Advice for the new reenactor recruits

Now just about anyone in the hobby can help you get involved in this sometimes-insane activity, but it is the small stuff that gets overlooked sometimes.

So you got yer yerself entangled inspite of my warnings of impending addiction and here ya are surrounded by yer new gray uniform. You got a spanking new .58 caliber three-banded Enfield shoulder cannon, a fine canteen full of Doctor Pepper, a haversack stuffed with hardtack and other possibles, and about thirty rounds of good ole black powder lady fingers. You have worked yerself into a excited blood-lust and are thinking, "Just show me a d---Yankee and I'll - !"

The cannons began to roar and the muskets began to rattle (muskets always rattle doncha know), you hear this command "COMPANY - ON MY COMMAND - " Hey you are trembling, why are you trembling? "- FIRE!"

Well now, that is fun. Be careful, this has an addictive feel already. You spend the next 25 minutes shooting them "blue bellies" and then you hear a voice behind you say "Take a hit!"

You have been taught that this means to fall dead on the ground. Like a good, loyal soldier that has given his life, you dramatically drop your piece and flop to the ground as your life blood pores from your poor bullet-riddled body. Others are falling, you open an eyeball and squint around - hey what the samhill is that crawling up my pant leg???? OH NO, it's fire ants! I'l be eaten alive - I ain't supposed to move... I'm supposed to be dead - YEOW they are stinging me - dead or no dead I'm outahere. You jump up and scurry off and ruin a perfectly good death scene. As you leave you hear the other dead bodies chuckling.

You see it's the little things that they don't tell you about, like picking yer place to fall dead. Yeah and there are a lot of other things they don't say anything about, like be sure that stopper is secure in the canteen or you will lose yer Doctor Pepper. And marching three miles in new brogans means blister blisters blisters.

After the first battle if you are the average recruit you will be thinking something like, This was supposed to be fun and I think I have enjoyed about all I can stand. But after you recover some you will most likely be saying "Ah - when did you say the next reenactment takes place?"

Ya see, yer hooked. I don't know why it works that way but it does.