Gettysburg 2013
So, I went to Gettysburg yesterday to spend the day with The Beard, which apparently is in it’s last days on the planet. Here The Beard quenches itself with frosty cold and Civil War era-authentic cans of Guinness. I’ll leave it for him to tell you about how his horse decided to attack the damn Yankees in a one man saber assault.
But here are some photos I took with my phone. It was supposed to be a reenactment of the Battle for Culp’s Hill, but I didn’t recognize it;
In this picture, you can see the infantry battle on the hill across from the Confederate artillery battery;
And a video of an infantry company returning from the battle to their camp;
I guess The Beard is staying one more day to participate on the wrong side of Pickett’s Charge so he can get “some trigger time”. I was impressed by these re-enactors, they kept up a pretty good rate of fire and temperature-wise it was in the 90s. Overall it was a good show.
ADDED: A video of the 21-gun salute to the re-enactors who took to the field in 1963. I think they said there were 50 of them in attendance yesterday;
Category: Historical
Cool.
The folks that do that are really dedicated, they do their best to make everything as historically accurate as possible !!!
Good job my friend !!!
I am glad the Beard and all his comrades are keeping this part of our history alive. It was nice to hear there were a lot of the 1963 “vets” there. Nice Job all of you men. I am surprised how authentic and accurate it all was.
There is something about those huge events that just is you can’t describe. I went there from California for the 135th. Un until then I had been doing events that had maybe 300 people tops. When we went out the last Day at Gettysburg it took about 90 minutes just to get the guys in camp lined up,,, you start marching out and you start seeing that your line of battle is 3 miles long and has over 12,000 reenactors in it the scale really hits you.
I don’t personally care for the battle re-enactments themselves, but I love the “living history” aspect of the re-enactors (encampments, seeing people in period costume on the battlefield, demonstrations on how to load and fire a field piece, etc.), it adds a lot to visits to the battlefield.
I think it no coincidence that some of the absolute worst Civil War generals were without full beards. McClellan, Butler, and Burnside come readily to mind. Some had huge porkchop sideburns, others condor-winged mustaches, still others a mix and match mess. But of the great generals, all, it seems, had full beards. It is altogether fitting TSO’s beard should be retired at Gettysburg.
Counterpoint-Patrick Cleburne and N.B. Forrest himself maintained goatees throughout the war (or Cleburne did until he was killed anyway), so maybe TSO should go in for a trim instead (and shift his re-enacting to the west).
To The Beard: Awesomeness. I want the entire story.
Is The Beard keeping a journal of this event?
Facial Hair was pretty much the norm, though regulations in the AOP cited that hair had to be restricted to a certain length and men had to bathe once or twice a week
My question is why doesn’t the beard have its own can? LOL.
I can see in 150 years when they’re doing re-enactments from Iraq, they’ll need somebody to play the insurgents…. to make it real, they’ll need cowards who have sex with goats and can only attack Americans by sneaking an IED on the side of the road.
Great shots! Probably would be out there in “blue” if I could have made time for it.
It is rumored that, when TSO and the beard entered upon the field of battle, clutching his canned libation, both North and South surrendered …
A very moving and pretty place.