Regional Commanders - The North-South Skirmish Association, Inc.

Horse drawn artillery thundered onto the field bringing the historically accurate number of cannon to battery
positions. Then the horses stood wondering where the oats were now that the firing started. All spring they
had heard taped cannon fire at feeding time and clearly associated the booming with the guy who brought the
oats. When he didn’t show, they became bored with the whole thing even as the skirmishers continued swarming
over the field.
The decidedly Southern partisan crowd loved the show. “Corpses” had been positioned on the field and were
discreetly uncovered at the lines swayed back and forth amid nearly overwhelming clouds of sulfurous smoke.
I watched the N-SSA’s 1 st Stuart Horse Artillery hard at work with Park Service-provided original guns to
keep smoke and noise pouring forth without let up. There was Jack Carroll of the 13 th Confederate waving his
clipboard with script firmly attached as he directed troops into position according to the carefully timed program.
Never mind the heat…Darn it was exciting!
At last the final push came and blue clad Skirmishers in those hot wool coats began reversing themselves off
the hill while the spectators in the $4.00 seats cheered on Jackson’s boys joined by the remnants of Hampton’s,
Bee’s, and Evans’ shouting brigades pushing forward. I reached the crest of Henry House Hill and waved the
recently presented First National Flag for all it was worth.
When the weekend was over, we all received souvenir medals for our effort and reflected on the last two days
and how pleased we were to have been part of the Centennial of First Manassas.
At the time I never gave a thought to what I might be doing fifty years later. When you are 18, fifty years into
the future is so far away as to be almost incomprehensible. Nevertheless, the years did roll by, and with them
the completion of college, tours of duty in Vietnam and seeing what war is really like, law school, a 25-year
Air Force career, lots of travel, the passing of family members and friends. But always there has been skirmishing…more
than half a century of it where I’ve fired more rounds of Civil War style ammunition than
most regiments! And lo and behold we’ve now reached the 150 th Anniversary of that war and the Sesquicentennial
of the Battle of First Manassas.
No longer are reenactments permitted on National Park Service battlefields. That practice ended during the
Centennial. This past July there was a First Manassas Reenactment on a nearby private farm, but it wasn’t the
same. No governors attended nor were there as many spectators as there were at the Centennial Reenactment
at the actual battlefield. There was a government sponsored observance at the battle field where the current
Governor of Virginia spoke. It was not a speech that would have reflected the feelings of the Virginians who
fought on the field in 1861, or the Virginians who viewed the reenactment in 1961. What a difference fifty
years had made. The Virginia Sesquicentennial Commission constructed a large tractor trailer mobile exhibit
with huge photos on the side. One would have expected images of well known Virginians like Robert E. Lee,
Stonewall Jackson, or Jeb Stuart to be depicted. Instead, there was Ohio-born, Michigan-raised George Custer
prominently sitting on a camp stool.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) conducts a traditional commemoration each year on the battlefield
and this year was no exception. This past spring they invited the Maryland Division Sons of Confederate
Veterans (SCV) Color Guard, of which I am a member, to be part of their Sesquicentennial program. I
mentioned this to Dismal Swamp Ranger John Sharrett at the Spring National. John participated at the Centennial
Reenactment and I invited him to join us for a return commemoration. John is a member of the Sons
of Confederate Veterans and enthusiastically accepted. Membership in the UDC and SCV requires that an applicant
have an ancestor who served in the Confederate Armed Forces.
So exactly fifty years later to the day from our participation in the Centennial Reenactment, there we were on
the Manassas battlefield for another historic commemoration program, and wouldn’t you know it, the temperature
reached 100 degrees again!
As the accompanying photos show, I brought the same First National Confederate flag that I carried in 1961.
This was the first time since the Centennial that the flag had been used.
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