This won't hurt a bit...

For the record, I was born in the uppest part of the great state of New York. I split my formative youth between Plattsburgh, New York and Omaha, Nebraska. My mother's family spent much of 1861-1865 being thoroughly oppressed and occasionally starved by British rule in Ireland. My father's family spent the same time thinking out word problems and likely arguing the logistics of the Nation's current events in New Hampshire -- in the end, picking up the musket and joining the ranks of Massachusetts and New Hampshire brigades.

My time south of the Mason-Dixon line - compared with time lived elsewhere- is only recently tipping the scale in a C.S.A. favor. I spent most of my first 15 years not knowing much at all about "The War between the States" and "The War of Northern Aggression". It didn't figure into my life and didn't interject into my daily paradigm. Within my first month of living in Virginia, the cruel bullies of my suburban middle school swapped "new girl" for "Yankee girl". I didn't realize I was a Yankee -- more so that we were still having to label people thusly.

Long story short, I have in these short 15 years since, cultivated a real love and appreciation for the Civil War. I'm interested in less of the political "why we fought" aspect (except that I'd be happy to tell you that they were fighting for their "rahts" in my best period Southern accent), less about the dates and the outcomes of the battles, but more about across-the-board topics: battlefield medicine, biographies of the key players, espionage, sabatoge and this country's still strong fascination with what happened across 5 Aprils from 1861-1865 -- from Fort Sumter to the Appomattox Courthouse.

Here's what I can tell you -- briefly.

• I own a book listing and cataloging all of the Virginia Historical Markers all over the State (stop judging me). On frequent occasion, my bestie and I head out in a random direction and make a sweep of all of the signs in that area. Once upon a time it was about checking off the sign, now it's all about what that sign says and how important (or not) that event might have been -- and hell, it's all about the places and people we encounter in between signs. Two words: Dinosaur Land. We're exploring our State. And though nerdy, it's pretty awesome and awesomely addictive. I feel it's sort of a crime to live in such a history-rich state, a state that's one of the oldest in our great Nation, and to know little to nothing about the people who have walked on this land from the beginning. Hell, I've been to the spot where John Wilkes Booth was captured and shot -- have you?
  
• Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson is my all-time, hands down favorite Civil War general. Again, not so interested in his politics (though they are interesting.. ) but more so about how the charisma and later myth of this single man has permeated time. The conspiracy theory about what WOULD have happened if Jackson had lived to Gettysburg (one theory being in all seriousness: We'd all be speaking German. -- I'd be happy to walk you through that explanation if you're interested.) I love him so much. (but not like I love-love JEB Stuart for the ladies man that he was... he purportedly lost the South the battle at Gettysburg because was busy loving some ladies.. and I love that about him.) I love him so much that when wandering through a Crap-shop-Gift-Shop at a rest stop off of the Pennsylvania turnpike, I came upon a t-shirt bearing the likenesses of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. It says in large letters "Lee's Stonewall". And it was on clearance. (Can't imagine why.) And I bought it. Worse yet, I wear it. But not OUT, because let's be honest, we live in a touchy society where a shirt even slightly honoring a dead Confederate general is considered to be a racist proclamation. And though I clearly don't feel that way, I respect that that's what some persons may perceive -- even if I don't agree with it. (Funny story: I accidentally did wear it out once. The weekend of my wedding in Pittsburgh. I had worn it to bed the night before and the next morning had to make a quick run to WalMart. I threw on glasses, pants and flip flops and grabbed my purse. I didn't realize I was wearing a shirt with stars-and-bars on it until I saw the look of someone's face the moment I entered the store. And then it's too late for explainin'.)
• Wartime medicine and surgery -- in any era -- pretty much paves the way for modern techniques. When else do you get to try that wacky idea to save someone then when they're likely going to die miles and miles from any REAL help anyway. Shit, if someone had known to tie a damned tourniquet on General Johnston at Shiloh, he wouldn't have bled out from a gunshot wound to the knee that he could have easily survived. Don't even get me started on why Stonewall bit it too early. His likely pneumonia, them bleeding out his "bad humors" and absolutely no grasp of microbes and infection turned his arm wound into a mortal injury. More lives were likely lost on the battlefield from infection, dysentery, poor water supplies and parasites than from the gun/cannon/bayonet. (Interestingly enough, 'Southern Anemia' is another conspiracy theory about why the war favored the Billy Yank in the end. Hookworms live in the ground and get picked up by people walking barefoot. 100 hookworms can drink about 1mL of blood. Which isn't much, but when you have 10,000 or more hookworms in you, you do the math. The poorly outfitted Confederate army lacked shoes more often than not. So they didn't loose because they were beaten, they lost because they were all so damned anemic. Plausible?)
• I didn't realize I had such Southern sympathies until the Mister and I made our first of many annual trips to Gettysburg, PA to meet his father (a Civil War-BUFF, man.) and tour the battlefields. We may as well have left the Mister in the car once Dad-in-Law and I hit the battlefield-talk and ran. It was at one of the most pivotal locales of Gettysburg where his father was gesticulating wildly across the landscape and saying, "When WE flanked this way and met the charge here, WE then... " and I thought to myself, "Wow, he's got it ALL wrong. WE were the ones over there and the ones making the charge and WE... " And then it hit me. Without knowing it, I had sometime switched my mental "We" of belonging and Civil War nationality from Yankee to Confederate. And the rest is (sort of) history.

That all being said -- and really, there is so much more to be said -- the Mister works with a gentleman in his office who is an actual takes-it-very-seriously reenactor (Stickles translation: He's on team T.I.T.S.). And while he belongs to a Virginia regiment for the Confederacy, he does own both uniforms. Most reenactors do, in fact. And this is what a lot of people don't get. It isn't about replaying a battle to show who was mightier or who ought to have won. It isn't about freaks trying to live in the past. It's about conveying history. It's about telling a story. And I dig that. I dig it from a distance because I'm not into reenacting (yet?).

So dude-who-works-with-Mister had a battle engagement a few weekends ago commemorating the Battle of Cold Creek out in Western Virginia. And as the Mister was unable to make it, I went. And I dragged nursing-school-now-kickass-O.R.-nurse Jenni with me. And it's safe to say we both had a pretty awesome CivilWar-tastic time.

As we skulked around the camps -- eating some lost southern delicacy known as "Fry Bread" -- we encountered so many reenactors. Not one to miss a good photo opportunity, we kept asking to get a picture. The strange part was that though they very graciously and excitedly agreeded to be photographed with us, every last one of them had a startling element of surprise -- like no one had ever asked them to be in a picture in uniform before. And that's what baffles me. How could you NOT have people queueing up to get in a picture with you dressed like that?

No matter. I took advantage of them. I took pictures with the best dressed, the worst dressed, the guy claiming to be General Custer, and the man who looked like an emaciated Robert E. Lee in desperate need of a shave.


Somehow two nurses managed to find the Confederate medical corps completely by chance. Apparently there's a niche in reenacting for everyone. Real doctors and nurses will suit up and act as their professional ancestors would have in a real battle. This gentleman, who I only approached for his rotund good looks and silver cup of grog, turned out to be a real medical doctor in a DC hospital.

The first of our Confederate dead that day. That fry bread'll get you.

Seriously. Dude was just sleeping. Like in the shopping part, not the camp part. Weird.
Robert E. Lee? He's rocking it here, but imagine what he looks like normally, like everyday.

Not only did I stalk this man for a better part of the afternoon -- waiting for my chance to get a picture with him -- but I managed to acquire a slouch hat and confederate flag over the course of the day to match my aforementioned Civil War t-shirt that I felt might only be worn outside my house for just such an occasion without wry looks from others.

Jenni with the artillery boys.
The apparent Confederate bias in picture taking was merely a product of 'not that many Yanks' in the spectator area -- and the ones that were there weren't interested in pictures with the girl in the Confederate slouch hat and Stonewall Jackson t-shirt. It's a rough feeling when a Civil War reenactor thinks YOU'RE dressed funny.

General Custer actually had to be talked into taking the picture with me because of my Rebel garb. I think the General did protest too much, though, because I don't know how he didn't hear and secretly love me exclaiming to Jenni, "Holy shit! It's General Custer! Get my picture with him!" Custer's little lacky there thought he was pretty funny. Cha. See if they appreciate that humor at Little Bighorn, friend.