Happy thanksgiving to all our readers

 dear readers,

the corporal and I thank you all for the support these last few months.   with the season over and  the corporal and I have taken on the lovely task of house hunting and preparing to move, hence the lack of posts these last couple weeks.

once we are settled we plan to update more.

As the holidays come upon us i will leave you with this thought.

we all have family that has a past. dont push them away.  show them love and dont say things like your out of the family or  hate people for dating out of there race.

we are all gods children and the holidays are about being grateful.


Jade

Artillery Materials

Attention class!

Today's lesson is on the materials used in the construction of artillery barrels. While there were others known to have been used, the three most common were bronze, cast iron and wrought iron.

Bronze artillery included 6 pounders and the more famous 12 pound Napoleon. Bronze had the advantage of being easier to cast and being relatively malleable. It was also the most expensive of the three common types.

Wrought iron was used for complete construction of the 3 inch Ordnance Rifle as well as forming the reinforcement band on the breech of the Parrott Rifles or the Confederate made Brooke Rifle. Wrought iron is not cast, but welded together from iron bars. Significantly stronger than cast iron guns, the Ordnance Rifle suffered only one failure during the course of the war.

Cast iron was the cheapest and quickest construction material. The barrel is cast from iron as implied by the name. Problem with it is cast iron is brittle. Parrott and Brooke Rifles were known to burst without warning, often with only a few rounds due to weakness of material.

Cast iron would shatter into fragments, making it the most dangerous type. Bronze guns would stretch and often vent the failure straight up.

While used for the duration, cast iron guns were placed into storage after the Civil War, rarely to see service again due their inherent danger.

Class dismissed!

Reenacting as a couple

Reenacting as a couple 

As some of our readers may know, Jade and I are reenacting as a dating couple. This leads to several benefits.

One of the biggest benefits we have is teamwork. All artillery crews work as a team it is true, but when we are on the same crew we click and the process works smoother. Example being the recent reenactment at Mooresville. While working with the senior corporal in the battery, we were able to fire a breech loading cannon faster than infantry load their muskets.

It is another benefit that we can work together in camp. Something needs to be done, we can often work together as a team to do what needs to be done.  

The greatest benefit in my opinion is simply doing the hobby that I love the most with the woman I love the most.

I will say this. Biggest drawback is a very basic one. We like to hold hands. Automatic reflex. Looks quite strange when we are both soldiers.

Corporal.

corsets and hoops oh my.

As a female that portrays both a solder  and a women in the field, let me vent on each.


lets start with the historic ways a women would dress. As most know a typical under dress for a women is chemise, pantaloons, corset/ stays, hoops, petticoats, and dress.

 now the average a tent that we sleep in is a 8/7.

my point being here is realistically women couldn't of worn hoops all the time less they were high class and had maids / servants.  there a huge fire hazerd and watch everywhere you move. 
any women that has cooked over a fire knows the practicality of a field dress. ( bear with me as im not sure if they go by another name)



ok  part b of my rant.

most of you know i put on wool and serve with Corp. on cannons.  one thing that angers me is people saying its not historically correct.  there were meny women due to the bad medical exams that took on the look of men and males names to serve. some even wern't found out till death. 

my point being if a women wants to put on wool and play let her.

fun on a historic train ride

the Corp and I were so honored to be asked to come down to Medamora  Ind. for a wild west train robbery put on by the Circle D Rangers to raise money for Rilys  children's hospitals. 

 

Basic artillery categories

Fall in for instruction!

The first lesson in Civil War artillery is on the broad categories of artillery used in the war.

The artillery was broken into four basic types. Light, horse, siege and sea coast.

The first category is the light artillery, sometimes called the field artillery. This artillery used lighter guns that could keep up with the infantry Column. Examples of this are the 10 and 20 pound Parrott rifle, 12 pound Napoleen and 3 inch ordnance rifle. In the field artillery most of the men marched.

Horse artillery was very similar to field artillery, using the same types of guns. The primary difference was that all men had horses. This allowed them to keep up with the cavalry.

Siege artillery or heavy artillery started with guns the size of the 30 pound Parrott rifle and went up to guns firing up to 200 pound projectiles. Guns in this category could not keep up with the army and were thus brought into action only when the army needed to destroy fortifications. Most guns above the 30 pound size remained in forts and this were fortification guns.

Sea coast artillery were the heaviest of all. These guns were used exclusively in fortifications as they were too heavy to move once in place. The projectiles they fired ranged from 200 pounds to 1000 pounds in weight and up to 20 inches in diameter. With few exceptions, guns of this caliber in Union forts did not fire their weapons in anger while Confederate guns were used extensively.

Next time we will discuss the more common guns in the artillery in greater detail. Until then, class dismissed.

why do we reenact....

In light if the recent events of a bomb being found the protests i feel we should explain why we do what we do.

We do not reenact to protest or what ever people think. We put on the uniforms to teach and bring history to life. 

There were times in the war were northern and southern solders traded coffee and tobacco.   It was not all just fighting was people think.

This war is a big part of out history .