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"Letters
From the Host"
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| One hundred and forty-one years ago, near rocky Sullivan’s Island at the mouth of the Bay of Charleston, South Carolina, began one of the greatest conflicts in the history of our great nation. At 4:30 in the morning on April 12th, 1861, General Pierre T. Beauregard, a Confederate general from southern Louisiana, gave the order to open fire on Union-held Fort Sumter, opening one of the bloodiest phases in the history of young America. |  |
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the following 4 years, over 300,000 souls would lose their lives in the
struggle between a states-rights aristocracy in the South and a federally
empowered, non-slave holding North. Over 6 million people would eventually
participate in the war which pit neighbor vs. neighbor and friend vs.
friend. To put this in perspective, if the same percentage of our total
population today were to participate in a similar war, over 5.5 million
Americans would have to die to equal the devastating effect this war had
on the nation. As a result the Civil War was a major turning point in the
history of this nation, and the stories told of the harrowing experience
have become an integral part of the fabric of our nation’s history.
Today, thousands of Civil War aficionados across the country gather each year to celebrate the heroism and relive the experiences of these soldiers who gave their lives for our country during its darkest hours. Civil War buffs are not hard to find, as the sheer depth and breadth of the war has garnered a tremendous amount of support throughout the following generations. The most devoted of those who follow the Civil War actually transform themselves into those soldiers who marched across corn fields into waves of hot lead. This rag-tag group of computer technicians, doctors, lawyers, janitors, and now television hosts, are well-known as Civil War Reenactors. I recently had the opportunity to join up with a group of re-enactors based out of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Since I was born and raised in Texas, coming from a long line of Confederate descendants ( I had a great great great uncle in the Rebel infantry), I thought it only fitting that I join up with the Union army ( I wouldn’t want to show any favoritism!) so I could see things from a bit different but equitable point of view. My experience proved both enlightening and fascinating, as I transformed in a matter of hours from Devin Dennie, host of North Texas Explorer, to lowly Private D.P. Dennie, Company D, 1st Regimental Infantry, Union Army. It was a bright sunny Saturday morning in January, the crisp air with a bit of a bite to it as I stepped out of the car, and backwards in time almost a century and a half. When I arrived, the parking lot still looked sort of normal; there were a few guys in plain clothes digging in their cars, pulling out blue coats and hats (all seemingly normal). It is when you see the 1865 breech-loading muskets, complete with bayonets and cartridge bags full of powder; the coffee boiling over a fire in an old pot; a eagle-eyed man with a handle-bar mustache chewing on a long cigar and polishing his Union brass buckle and coat buttons that you realize, this is for real. You are going to BE a soldier in this man’s army. It didn’t take long to find our guide, Corporal Conway Barton of Company D. He explained that the entire regiment was about 100 men, with three companies of about 50 men each, Company A, C and Company D. I would be drilling with Company D that day. He soon had me decked out in Yankee blue and I had my very own rifle to shoot. As the drummer and bugle sounded, the parking lot emptied onto the open field of Veterans Park. The drill was on. The 1st Infantry is a charter member of the Frontier Brigade, a collection of Regiments west of the Mississippi River dedicated to Civil War living history. By their own accounts, "since 1972 the 1st has offered a home to those wishing to portray a Union impression in the most unreconstructed of states. Now ain’t that the truth! Since I was a new guy, a rookie Private to say the least, I and the other new enlistees first had to be shown the ropes. The majority of the time in "character" is spent just as the majority of time during the war was spent. Drill, drill, drill, then drill some more. And when your done, well, you might as well drill again. Cor. Barton introduced us to the different standing at attention positions, which one uses to hold the weapon at different states of alert. Some handholds, like this one, were meant to allow the soldier to "form ranks", or line up with the person next to or in front or behind to keep the rows of thousands of men heading in the proper direction. |