It would anger some guys because Lincoln was never at the battle. Plus he did a terrible impression.

 

[Pollaco]

I must agree ( sort of) .A lot of the impressions are done by people who are too old, too young, too short, too tall,too fat,too thin etc.Ego probably gets in the way of reality but before you go make a fool of yourself at a reenactment get an opinion or two. It's almost embarrassing to have a bad impression done at "your" reenactment.