I think I had intended to keep all my ghafla ramblings about my other hobby
here in this thread, but .... anyway, re-post from another thread ...
I'm leaving for Fort McKavett about dawn; they're doing a sesquicentennial event a little early,
re-enacting Ben McCullough's rangers riding into to the fort to take control after General
Twiggs surrendered all the federal forts to the "Army of Texas" - which right then and there
was really just Ben & his rangers, and the boys in the US army who quit and formed up militia
units, until the CS army got more organized - that's one of the things they're doing too,
about 2pm tomorrow afternoon the boys portraying the rangers will change into brown
jeancloth unirforms and there will be a ceremony organizing them into the CS army as
the First Texas Cavalry - historically then, the First Texas Cav was there at McKavett
until 1862 when then went with General Sibley to get their asses handed to them up
in northern New Mexico Territory ... the 7th Texas Cavalry & Frontier Guard then
occupied the fort until the end of the war, and it was used as a POW camp for
Union boys from late 1863 on ... that is the time period they want to really re-enact
bigtime next year, sometime before the Liendo Plantation event the week before
Thanksgiving ... so this is a minor event, and really sorta hardcore - the boys
that are being Ben's Rangers are tonight down on the banks of the San Saba River,
a few miles from the fort, sleeping on the rocks with nothing but a bedroll, if that -
most of 'em are probably just rolled up in their dusters ... and the (relative) cold front
came thru this afternoon - it's about 40 out right now, wind blowing colder and it's
damp, too ...
and the event is "early" in the sequence of events- South Carolina won't secede until December,
Texas will secede on February 2, and Twiggs will turn over the forts on Feb. 13 ...(there is a
yearly re-enactment of this in front of the alamo, of course, next year's will be much bigger) ...
but McKavett's annual "Muster" is in March, and has always been an "Indian War Period" event;
this fort is also one that was turned over from State Parks to the Texas Historical Commission (THC)
(yes, I know ...) and the Historical Commission wants all their sites to have two major events a year -
since the sesquicentennial of The War is just starting, and since McKavett had a very re-enactable
role during the War, they think they're going to have the regular Buffalo Soldier event in March and
a Civil War event in November for the next four years, and then figger something else out ....
I'm going to show up dressed as a civilian and loudly oppose secession and the jackasses that're trying
to drag us into this unnecessary war; I expect several altercations involving walking sticks and possibly
sabers, and I also expect to be shot dead in front of Officer's Quarters Number One by Ben McCullough hisself ...
and I was gonna give y'all an after-action report on how fucking AWESOME this event was,
"Awesome" here used in the correct sense and not in tehKJA-sense... but now I don't
care and I'm way behind in other stuff -
leaving for Liendo Plantation in the morning, and have a number of loose ends to tie up;
like all of them ...