On the Road Again...

I found out yesterday that my boss was giving me the day off today since we're all set for the beginning of camp next week. I jumped at the opportunity to have a long weekend and spent today driving so I can spend the weekend with Melissa. The construction around DC was crazy not because it caused any appreciable delays, but because whomever planned the construction decided to route all four lanes in large S curves every mile or so. I'm not entirely sure why there hasn't been any major accidents there. I never hit any large delays until I was outside the Squirrel Hill Tunnels. As far as I'm concerned Pittsburgh tunnel traffic can be worse than DC construction.

I'll be back in Petersburg come Monday, but for now its really good to be back in Pittsburgh.

National Geographic

Today the National Geographic Society has set up shop at stop #3 of the park's tour road. They're filming some sort of documentary for the 150th anneversary of the Civil War, and they liked the setting here so much that they decided to do a major day of filming here. Stop three is set up to show what typical fortifications would have looked like during the siege of Petersburg. The National Geographic crew brought in about 30 reenactors to play roles in the film. I have no idea what the title of the documetary is or when it'll come out, but I'm going to do my best to find out. Evidently the director picked this park over several others because of the setting that Stop #3 and some other parts of the park provide.

I visitied Stop #3 this morning, saw the crew get set up, and all the reenactors get their equipment inspected.I took quite a lot of picutres. Its' a little stange to see the bike rack being used as a prop for cavalry sabers and to see Union officers talking over a cup of coffee and ... Dunkin Doughnuts Unfortunately I am not allowed to show you any pictures of the making of the film until it actually comes out.

Earlier this moring I was north of Petersburg at what used to be called City Point. That is where Gen. U.S. Grant had his headquarters during the siege. It is the site of the old Appomattox Manor (Not Appomattox Courthouse, the site of Lee's surrender). The area is beautiful and right on both the Appomattox and James rivers. The plantation house belonged to the Eppes family who owned many slaves. The Union quartermaster general took over the plantation when the siege began. Gen. Grant lived nearby during the siege in a small cabin. I can show you pictures of City Point.

Appomattox Manor

Appomattox Manor - Rear View

Grant's Cabin

A Magnolia Tree

Magnolia Blossom 

A Storm to Raise the Dead

Last night there was a huge storm that blew through all of central Virginia. The lightning was rapid and close to my quarters. There were periods of really hard rain and some hail. The storm started brewing around 5pm and I could still hear the angry sound of thunder until I went to bed at 11pm. This morning everything was damp and humid, but at least it no longer feels like walking into an oven every time I step outside.

I noted that yesterday I did some digging. The storm last night decided it would also like to do some digging and toppled quite a few trees in the Poplar Grove section of the park. Poplar Grove is a cemetery where many Union soldiers were buried after the siege of Petersburg was over. The uprooted trees unearthed two graves. One was a known grave but another was unknown. I haven't had a chance to go out there today, but below is a picture taken by one of the staff members who did. The picture shows one of the fallen trees... and yes that is a tombstone it its roots.

I haven't heard of any...remains being found but such things are not unheard of.

The Heat

This morning I went with the park's resource management staff to do an archeological suvey of an area that might become a parking lot. We didn't find much but it was fun digging.

In other news: After calculating the heat index it is 103 degrees today. That is all.

Load in nine times

Yesterday I spent the entire day learning how to load, drill, fire, and clean an 1861 U.S. Springfield rifle. The morning was spent learning the basics of civil war troop organization and order of battle so we didn't embrass ourselves when talking with visitors to the park. Next the three of us in the class learned all the parts of the rifle and drilled with them over and over and over until we could repeat the firing procedure by memory. We then got into wool uniforms and stepped out into the 93 degree heat. At first the wool held in the cool of the air conditioned building that we'd been in but that wore off rather quickly. Our instructor (Randy) had us form a rank and march doing various changes in direction for about a mile. In addition to our uniforms we wore cartrige pouches, haversacks, cap pouches, bayonetts, and canteens. By the time we stopped to learn how to actually fire the guns we were all dripping sweat and our right arms were aching from holding a rifle at the slightly awkward position of 'shoulder arms'.

We'd already learned the loading process so we were glad to be able to go throught those motions without much delay this time with life ammunition. The loading process for a Civil War soldier is called 'Load in Nine Times' and that is the order a soldier would hear if he were being drilled. I won't bore you with the whole process, but it does have nine steps and the last two are 'Ready!' and 'Aim!' followed by a seperate order to 'Fire!'.

Any of you who've fired weapons before will know that I'm no expert on the subject, but I will give a few thoughts on the things I found remarkable. First, I understand now why the millitary emphasizes drill so much. Actions become automatic and therefore easier to do. One member of our group, who began the day unsure about firing a weapon, ended it by throughly enjoying the feeling. Second, blackpowder really gets your hands dirty. Third, there was almost no kick. I was expecting to really need to plant my feet when firing but I hardly needed to. Lastly, the sound was perhaps the most impressive thing. It hardly needs to be said that this was nothing compared to the cannon, but the report from the rifle was very loud and much deeper than modern guns I think. It could have easily been heard miles away. For people elsewhere in the park the sound of three guns firing in rapid succession must have sounded like the opening of a battle.

As quick as I like to think we were, we were actually pretty slow. Some soldiers during the Civil War could fire three shots every minute, and that's impressive.  I'm not sure how they did it.

Below is a picture of me in full uniform about to fire. I'm hoping I can use the uniform and rifle to do demonstrations for the kids later in the summer.

      

Cannons....Part II

I actually got to see a cannon demonstration yesterday. The park was full of visitors the past few days and because of that they decided to bring in a few people to fire the cannon. The one that typically gets fired is extremely well taken care of and the brass has been polished until it shines. The sound of the thing going off was like having lightning strike twenty yards from me. There is a huge concussive sound and I could feel the air pressurize. The pressurized air and the sound hit me like a wave that I could feel mostly in my chest and in my feet as the ground shook. The only thing that kept my ears from ringing was the fact that the cannoners instructed all of the onlookers to put our fingers in our ears and open our mouths to relieve the pressure build up. Even after my hands left my ears, however, I could hear the echo ringing through the woods. Smoke filled the air partly obscuring everything over 30 yards away. Just imagine what it must have been to see (and feel) a whole battery of five guns open up at once and be answered by enemy fire from a little over 1000 yards at most. Yesterday evening the cannoners were firing blank charges. Real ammunition would have whistled, exploded, and sent showers of dirt, gravel, and shrapnel flying everywhere.

My first black powder training is later this morning hopefully I'll be able to assist in firing the cannon next time they do it.