Historical Reenactments

Truthstalker · #1 Oct 27, '07, 11:04 am

I'm kicking around starting a HR thread - one in which we would bring as much historical accuracy to bear as we could to the thread without going overboard. I would find both over-techie talk that is meant to impress everyone with your knowledge of how, say, a Winchester rifle is crafted, and where, and when (model number, series, etc., of your armament) as well as gross anacronisms "The Sioux warband let out a war-cry; I answered by letting out a rocket-propelled grenade." So we would have to give each other a certain amount of grace in these things, as no two people will want to play at the exact same level.

That being said, what would people be interested in? It would be no fun to research a campaign or a war, start a thread, and have no one play, whether because you are interested in the Civil War, and this one is on the Pelopennesian War, or because it is too easy or too hard.

The events of the times would drive the circumstances of the thread, tied chronologically, perhaps to real time (this date minus 147 years, or whatever). What this means is the paramount thing you would be doing, aside from odd bits of historical research, is developing your character: backstory, thoughts, feelings, personality. Perhaps he or she would mature during the thread or otherwise change.

Some ideas:
A Biblical story: the Exodus, with David in the wilderness, the fall of Jerusalem (kind of grim). or following Jesus around (very tricky to do right, and probably would cause a lot of arguments)

Stomping the enemy with Sargon the Great

With Hannibal and the Elephants

trace a group of young Mississippi recruits in 1861 as they join the Confederate army and are thrust into the chaos of the War on the West

trace a group of young Maryland recruits, or Missouri, caught by conflicting loyalties to both sides as they experience coming from a border state in the Civil War

I don't particularly want to do something within living memory, which would include WWII.

Comments?

**Church Militant** · #2 Oct 27, '07, 11:52 am

**brotherhrolf** · #3 Oct 28, '07, 11:54 am

English Civil War could be fun too. Cavaliers vs. Roundheads.

But, I ain't playin' no Yankee.

**brotherhrolf** · #4 Oct 28, '07, 12:03 pm

On a more serious note........I'd have to say that I would be extremely comfortable playing the Confederate side in the neglected War in the West scenario. About the only battlefields I haven't been to (or reenacted) in the west is the Nashville, Ft. Donelson area and the Pea Ridge area. Shiloh, Corinth, Jackson, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Alexandria, Mansfield - I've been to all and walked the grounds.

Michael is sitting over there in P'cola and can't tell me he don't know nothin' 'bout dem nice fortifications in his area.

**Edwin1961** · #5 Oct 28, '07, 12:10 pm

How about finding a family from Eastern Europe and follow them to the New World (U.S.) I know my grandfather came over in 1913 and the images, smells and emotions must have been something to experience. Leaving everything you know to go somewhere you knew nothing about.

**LRThunder** · #6 Oct 28, '07, 12:19 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by brotherhrolf

English Civil War could be fun too. Cavaliers vs. Roundheads.

But, I ain't playin' no Yankee.

Not even as Derek Jeter? Wait, wrong kind of Yankee.

**estesbob** · #7 Oct 28, '07, 12:22 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by brotherhrolf

On a more serious note........I'd have to say that I would be extremely comfortable playing the Confederate side in the neglected War in the West scenario. About the only battlefields I haven't been to (or reenacted) in the west is the Nashville, Ft. Donelson area and the Pea Ridge area. Shiloh, Corinth, Jackson, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Alexandria, Mansfield - I've been to all and walked the grounds.

Michael is sitting over there in P'cola and can't tell me he don't know nothin' 'bout dem nice fortifications in his area.

Have you been to Glorietta Pass?

Truthstalker · #8 Oct 28, '07, 1:27 pm

Have you been to Fort Davidson? There is a reenactment every year, an excellent if small museum, and what remains of the fort is still there. I've been there several times.

Truthstalker · #9 Oct 28, '07, 1:43 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwin1961

How about finding a family from Eastern Europe and follow them to the New World (U.S.) I know my grandfather came over in 1913 and the images, smells and emotions must have been something to experience. Leaving everything you know to go somewhere you knew nothing about.

Has possibilities - for one thing, the ladies would be able to more freely participate and might be more inclined to. I'm not sure "finding" will work as much as fictionalizing a family. We could pick up a common Eastern European surname and assemble our family, with people picking various roles, and go through the migration from our Croat or Polish or Czech or Hungarian or whatever village to the port, across the Atlantic in steerage, arrival at Ellis Island and then moving to, say, Chicago, where other relatives live.

Many of us have relatives who went through this sort of thing, some of whom passed stories down to us. It might be one way to tell that story: "your grandmother was born in steerage you know, despite your great-grandfather's hopes that she would be born in America."

We need not be limited to one thread or one direction. I think RPGs is an area on CAF that is vastly underexplored.

**brotherhrolf** · #10 Oct 29, '07, 8:49 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Truthstalker

Have you been to Fort Davidson? There is a reenactment every year, an excellent if small museum, and what remains of the fort is still there. I've been there several times.

Nope. Never been up that way. That whole area of the War from NW Arkansas through Missouri and Kansas was not exactly a hotbed of reenactment during the Centennial years. I've pretty much been to every major battlefield (with the exception of KY and the Nashville area). It's taken me most of my lifetime. I just got to go to Ft. Sumter three years ago. I had been to Harper's Ferry, Gettysburg, Petersburg and Appomattox in 1967. I would recommend Shelby Foote's three volume opus on the War as probably the easiest narrative overview to read if anyone is interested.

Truthstalker · #11 Oct 30, '07, 8:15 pm

For those who don't know, Ft. Davidson was one of those "little battles" that in some ways decided the war. The feds dug in to protect the approaches to St.Louis at what was then the southern end of the railroad. They built an earthen fort with an enormous powder magazine, protected by cannon and, I think, rows of stakes. Southern forces surrounded them, and after several days of fighting, the North realized they could not win the engagement. But neither could they abandon the powder. So they slipped north, undetected, through the Confederate encampments surrounding them. There was an enormous explosion when the powder magazine exploded. The Southerners assumed everyone had been killed in an accident, but in the morning they discovered no troops and an enormous hole, which is still there to this day. I'm telling this from memory, probably off in a few details and missing some others.

I think this was the last attempt to take St. Louis, held by the North but with strong southern sympathies. Had the Confederacy taken St.Louis, they would have controlled access to the upper Mississippi, changing the course of the war and the ability of the North to move men and supplies.

Fort Davidson is in Pilot Knob, Missouri, in the Arcadia Valley, in the Ozarks. Nearby is Ste. Genevieve, dating from the 1700s, settled by the French and dominated by their descendents. It has historical houses and a museum. Not far from that is Kaskaskia.

Definitely worth a trip. Or several.

Truthstalker · #12 Oct 30, '07, 8:24 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwin1961

How about finding a family from Eastern Europe and follow them to the New World (U.S.) I know my grandfather came over in 1913 and the images, smells and emotions must have been something to experience. Leaving everything you know to go somewhere you knew nothing about.

I've been thinking about this: the Ryba (Polish for "fish") family, Polish Catholic peasants, kicked off their land in say 1905 by the local baron who wants a game preserve, and forced to find their way across Europe to get to America?

Not sure how to approach it. I could do some narrating, but I am still pressed for time, too much so to realy get into it. And not so many people are talking on this thread so as to encourage going for something.

Hey, how about if we pretend we are late Scholastic philosophers and post in late Scholastic Latin, using their indecipherable idiom and pursuing some absolutely useless theological question? Wouldn't that be fun?

Or we could do a hard-boiled actuary story, like Jack Spillane, Mickey's brother, who thinks someone is cookling the mortality tables! We could have fun computing actuary tables! By hand! Yee-hah!

Quote:

My name is Jack. Jack Spillane. I work the hard streets of San Francisco. I always carry a pistol because danger lurks around every corner. I am an actuary. Jack Spillane, Private Actuary.

Right.

**brotherhrolf** · #13 Oct 31, '07, 9:33 am

The basic concept has a lot of merit. At the very least it would get me off of my duff to research something new. I know very little about Eastern Europeans. When I was in the Navy and stationed in Chicago, the Polish names alone were something entirely new.
We have Croatians here but that's as close as we come.

Truthstalker · #14 Oct 31, '07, 7:59 pm

I like "Ryba" because we actually have a chance at spelling it correctly. Wrojiectzowski is a bit more challenging. I've heard -ski is an ending that indicated nobility - Ryba is a lot more peasantlike.

Using peasants has another advantage: we can allow for their lack of education and information to hide our own ignorance about the world they lived in, and cloak what we do know a little better.