Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

[pvtbordonaro]

Re: Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

Tom,
Thanks, I guess I missed the news when it came out in September. You know how it goes once the school year starts :)
-Joe

[Wild Rover]

Re: Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

Tom,

I understand. I hope others do as well. Things are headed in a great direction for 2007, with a wide variety of events for folks to attend.

Let's keep this thing rolling,

Pards,

[Johannes]

Re: Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

Just wanted to drop a few lines to update everyone on the Wilderness NPS Living History event in May, 2007.

- First of all, the dates and the initial plan have been approved by the National Park Service. However, as with all events, there are some minor changes but overall the plan in the initial event primer is still the same. More details and a schedule will be forthcoming most likely after the holidays.

- For those who are members of CWPT, in the most recent issue of HALLOWED GROUND (Winter 2006), there is an article detailing a plan to build a road through the Wilderness Battlefield. In a nutshell, Orange County Virginia has developed a plan to build a road through the northern portion of the Wilderness Battlefield, namely, in the areas of Saunders Field and Gordon's Flank attack against the 6th Corps. The county wants to use this as an expansion for the now busy VA State Route 20. Also, several local developers have submitted a request to Orange County to rezone 177 acres within or near the Wilderness Battlefield. Basically, this area is going to become a new "hot-zone" of Preservation vs. Development.

- As part of the efforts to raise public attention to this battlefield, this Living History weekend will be one form of drawing folks to the area to learn about the battlefield and hope to get support on our side! This event is being assisted by the local preservation group, Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield, here is their website:

http://www.fowb.org/index.html

(Note: there are some good photos of the Ellwood House on this website, which will be the bivouac site as well as the location of the Federal Field Hospital demonstration)

- Attempts will be made to get the local press out there during the weekend to accomplish the mission of bringing attention to this soon to be endangered area (if not already endangered!)

Thanks for every one's interest and stay tuned!
Sincerely,
Jeff Johannes
Event Coordinator

[BobDenton37thVA]

Re: It is what it is

I agree. As one of my former teachers used to say so often,

"The majority of offenses Mr. Denton are 'sins of omission' as opposed to 'sins of commission'. People seldom do things to us, they do them in spite of us."

Bob D.

Sometimes there is conflict between dates and there's nothing anyone can do about it. And its not part of some sinister plot by sparring reenactor factions. It just is. Hopefully both events have enough federal attendees.

Since I've been to McDowell the last two times, I think I'll do the Wilderness LH.

[Johannes]

Re: Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

Folks,
Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Just wanted to drop a quick line to let you all know we are still moving forward on the event planning for the Wilderness Living History and so far everything looks good. In the upcoming week, I will be having a final coordination and planning meeting with the NPS to review the overall event plan, schedule, and other administrative matters. After this meeting and hopefully by next month, we will be posting more detailed event information and historical info, to include the Federal units we will be focusing on for specific weekend programs. Again, the dates and location have not changed.

We will also be posting specific contact information on who to contact if you or your group are interested in "falling-in with" a specific company/unit.

I appreciate every one's continued interest and hope that you can make it out to this unique site for living history.

Thank you,
Jeff Johannes
Event Coordinator

[Johannes]

Re: Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

The event website is up and running at:

http://www.southernguard.org/wilderness/index.html

Please note that a few items are still under construction or pending (namely the Event and Uniform guidelines which are forthcoming shortly), however most of the basic information, to include the event schedule is posted. Registration is open so go ahead and feel free to sign up.

Also, please note the t$10 registration fee will be going to preservation efforts for the Wilderness and Central Virginia battlefield areas.

Sorry for the delay of forthcoming information.
Sincerely,
Jeff Johannes

[Ringgold]

Re: Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

Howdy Jeff!

You may want to edit the homepage of this event where it says " WARNING: At times, this event will be physically extraneous, . . ."

I think it should actually read "strenuous". There's a bit of a difference between those words. (derned spell-check'll git ya ev'ry time!)

Best of luck with what promises to be an amazing event.

[BobDenton37thVA]

Re: Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

Howdy Jeff!

You may want to edit the homepage of this event where it says " WARNING: At times, this event will be physically extraneous, . . ."

Now that's funny!

RD

[ley74]

Re: Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

Good news is, you do not have to worry.

[Johannes]

Re: Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

Folks,
Hope everyone is doing well. All information about the event has been posted on the website, to include any and all updates, so please keep checking the website.

In the meantime, we are asking everyone to bring their own rations to this one. We our hoping that you all are experienced historians to determine what are authentically correct campaign rations and what are not. However, to help you decide on what possible "meat" to choose from, here is an account from a popular Federal diarist, Pvt. Wilbur Fisk of the 2nd Vermont, of the Vermont Brigade which we will be doing a program on Saturday night detailing the Vermont Brigade's aftermath of battle: (NOTE: this account is not in his book, "Hard Marching Everyday.")

"For a week or two before we left camp we were preparing for the coming campaign. Every time we had a meeting it was almost expected to be the last one for we were preparing to move though no one knew when. General orders were published to us indicating what we must and what must be not be done on the march. Rations for marching were brought to us and held in reserve for the march. The boys themselves were preparing for what was coming. They sent away everything they did not want or could carry with them. Our money, those of us that had any, we sent home. Our knapsacks were reduced to the smallest possible space for we knew that when the ball opened there would be business plenty.

We left our winter home on the morning of May 4 at 4'oclock. The air was clear and cool and we marched very rapidly to Germania Ford, a distance of about 12 miles. The boys were in good spirits and went on merrily although we well knew that we were about to undertake one of the most perilous campaigns of the war. Many of us in all probability would fall in the coming battles but it was wisely hidden from us to know who these victims should be and every one could hope that he would escape. We halted that night about three miles from the river on the rebel side. It was late in the afternoon we were all tired and some were foot sore and nearly exhausted. We spread down our blankets for our nights out in the open air, very few thinking it worth while to put up any tents as the weather was clear and fair. Hart Smith and I spread down our blankets to sleep together. It was quite cool and in the morning there was considerable frost.

We were called up before light and an hour given to us prepare our breakfast. We had fresh beef to cook and coffee to make and when this was done and our breakfast eaten it was time to pack our things and fell in." (Note: this was the morning of May 5th; the rest describes the battle which is in his book)

- Source: Bound Volume 87, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park Library, Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Hope this helps with your preparation for this event.
Thank you and see you in May.
Sincerely,
Jeff Johannes
Event Coordinator

p.s. - Spell check was utilized for this posting; thank you!

[Bivouac_of_the_Dead]

Re: Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

F&SNMP's Special Events doesn't seem to have the Wilderness LH event listed on it's special events website for this year: http://www.nps.gov/frsp/special.htm

An oversite perhaps. Other events for that weekend are shown... maybe it got lost in the mix. Be a shame if members of the public who like seeing LH events miss this one because it didn't get posted on the web by the park.

[Johannes]

Re: Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

Bill,
Thanks for the heads up on this. The park has updated their events page and the Wilderness Living History program is listed.

For those still planning on attending, please note that registration closes in a just over two weeks!

[GrumpyDave]

Re: Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

Waiting Patiently for the AAR's.Looks to be a good un'.

[Johannes]

Re: Wilderness NPS Living History: May 5th and 6th, 2007

Folks,
This is going to be the last "public" email about this event. If you have already registered, you should be receiving regular emails detailing the event. If you have registered and are not receiving emails please let me know ASAP! My email is: jjspanzer@hotmail.com

Thanks for every one's interest and look forward to seeing those who are coming out next weekend!