Civil War Days

This Saturday we found ourselves in Huntington Central Park to see a civil war battle... every Labour Day there is a civil war re-enactment in the park. We've never been and I've always meant to try it out... so this year we finally went. As we were walking in Nicholas said 'Will there be real guns?' and I said yes, sort of, and he said 'Well I hope they wear armour to protect theirselves!' Hmmm... clearly a little confusion about what goes in what era going on there!

It was pretty cool! The park was divided into the two camps, Union and Confederate, and each camp (as well as soldiers' tents everywhere) had displays and educational booths up. We saw a remarkably accurate looking Abraham Lincoln give the Gettysburg address, which Ellie had somehow never heard of. We wandered through and talked to various people, and I have to say it wasn't until we'd been there for at least half an hour that I realised that everyone who was dressed up was in character and would only talk about things that were era-appropriate, which made it kind of fun! 

Our favourite booths were the laundresses in the Confederate camp, who had the kids washing shirts with lye soap on a washboard, and the blacksmith in the Union camp, who had his forge on the back of a wagon and was actually working. Nicholas and Kate were fascinated by the bellows. We spent quite a bit of time watching the blacksmith!

We timed our visit to get everything done before the last battle of day. It was really well done. Every now and again new troops would march up in formation and join in. There was a lot to see, including a Confederate general actually galloping about on a horse, but the people still made every effort to stay in character... we watched one guy twitch and convulse and 'die' convincingly for about ten minutes!

We were down at one end of the field, right by all the big guns... Nicholas loved it at first. He spends all day every day making explosion noises so to start with he was in his element. He actually said 'I love this, this is awesome!' but after a while the cannon started to get to him. The first few times they went off it was amazing - they were incredibly loud. The sort of noise you actually feel in your bones before you hear it. But then they just kept going off... every now and then they'd do a fusillade where they shot all their cannons off one after the other. By the end of the battle I was jumping out of my skin every time the cannon was fired, and Nicholas was reduced to sitting in a heap on the ground covering his ears and having Ellie cover his ears as well! He also said 'Why do guns smell like eggs?' - it was getting pretty smelly by the time they were done!

According to Nicholas it was the 'worst day ever' because I didn't feel the need to spend $40 on a wooden musket for him... but Adam already wants to go back next year so I think we'll count it as a win.