I'm curious to see if there are any fellow reenactors on here. I reenact American Civil War, and the period of 1865-1880 as a civilian.
Any historical reenactors?
- Thread starter kw1861
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I was with the First Nebraska Infantry Volunteers for a long time. I don't currently reenact though.
I don't do it, but I think it's super cool. One of my favorite memories from when I was younger is going to the rendezvous at Fort de Chartres near my house and watching all of the reenactment activities. The smell of campfires and gunpowder, the sound of cannons and rifles, and the people walking around in period dress. I'm an absolute dork for it.
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I absolutely love doing it, I've been doing them for about 5 years.
If you saw how I dressed, you'd say I was re-enacting the 1960s.
I'm assuming you've read "Confederates In the Attic"?
Owen Bawn
Garden party cupcake scented
Several friends have worked as characters at Plimoth Plantation, the 1627 Pilgrim living history museum in Plymouth MA. They've been trained in C17 accents, they're all well read in Puritan and Separatist history and theology, and social customs. Fascinating jobs.
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I have, the lengths some reenactors go to be perfectly accurate astounds me.
We have a few groups here, seen at the civil war forts. Enjoy seeing them. One must keep history alive, especially these days. Try tearing down a reenactor with a bayonet! 
As a gun guy, I cringed when the one kept putting the steel buttplate of his $800 Enfield on concrete ... Nice scratches. (Rest it on the top of your boot.)
Then, misfires with the volley of blanks. My flintlocks don't even misfire.
But wearing that wool in the summer heat: you got me there.
AA
As a gun guy, I cringed when the one kept putting the steel buttplate of his $800 Enfield on concrete ... Nice scratches. (Rest it on the top of your boot.)
Then, misfires with the volley of blanks. My flintlocks don't even misfire.
But wearing that wool in the summer heat: you got me there.
AA
- Thread starter
- #10
Yep, loose powder and misfires are close friendsWe have a few groups here, seen at the civil war forts. Enjoy seeing them. One must keep history alive, especially these days. Try tearing down a reenactor with a bayonet!
As a gun guy, I cringed when the one kept putting the steel buttplate of his $800 Enfield on concrete ... Nice scratches. (Rest it on the top of your boot.)
Then, misfires with the volley of blanks. My flintlocks don't even misfire.
But wearing that wool in the summer heat: you got me there.
AA
. And yes, reenactors are not particularly well known for caring for their firearms ( I'm an exception I like to think). As far as the wool goes, if you sweat enough, you turn into a swamp cooler. It helps take the edge off. And finally, it would be a VERY bad idea to try to tear a reenactor down, bayonet or not. He'll tear you down.
I’m not terribly active these days but I do play in the SCA—Society for Creative Anachronism, a medieval group, from time to time. I do archery thus my username.
I worked in a living history museum for over 30 years but never put on a costume.
I worked in a living history museum for over 30 years but never put on a costume.
I would love to do it, but as mentioned, all that wool... I am allergic to it, and the heat would kill me. So I never got into it, though I really wanted to (and here in Maryland there are plenty of places that like having living history displays from Ft McHenry to Monocasey Battlefield Park.
@Saxonbowman NERD!! Kidding... I have known a lot of SCAers. You friends with the Badgers? The Dark Horde?
@Saxonbowman NERD!! Kidding... I have known a lot of SCAers. You friends with the Badgers? The Dark Horde?
I don’t know the Badgers but I have at least one friend in the Dark Horde. He’s a fellow archer who used to live down here in Virginia.
One of my favorite weird trivia facts about medieval bowmen is that their forearm bones were actually deformed from the insane draw weight on those yew longbows. I don't know if that's a myth or not though. Supposedly you can look at a medieval skeleton's forearm bones and say, "this guy was an archer."
Also, the arrows from those longbows were basically armor piercing projectiles, they traveled with such crazy force.
Owen Bawn
Garden party cupcake scented
I went to college with a guy from Cork named Mick Barry. He used to say his goal in life was to inherit wealth, discover his Norman roots, change his name from Mick Barry to Guillaume DuBarre, and retire to a motte & bailey in Cork from whence he would rain longbow arrows down the hill into the bowels of the "mere" Irish below.
Life didn't go that way for him. He sells Chill Insurance in an office in Cork.
All true! The actual projectile points were long and thin which helped to penetrate the armor. I’ve never pulled an actual warbow which had a draw weight of about 200 lbs. I believe it was from the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s ship which went down in the Thames, that they recovered archer skeletons which showed the deformity in the bones from the muscle build up.
Have you been to old Sturbridge Village?
Went on school trips several times.
All my family were pilgrims. Family name of Kempton so arrived a couple of years of the originals and married with the originals. Arrived from Berwick Upon Tweed.
Owen Bawn
Garden party cupcake scented
Yes I've been to Sturbridge. I knew a guy who portrayed Fr James Fitton at Sturbridge. Fitton was a C19 Catholic priest whose mission territory in the 1820s-40s went from Worcester to Providence to New Haven & north to the VT border. He followed gangs of Irish canal and railway workers around. This was prior to the Famine, of course, which flooded New England with Irish.
