Well we just recieved word that the National event in late March is CANCELLED . This has something to do with money, issues with land owner and some other maters.
The major cmd staff are working on some other things for the 2009 year and the Siege of Atlanta was a possibility .

That is a shame. But it seem's to be the trend in this time of inflation. I live in the Kansas City area, The number of reenactment's are few and far between.A REBEL unit that I was with ceased to exist as the cost to go to the affaire's was cost prohibitive. When diesel fuel went to $4.89.9 per Gal. I didn't see the sence in going to just be a spectater. I understand the trouble with land owners. Some of them don't want to be sued out of thier livlyhood. Since the Lawyers have found this new catch all sickness called LIABILITY, where in,No matter what happens ,no matter how stupid you are, if you get hurt,you file suit against the land owner. I wish thing's & times were like they used to be. I havn't been to a reenactment for two year's. The last one was a farce. A battle that had 26,000 in the original drew 60 reenactor's. From an OLDAO. bangfxr, I wish you and JPope the best. I beat canser ,but I'm not what I once was.

ordmate. A tip o the green forage (bummer) cap ta yea Sir and a prayer thet yes keep beating cancer. That is true some wont go due to fuel prices and some places dont as fear a lawsuite. Some of the this generation of reenactors are the fair weather motel malitia. God forbid it should rain you'll see the ranks thin quick as they dont want to get wet or muddy where as the old veterans just keep going and will clean up when get home. I have been to events where the rebs were 4-1 and then it was like pullin hens teeth to get some to galvinize to fill out the union ranks some.
Well Sir I hope and pray you will be back in good health and may the good Lords blessing be with you and your family.

TO Bangfxr
Thank you my friend. Member's like you,JPOPE and others are the reason this thread continues to be of interest to me. I missed the banter on here but due to a missunderstanding I was not able to be here. I just finished my 72nd radiation treatment and am free of the BIG C. God bless you and keep going.
From an OLDAO

Well Sir. Sometimes misunderstandings do have a habit of mucking things up. That I'm sure that tis over with un glad ta have yea back.
Well now I be ta bettin we'll keep the things lively now un agin. Und me musket un me shalder, 40 rounds in me box, 5 day rations and 20 rounds in me haversack, coffee boiler and coffee in me knapsack, good par a brogans, canteen with good water and a flask of good Barley corn whisky fer madicinal purposes.
So with a tip o the green bummer ta yea Sir I bid yea good day and back the work fer the bloody tyrant I go.

Ordmate, thank God you licked it!!! I lost one of my very best friends and distant cousin to complications of cancer. He had it in both lungs and they found it in his brain, but he had licked it in the brain and right lung when he suffered a stroke and died. He had portrayed Abraham Lincoln for many years and was a jewel of a man. I can think of very few people who didn't like him.
He was a big husky healthy guy until last fall when he had a seizure. In the 16 years I knew him I can remember him only being sick twice.
He served in the Navy in the late fifties/early sixties. Again Bravo Zulu shipmate! God continue to bless you!

bangfxr- have you ever done the event at Angola, Indiana? My cousin who passed away in July was booked for it. I have friends from Michigan, a CSA artillery unit, that usually does it and I'm thinking about going up there.
Any info would be appreciated. Oh, I do usually bring two uniforms and it doesn't bother me to do one side or the other. I had ancestors on both sides.

Darryl,I hope thats spelled correctly. I still have the big C, But It is in remission. I look sort of poka dotted now but that's better than the alternative. I have to keep an eye on my grand kids,They want to grab the sharpies and connect the dot's. The little Fa--s. Any way,I will chime in from time to time If I have some thing to contribute. The problem I had was at a time I was on some chemo and steroids Plus painkillers and perhap's not in the best frame of mind. It is over and done with and best forgotten. I am very happy to be back amoung my friend's and fellow reenactors. I am having some trouble remembering every one's name, So I'll just say ,you know who you are and thank for being gentlemen.

The NewAO

Grandkids yea gotta love em but there can be times when yea have ta send em out ta cut yea a switch. If anything was stated inapropriatly you Sir are forgiven and the mater forgotten.

JPope Sir. Angola was not on our schedule for this year. I will see if I can scare up anything. I will keep you posted on what's running on the event calander
for next year as well as whats going on for the national event as replacement for Pea Ridge.

Ordmate, I don't have the big "C" but there is plenty of other conditions this old bod is suffering from. I have acute coronary artery disease.I've had two major attacks and several minor ones. Two open heart procedures in the past. I need another bypass, but they don't want to go in because I also have an anyerseum that runs almost the length of my aorta. The second surgery was to repair that and other arterial damage. So mucho meds and yep, pain killers. Its given me a 100% disabilty rating. They found out last year that I have malaria also. My doctors in Ann Arbor say "No." but my doctors in Dayton say,"yes." So...all I know is I've had the classic symtoms related with that disease. But as the old golfer said to the young one, "At least I'm on the right side of the grass."
I have three grandsons and I intend to be around for quite awhile for them if nothing else.
bangfxr-- thanks for the word. My friends in Michigan don't know yet if they're going to do Angola, He said they'd let me know for sure on Monday.

Gentlemen. My misdeed was not on this thread but on the navy thread. As I said it is best forgotten. Darryl I know a little of what you are going through. I've had Several T.I.A.'s (43). Two M.I's. And two strokes. And I don't mean with a wet noodle. I know you will be around for as long as I am on here. With friend's like Bangfxr,Wilddave. Thrust & your's truly,We are not going to let you go quietly into that goodnight. I aint going anywhere and neither are you. You have so much that I want to learn. Some day perhaps we can exchange Email address and get off of this thing when we have Importenet thing's to discuss.

I had been there a long time ago by chance and later I found out I had a direct ancestor who died there. Really makes me wish I had appreciated it more but the way I saw the Yankee reenactors act at the only reenactment I'd been too, I'd probably be best staying away and not getting mad.

Thrust 0311 I do so humbly apoligize for the actions of some. The vast majority of us who are living historical reenactors do our best to portray the people of the time and the actions to a point. Alot of us try to get the spectators involved in the events to some point such as allow them to come into the camps and visit some times they get pulled into a game of cards or dice, ucer. Some visitors get pulled into the political debates of the time, some get a sampling of the food of the time (salt pork, hardtack chicory root coffee) Alot of us try to get the visitors to maybe join us at events and we try to get the families also involved. 1 couple I know of was about to get a divorce and for some reason they came out to an event for the kids well in 4 months they had got a few things here and there and the unit as well as the civilian unit, we helped them with tentage and other things and they are happier now that the whole family has something to do togeather. This was 5 years ago and he's got his brother and a couple of coworkers coming out and one of them had a period wedding.
There are some who will just distroy an event and they have caused units to disband but thats the minority. Alot of reenactors and families will attempt to prevent this and make sure the events are good and people will come back if they are bad then people wont and word will get out in the reenactor wires that an event is not good or a unit. There was a big riff between units affiliated with the Cumberland Guard the causers of this are by the most part gone and people are trying to rebuild it. However some of the riffs may not be repairable.
I do so apoligize for being long winded.
But I wished to point out that there are alot more good living historians then bad please dont let this 1 event sour you. Go to another event maybe a small one verses a national event and just wander around you'll see.

I have a great interest in history and I try my best to set politics aside all time time. It's hard in my case because I've noticed, even in the past five years, a much more hardline approach to Civil War teaching and information that is far more malicious than the average Union soldier must have felt towards us. I don't care if people talk down on soldiers or if they just don't like America. What gets me is that, after trying to be tactful myself and proudly serving, we still get **** on for being on the side that fought a losing campaign.

If there are people out there who disagree with me without trying to put us down, then I'm all for them being heard.

Those are the ones we are trying to run off as thier tactics have caused riffs in the hobby and some friendships broken. Several of us take the aprouch of they are our former comrades who faught the mexicans and thier our countrymen who've gone down a wrong road. The units here in the Indiana Bde dont take the hardline politics that some do. Reason is this a hobby and its open to families God if we went the hardline malicious way of it then there would be alot less of us in the hobby and families wouldn't get envolved. There are families here who had families on both sides.
We dont put the southrons down as we want a united country as the real enemy is the DAMNEDABLE english who want to see this country split so they can take back control of thier wayword colonies.

He's right, there are those unfortunately who are misguided and have created trouble that have given CW re-enacting a stain. Believe me when I say there are those within the ranks of CW people who pick on and hurt their brother and sister re-enactors with their attitudes.
I for one had ancestors on both sides and will wear either uniform and do.
I was once questioned by an older gent who said, Why do you portray a traitor? When I portrayed JEB Stuart.
I asked him why are you so insistent on calling him a traitor? He didn't like my answer and didn't wait around to hear my rebuttal.
When I gave my lectures as JEB or others that I do, I make sure that I say the war is and has been over for 144 years. We are one country, we don't need to continue the hate and bad feelings anymore.
I have had several run ins with know-it all re-enactors and most times these are people who never did what they should have in the military, or never served in the military. I once had a gent who told me, "That's the way it was and there is no exception that it was ever done any other way.. This from a man who let 43 re-enactors stand buttoned up with muskets and equipment under a 90 degree sun for thirty minutes in ranks. He formed them up,went to attention, then at ease and walked off. I called them back to attention and had them fall out. He was livid.
You are not alone in this, there's plenty of arrogance and stupidity to go around in this world concerning this subject.

I don't look down at the British or French so much. They had a cynical attitude towards giving aid to, say for instance, the Japanese. Their great philosophers and writers actually did believe in the Confederacy and had a genuine admiration. Anyway that's another subject.
I love America but I love Texas more. I'd rather we stand equally as Americans but in those days the radicals wanted us to be constrained and humiliated. Some still do. I don't hate the North but I do hate those who are still at war with us in every way except in shooting (they have illegals do the murder, rape, and kidnapping for them).
It's a far cry from the farsighted Roosevelt administration, where we could all stand together and not be taught to diminish the proud, fighting South.