I’m going to rock you like a gravel road: A weekend at Monocacy!

I have a confession.  I don’t wear underwear when I do Civil War living history.

No, instead of underwear, I wear period correct split leg drawers that come down to my knees.  There was this deliciously bizarre moment this weekend when the guys were pulling up their trousers comparing socks and drawers and I was showing off the blue ribbon at the bottom of my drawers, which led to me asking, “Can I touch your sock?”

Yes.

This weekend, the sesquicentennial rolled into Monocacy National Battlefield for their 150th Anniversary event.  The decision had previously been made that we would “rough” it this weekend, meaning, instead of getting a hotel room, we were going to sleep on the battlefield.  My initial response to this was “ehhhhhhh” followed by uncomfortable laughter.  But, whatever, I’ll be a good sport and try it.  Frederick, Maryland is practically within spitting distance, so in the event of frog sized spiders, rain, plagues, whatever, there’s always the means for escape.

Just like the Gettysburg sesquicentennial event.

But, unlike the Gettysburg event, we didn’t have rain, park rangers showing up at midnight shining flashlights into car windows looking for medical emergencies, or heat/humidity to the point of sleeping in underwear and/or passing out in the middle of the demo.  So, you can call that a success.  No hotel rooms needed.

Upon arriving, once we were checked in with the park rangers and all official like, we were given gold medals.  Which, frankly, is a great way to start any event.  Welcome to Monocacy: here’s your medal.  Sure, they were just our volunteer identification medals and mine spent the weekend jammed in between my boobs in my corset, but it’s awesome.  I want to wear mine to work tomorrow.

The Hubs, a member of our group Kevin, and I promptly traversed what appeared to be a soybean field and checked out the position of the artillery pieces for the event.  That’s what you do.  We were delighted to see we had an entire battery–four guns–for the weekend.  Yes!  Section fire!  Battery fire!  Boys, black powder, and a sassy little Napoleon light gun howitzer.  My three favorite things.

As much as I love watching artillery demos and swooning over the boys who fire said artillery pieces, I am also an incredibly huge fan of just hanging out in camp, laughing and talking.  This weekend we compiled a list of our top pickup lines.  Of note:

• I’m going to rock you like a gravel road
• Step into the stairwell and I’ll show you where your kidneys are
• Can I palpate your liver?
• Well, if you need an ambulance one can be here in three minutes.

Three of these have happened to me (the last one happened this weekend and was not, I felt, an effective means of flirting).  The top one is my favorite and one I kind of want to have made into a t-shirt.  That’s not just a pickup line.  That’s a life motto.

Interestingly enough, my forthcoming novel takes place in Frederick, Maryland and, up until this weekend, I’ve never actually been to Frederick, Maryland.  I relied extensively on Google when writing my book.  Anyway, so, after Saturday’s events I was kidnapped by three Confederates and one Union artillerymen and whisked away to Landon House.  Landon House (which is currently under extensive renovation) features in possibly the longest chapter in my book and was site of the 1862 Jeb Stuart extravaganza, The Roses and Sabers Ball.  Union artilleryman Jeff said, “You’re going to be disappointed because it’s being renovated.  Just remember that.  It’s under construction.”

Maybe from the road looking down the lane and thinking, “I’d imagined it further away from the road” was me being disappointed, but up close the history nerd broke loose like some kind of scholarly Hulk-esq transformation and I squealed.  Took a selfie.  And I think I jumped up and down several times.

Rumor has it I also said things like, “Jeb Stuart was HERE!  Omg.”

Weird doesn’t even begin to describe me, I know.

Also weird was our discovery of Babar murals and an extremely sad koi fish/overly happy frog murals in the exposed basement of Landon House.  I’m not…I’m just not really sure why someone would paint a sad koi fish on the wall of anything.  “The koi fish is sad because you don’t put away your toys.”  Bizarre.  And why is the koi fish so sad but the frogs are happy?  If we’re consumed by Landon House, do the frogs disappear and the koi fish is suddenly happy?  It’s another novel entirely, I suppose, but somehow we eventually segued from my Confederates trying to scandalize me with salacious talk, Union Jeff apologizing profusely, me able to hang on par with salacious talk, and then being accepted as one of their own.  There was talk of camisoles, one-handed soldiers, roosters named Meatball.  And then someone said, “We probably aren’t supposed to be up here.”

“We’ll just drive away really fast.”

“Yeah, because no one would ever be able to pick us out of a lineup.  What were they wearing?  Three Confederates, a Yankee, and a chick in a hoop skirt.”

“Oh.  Well.  They’ll just think we belong up here then.  I’m sure it’s fine.”

I’ll tell you what, it was an insanely fun time.  It reminded me a lot of Gettysburg last year, with the laughter and eating dinner with my guys at the Trostle Farm.  Doing living history for the frank love of history is awesome, but hanging out with friends like these are the best.  We share a mutual love of history, shenanigans, and inappropriateness.  We make obscure references and get really, overly excited about standing in historical places.  We know more than you want to know about how artillery pieces are made and tactics and the historical applications of mercury and how prostatitis may or may not have affected AP Hill at Gettysburg.  As my friend Luke said, “We’re all cut from the same cloth.”  Not everyone wants to run around in the heat, humidity, ticks, and spiders the size of sparrows but we do.  These are some of the coolest people I know.

I’m completely bummed out that our living history schedule of events is blank until October.  We’ll possibly be at Cedar Creek, but definitely at Harpers Ferry.  Halloween at the Heights!  More on that to come.

So, Monocacy was awesome.  The battery fire was awesome.  Running around with The Hubs and my artillery guys was awesome.  My strangely shaped sunburn is not awesome and looks ridiculous with a tank top.  My lips are chapped.  But it was completely worth it.

As confessions go, I don’t wear underwear when I reenact.  I run around with artillerymen and Yankees and laugh at dirty jokes and have the mouth of a well-educated sailor.  I may have been in a closed area this weekend looking at weird murals.

I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

(Special shout out to my guys: She just had really good muscle control and he had a wrist.  You know,  because of the war)

Halloween at the Heights: Artillery in Harpers Ferry

Firmly on the other side of the government shut down (ahem, for now) and before the government sequester sets in (sorry Sesquicentennial 2014), this past weekend was our annual jaunt to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia for Artillery Weekend.

Let me rephrase.  Artillery Weekend!

Taking a step backwards, this weekend I learned that the rumored government sequester (or as so many of my Virginia friends are calling it, the Seeeee-questor) is rapidly approaching.  Here’s how a park ranger described the sequester this weekend: “The government cuts funding from the National Parks and eliminates public events like this.”  We saw the sequester rear its ugly head at Gettysburg, when Antietam wasn’t able to send an artillery piece to the event and we only had three guns instead of four.  Rumor has it that a lot of park events are in jeopardy for next year because there’s no guarantee there will be any money to fund them.  It sucks.  It just really, really sucks.

But, we had Artillery Weekend!

Harpers Ferry.  Ahh, a vile little town with a sordid history full of murder, siege, battles, explosions, floods, and fires.  The town changed hands, like, six times during the war.  John Brown raided the town in 1859 and tried to take over the US Armory and Arsenal to arm the slaves and incite a slave revolt.  The townspeople blew up the Arsenals.  The Confederate Army stole the Armory machinery.  Half the town was burned to wipe out supposed sharpshooter nests.  The railroad bridge was blown up.  The town was shelled.  The “Harpers Ferry Cowards” was the largest number of US soldiers taken prisoner until WWII; the surrender ceremony took place on what is now Bolivar Heights Battlefield.

The Baltimore Light Artillery was present for the actual Siege of Harpers Ferry.

This weekend we only had one gun, also known as my least favorite artillery piece on the planet, a 3 inch ordinance rifle.  I know.  Beggars can’t be choosers.  But give me a Napoleon or a Parrot any day.

Prior to going to the Ferry, I’d gotten an email reminding me to dress warm.  Which is fine, because let’s face it, I always dress warm.  When I get to Day job in the morning, I’m trudging into work wearing two sweaters and a jacket, whereas most of the females I pass are wearing capris and sandals.  Still.  No, I’m sorry, I wear a sweater in the winter time.  I’m fairly sure my thyroid is, at this point, just taking up space in my neck.

When I think cold, usually I think Cedar Creek, a battle which took place in October 1864.  The last time we went to a reenactment there was 2006, but I distinctly remember sweating profusely during the day and freezing my tail off at night.  You have to have a little crazy in you to agree to wander about a battlefield in 30 degree weather.

So, there we are.  Crazy and Mrs. Crazy.  I brought my heavy wool cloak and, though my girth is blocking it, we were standing near the fire.  I say “near the fire” because I’ve never been so terrified as when I was, literally one week into reenacting, when my mentor told me her contact lenses melted to her eyeballs because she was by the fire for too long.  That sound you hear is me walking to the car and sitting inside, rather than sitting by the fire.

You may notice that little pile of blankets.  You see, some of the other guys in the Baltimore Light Artillery were sleeping outside that night.  That little pile of blankets was someone’s bed.

As we notoriously established during this year’s Gettysburg event, I’m old.  And weak.  And I sleep in a hotel room.  Actually, this time we had no choice, because we brought The Rowdy Boys with us–which is a whole separate blog post entirely.  Imagine that silhouette chasing two small children down a hill, while the short blond one says, “Beat you!”  Yikes.

I’ll admit, I had a minor meltdown when I realized The Hubs had forgotten to pack my dress.  The dress I wanted–and thought was in the bin–was the Gettysburg dress.  Striped.  The dress I’m wearing is too big and, regrettably, unhooks if I move the wrong way.  Not striped.

The Hubs said, “It’s the same dress.”

My brain, at this point, exploded.  “No, it’s not the same dress.  There’s a picture of us in the living room of me wearing the striped dress.  This is not a striped dress.”

The Hubs: “No.  But it’s the dress you wore.”

In 2006, Hubs.  I last wore this dress in 2006.  I wanted to lash out irrationally at him or call him names that would make his mother blush.  Instead I said, “I’m not going.  I’m going to stay in the room and write.”

Obviously that didn’t fly.  Because the threat “I’m just going to stay here and write” never seems to work on people.  “I’ll eat that entire pie” is believable.  “I’ll throw out all your underwear before I’ll wash it again” slows him down.  It’s like when I was a kid.  Please.  Please just send me to my room because, really, that’s where I wanted to be in the first place.

I went to the event anyway.  I refused to wear my hat, as demonstrated above, but I was there.  I was charming.  My children were reasonably well-behaved.  It was standard as events go, no out of control shenanigans like at Gettysburg.  Harpers Ferry is always a high point in the year, since the BLA has done the event since 1986 (obviously, I wasn’t there in 1986 because I was four) and because The Hubs and I lived in the Ferry for eight months after college.  Sure, we had no money and ate Long John Silvers and pizza rolls.  But it was fantastic!  It was the kind of fantastic you can only do when you’re twenty-two because you’re carefree and rebellious.

Yes.  I just admitted that the extent of my rebellion has been living at a National Park and volunteering with their living history department.  My parents were bored during my teenage years.  I was sitting in my room writing the entire time.

Speaking of writing, that didn’t happen for me this weekend.  Well, I wrote a paragraph in the car on the way to the Ferry.  Other than that, I just carried my notebooks around with me and made idle threats of writing, then instead fell asleep with my eyeliner on.  Will this affect my prior, anti-NaNo stance?  We’re in the home stretch before NaNo starts…and I’m still on the fence.  As usual.  Every single year, last-minute decisions and lots of hemming and hawing before just going it.  We’ll see what happens on Friday.

If you didn’t make it out to the event this weekend (and I know you didn’t, because you didn’t say hello to me), if the sequester doesn’t leave us all in a standstill, rumor has it that you might catch us at Antietam, Spotsylvania, and/or Monocacy in 2014.  Maybe Gettysburg, maybe not.  There’s a ton of 150th events to be had!  Time to start saving up my diem to carpe in style.

This Republic of Suffering: Reflections on Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day, friends!  I wrote this piece some time ago for a blog tour, but I think it’s kind of appropriate for today.  And, if you want more of my normal sarcasm twinged hilarity, check out last year’s post on how Army Guys get me hot by clicking here.

I’m a history girl with a writing problem.  Or, maybe a writing girl with a history problem; regardless, I have an out of control passion for the American Civil War.  I am a Civil War reenactor.  I like Civil War trivia.  I like running around Civil War battlefields.  My blog, The Rambling Jour, is actually named after an obscure firsthand account of the clerk of the provost marshal’s office in Harpers Ferry during the war.

And I like writing about the Civil War.

Don’t get me wrong, there are things about the Civil War I don’t like.  I’ve never read Gone with the Wind.  Tactics and strategies put me to sleep.  I thrive in the effect the war had on civilians and medical procedures.  I’d rather read about the role of women and how that role changed as the war changed.

My recently completed novel, Anything You Ask of Me, is about all three of those key elements.  In 1862, a society girl turned spy must decide which is more important: the married general who asks her to risk everything for him, or the man tasked to stop her at any cost.

There is a monument in Gettysburg, near the copse of trees on the third day’s portion of the battlefield, inscribed with a few simple words: Double canister at twenty yards.

Canister shot.  Canister shot is basically a tin can full of golf ball sized steel balls; it turns an artillery piece into a giant shot-gun.  Double canister is two rounds of canister shot jammed into the barrel of the piece.

The effect of the human body is devastating.  These are the men listed in the ominous “missing” column in the ranks of casualties.  These are the men who simply disappear in a pink mist.

We have a nasty habit of referring to the Civil War as “the last gentleman’s war” or the last war before the initiation of modern warfare.  But this is so far from the truth.  Soft lead bullets, like the Minié ball, enter the body the size of a quarter but come out the size of a pancake.  If a soldier survives his wound, it is more than likely he will die of infection.  In the 1860s, we could see bacteria under microscopes—we knew it was there—but we didn’t understand how it impacted the human body.  This was the cusp of medical breakthroughs.  The war forced us to understand.

This is why I write historical fiction.

I’m a twenty-first century girl.  I drive an SUV to work.  I sit in front of a computer all day long.  I listen to Swedish Death Metal (I know, this actually surprised me too) on my iPhone while I edit my novel on my laptop.  I talk on a cell phone and wear jeans and eyeliner and take for granted all of our modern conveniences.

But I’ve also been cinched into a corset.  I’ve ridden in the back of a temperance wagon and marched in a temperance parade.  I’ve sat in a dry goods store and hand sewn a quilt by kerosene lamp and sewn on a period treadle sewing machine.  I’ve felt the rumble in my chest when a 12 pound light gun howitzer artillery piece was fired near me.  I’ve done archaeology of an antebellum house and held shattered pottery in my hand, textiles not handled by a human since, in one moment one hundred and fifty years ago, it broke and was discarded.  I’ve been touched by the past and it haunts me.  I refuse to forget the sacrifices of those who came before us and stared death in the face—and chose to march forward anyway.

This is why I write historical fiction.  Because those who are remembered, never die.

Antietam: Jeb Stuart does nothing, yet I still swoon

Day One of the A to Z Challenge! I’m so proud of myself for following through with Day One and not epically failing in between yesterday’s declaration of taking part in the challenge and then actually…you know, taking part in the challenge.

So. Day one. A.

In the Heather Hambel Curley Book of Letters (sounds like a Dr. Who plot point), A stands for Antietam.

As I may have mentioned once or twice, I kind of dig Antietam. The small, shall we say picturesque town of Sharpsburg was in the wrong place at the wrong time in September of 1862, when the Union and Confederate armies planted themselves down and glared at each other from across the fields, waiting for daybreak. At the dying of night-before 6am- they ripped into each other with an artillery barrage.

The battle itself lasted approximately 13 hours, during which there were 27,000 casualties. Men were literally torn to shreds. The glint of sunlight off the bayonets of men hidden in The Cornfield results in mass casualties when artillery is turned on them. The Sunken Road, no more than a farm path, has bodies stacked in it, bloodied mangled corpses photographed after the battle.

Medical triage is pretty basic: save those you know you can save and leave the rest. Head wounds, belly wounds, chest wounds are left on the field. Those you might be able to save are hauled to a field hospital. Wounds are packed with morphine. The men wait.

The problem with soft lead that was used in Civil War bullets is that it decimates bone. The bone shatters and all those little shards of bone explode into surrounding flesh. If you leave those shards where they are, it’s going to be painful. It’s going to get infected. And you’re probably going to amputate in the long run.

So you amputate now.

A good rule of thumb seems to be to amputate at the next joint up: for example, amputate at the elbow for a wound in the forearm. The surgeons were fast. Limbs piled up outside of public buildings, such as the shelled churches in town.

When the battle ended and the armies left, the population of Sharpsburg was left with the dead. Bodies were buried where they fell, the corpses of horses were burned. Citizens wrote how, as they approached town, they were hard pressed to find a place to step that wasn’t covered with a corpse.

I read an article that a few weeks after the battle, a farmer was plowing his fields and found the severed arm of a soldier. He preserved in alcohol and eventually it was preserved properly, remaining on display in a private collection until recently. The Civil War Medical Museum had tests done on it prior to the 150th Anniversary of the battle. It was determined it was a young individual. The arm was wrenched from the joint, the twisting damage most likely done by artillery.

27,000 in 13 hours.

Antietam is, technically, a tactical draw. Lee is never pushed from the field. But it’s enough of a victory for Lincoln to issue his Emancipation Proclamation.

Antietam plays a pretty substantial role in the first half of my novel, starting out with Jeb Stuart’s Roses and Sabers Ball and culminating with the battle itself. Unfortunately Jeb Stuart’s role in the actual battle was on the ho-hum side, since he was evidently on Nicodemus Hill most of the time. Just being awesome I guess. Or, as Dorsey Pender said of him, “calculating.”

I haven’t gotten confirmation from The Hubs that we’re going to Antietam this year. I’ll be bummed if we don’t. Most of my vacation time is being spent on not one, BUT TWO trips to Gettysburg. As the kids say, woot woot.

Antietam has become my happy place. It’s the screen saver on my computer at work (actually, it’s a picture of The Hubs firing artillery at Antietam!), it’s the case on my iPhone, it’s like, five chapters in my novel. I recommend going, if you can, and walking across Burnside’s Bridge or through Bloody Lane. It’s silent now. But the tragedy remains.

For more information, visit the National Park Service’s website by clicking here.

Ain’t no party like an Antietam party,’cuz the Antietam party don’t stop!

Well, we got to Antietam around 9:30am and it was already almost 80 degrees out. This is not something that brings joy to the hearts of individuals about to dress in wool.

The baby and I were also not excited. Well, the baby was not excited because I slathered him in sunscreen and forced him to wear a goofy hat. I decided that, out of the baby’s best interest, I would not dress out. Let’s be honest: it’s hard enough to wrangle a six month old without having to simultaneously wrangle a hoop skirt.

So we went back to the hotel while The Hubs set off artillery. It was probably better that way, since people were going down from the heat and ambulances called before 11:30am.

But I still managed to get sunburn on my back, complete with hilarious lines where the baby held on to my shoulder.

One thing I did NOT miss about not dressing out was the inevitable question: “Are you hot in that?”

Let’s see. I’m dressed in cotton stockings, leather shoes, calf length split leg drawers, a chemise, a corset, a hoop skirt and a dress. Meanwhile, you’re dressed in a tank top and shorts and are sweating buckets.

Yes. Yes I am.

I was stoked to watch the event this time. The baby and I just hung out and played tourist for awhile. Antietam is a stark contrast to Gettysburg. Whereas Gettysburg has tons of commercialism and thousands of monuments, Antietam has farm land and a few monuments. There’s a feeling of old timeyness that I dig.

I did have some trouble imagining what the field looked like during the battle. The cornfield, where soldiers died still laying in the lines they had marched in, is open ground. The woods are open fields. But the Sunken Road, also known as Bloody Lane is there! I spent lots of time loitering in the Sunken Road, snapping pics:

Accounts and historical photographs tell us the bodies were stacked up in the Sunken Road.

I don’t know if it was the heat this weekend, but Antietam was pretty deserted. Which was nice, while I posed for my ubiquitous self portraits:

I did have a brief moment of creep-ed out, when walking behind Dunker Church. It kept sounding like someone was tramping along next to me, but inside the wood line. I’d stop and look. Nothing. Keep walking. Same thing. I don’t know, just weird. I can easily convince myself of anything, but i can deny the weird factor. Not as weird as the ghost I may have seen at Gettysburg, but that’s a another blog post completely.

So, look, here’s the plan: Antietam’s sesquicentennial is in September. I’m in. The Hubs and I anticipate leaving the kiddos at home and running amok reenacting the 150th of the entire campaign: Siege and Capture of Harpers Ferry, South Mountain, Antietam. Epic.

Makes me tired just thinking about it.

But hey, I got a ton of outlining down on my Civil War WiP. So hurray for that! Seriously, when it comes to the Civil War, the best way for me to add authenticity to my writing is to wriggle in the history.

I don’t consider Antietam wriggled yet, but come September, the party begins.

I’m in Gettysburg in June. That never happens.

I never come to Gettysburg in the summer time. It’s touristy. There’s ghost tours running around nonstop. You stick to the bathroom floors. Lines of traffic are long. The wait for a parking spot at Little Round Top is longer. Blah, it’s just frustrating.

And yet, here I am! Taking photos of myself!

Being mischievous and yet tantalizing at the same time! And the view from our hotel room:

Wildlife! Okay cows. But still. Coincidentally (read: totally not coincidentally) one of my current works in progress takes place during the Civil War. So, in a way, this is research. I find Gettysburg insanely inspiring. The tragedy of what happened here, the lives that were lost; it’s just overwhelming. Take for example, the most haunting monument, in my opinion. It’s near the copse of trees, the Third Day’s battle. It’s just a rectangular monument that you might over look, with a scene of artillery carved on the side. Basically, it’s marking the spot where double canister was shot at advancing troops from twenty yards away. Twenty yards.

Canister shot is a little canister of metal balls. When you fire canister out of an artillery piece, you basically turn the piece into an enormous shot gun. Double canister is two canisters shot out at the same time.

If you get hit with double canister from twenty yards, you cease to exist. It’s the proverbial pink mist: you’re just gone. Your name is added to the “missing” roster because there’s nothing left of you to identify as you.

That monument is like ice cold water in my veins. It haunts me, even after we leave town.

But artillery! Artillery is what brings me to Gettysburg in June!

Tomorrow, The Hubs will be with the Baltimore Light Artillery at Dunker Church in Antietam. They’ll be live firing, but powder only. No rounds. As for me, I’ll be dolled up in my finest 19th century regalia, just standing around entertaining the baby and seeing how much I can slouch in a corset.

At least, I’ll be doing all that for twenty minutes. It’s going to be almost 90 tomorrow.

So, if you’re in the area and feel so inclined, stop in and see the guys. The BLA puts on an amazing show. And, really, the feeling of the percussion coming from the barrel of an 1857 light gun howitzer is incredible.

Just remember….twenty yards.