Richmond Fayette Artillery
in the Local News
Originally published in the Tracy Press
Civil War reenactment groups get together
Kristin Fondale
The Tracy Press
There's nothing like the stench of spent gunpowder, the thunder of firing cannons or the slap of discharging pistols to get the body moving in the morning.
That was the wakeup regimen last weekend just outside the Tracy city limits for the Civil War reenactment group Post 505.The group, made up of Boy Scout Troop 505 members, set up target practice Saturday morning on land just past the corner of Chrisman and Linne roads.
They added something extra to their routine - live ammunition.
"You don't always get a chance to fire with real ammunition," Post 505 adviser Preston L. Gilliam said. "We usually use blanks, because there really isn't a place open enough for us to try live rounds.
"Joining Post 505 on the wide-open field were a scattering of members from other Civil War reenactment groups, including the American Civil War Association and the Richmond Fayette Artillery.
The groups wasted little time outfitting themselves in their authentic Civil War uniforms and firing off a variety of cannons, rifles and pistols. All of the weapons were authentic.
"We're shooting .58-caliber rifles and .44-caliber pistols along with four cannons and two mortars," Gilliam said. "And while the rifle and pistol ammunition is the same, we had to experiment a little with the cannons."Soup cans filled with cement, and golf and tennis balls filled with gunpowder were just some of the "experimental" items fired out of the cannons.
According to Larry Cull, a scout adviser from Fremont who joined the activity on Saturday, the tennis balls were used as "airburst rounds," a type of ammunition used during the Civil War.
"Airburst rounds were rounds that would explode in the air rather than on impact," he said. "The reason for that was when the rounds exploded, they created a weapon that would rain down hot shrapnel in a battle situation and strike more people."But unlike a real battle situation, no one was injured outside Tracy on Saturday. Instead, the day was both a chance for scouts to earn their black powder merit badges and a practice session for Post 505, which does demonstrations at local schools. "We do about six to seven demonstrations with the rifles and cannons at different schools in the area," Gilliam said. "We try to show the students what it was like to be in battle and the types of weapons used.
"D. William Entriken, a member of the American Civil War Association, said the demonstrations provide an even larger lesson to students. "Reenacting helps people find out how we as people got to the point where we took up arms against our own countrymen," he said.Cull added, "Humans can be really nasty to each other. And human nature has not changed. Reenacting gives you a sense of what those people in the Civil War probably felt.
"The 16 members of Post 505 are just beginning to know what it was like to fight in the Civil War. Four years ago, when they attended the National Jamboree, they visited Gettysburg, site of a Union victory in the Civil War, and the idea of forming their own reenactment group was sparked.Next year, they plan to travel to Pennsylvania for the 140th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. "It will be as close to the real thing as you can get," Gilliam said.Until that time, Post 505 will settle for the smaller venues to practice their cannon firing - soup cans and all.
To reach reporter
Kristin Fondale, call 209-830-4222 or
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