Here is a report from Nick Korolev on the December 5 Civil War weekend at Old Bedford Village:
Saturday, December 5 was the first installment in Old Bedford Village’s Old Fashioned Christmas Evening two weekend event. First weekend is 19th Century and Dec. 12th will be 18th Century. The living history group I am with – the Federal Generals Corps – makes this event an important annual event to attend and had Cabin 4 & 8 this year.
The weather made for a perfect picture post card scene, though it cut visitor attendance Mother nature dumped 4 inches of fluffy branch sticking snow on us from about 9 in the morning til it stopped around 4pm. And the temperature dropped to a frigid 23 degrees.
Rick “Byrdie” Byrd and I arrived Friday so we would have plenty of time to decorate the cabin with pine and cedar boughs and settle in. We had cabin #8 and were very thankful for electric heat in the back room we used for our beds. Before we got the heat going (minor technical difficulties) we attempted to start a fire in the duel fireplace only to discover our side was blocked and near smoked ourselves out. We had to open windows and the front door to remedy that minor disaster. Once the electric was on we got the small back quarters toasty warm and put a fire in the front room part of the fireplace on Sat for our guests from 5pm to 9pm.
Once the event started all the units in the village developed a scenario that was performed for the visiting public who wandered from building to building on a candle light tour. Besides our Federal General’s Corps the units included the 45th PA Volunteers, The Hancock Society, The Bucktails, 11th PA Company K, the Hardtack Society and several other groups. In our cabin we had President Lincoln, Gen. Meade, Gen. Crook (Byrdie), Gen. Averell (Me) and two guards from the 45th PA one of whom who portrays Capt. Tom Chamberlain at some of our other events, but showed up as a private with his reenacting unit for this event. Our scenario was Lincoln discussing bringing in Gen. Grant to take over the command of the armies in January. We decided to spice it up by breaking from the discussion with a warning a Confederate spy was known to be in the area and the guards would randomly pick a woman who was carrying the biggest bag/pocketbook as a search victim. One of the guards had a concealed pistol that he suddenly produced from the bag and the woman was immediately arrested and taken outside to the provost marshal. It was all in good fun and the public loved it. However it backfired toward the end of the evening when a little kid thought it was all real believing his Mom was out to shoot Lincoln. She thought it was fun, but she and the rest of us had to convince her son it was all just an act.
The other adventure during the evening was our fireplace started to smoke through a crack in the mortar on one side and spread a fog. I had one of the guards get some mud and bring it in and I did a patch job on the crack Although Gen. Averell is cavalry, Gen. Meade instantly commented I should transfer to the Engineer Corps. Byrdie made a comment I was just putting my West Point engineering class to good use. My comment when the public left was that “I feel like a mud dauber wasp at work.” We all had a good laugh and the smoke was dissipated with no returning leaks from the emergency patch.
After the public finished their walk for the night our whole group had a meeting on what yearly events we would be going to in 2010 and two events were planned for OBV. We had a great time over the weekend and are go grateful OBV was saved from the greedy tax man. It is a wonderful place for living history and reenacting events with a great staff to work with who are very reenactor friendly. When I talked to Roger, as Byrdie and I were on our way out Sunday for a breakfast with the Federal Generals Corps members before heading home, he mentioned that despite the weather they had over 500 visitors go through on the candlelight tour, though there would have been more had the weather cooperated, but all enjoyed the event and are looking forward to next year.
Nick Korolev
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