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| Photos from Kaintuck Immersion 2018 |
Today, we wanted to try something a little bit different. We have another guest author, David Ervin, who is a reenactor and author himself. He and I both attended an immersion reenactment event in eastern Kentucky this past weekend. This event was designed to replicate backcountry warfare during the American Revolution, possibly during a British-led incursion into what is now Kentucky late in the war. Alex Burns will provide the British perspective, and David Ervin will provide the American, or Congressional perspective.
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Our Sargeant and I arrived at the site of the reenactment on Friday afternoon, and hiked up into the hills in order to find a campsite for the night. Upon locating a suitable site, we began the process of cutting firewood and collecting water for the rest of the unit. As a result of the weather and various other factors, our unit made a rather small showing at this event. Most of the unit arrived by 11pm, and we spent the rest of the night trying to stay warm. The temperature dropped to below freezing, and by morning, most of the unit was huddled around a fire attempting to stay warm. Our unit began to move out around 7:45am on Saturday morning when a heavy snowfall began. All in all, around 4-5 inches of snow accumulated by the afternoon.
Moving through wooded, snowy, and elevated terrain in period clothing while expecting to fight Whigs (slang for American rebels) was somewhat challenging. Our unit moved between three and four miles, and dropped out of the hills into the bottoms of a creek. At this moment, the lead man in our formation saw what he assumed were Whigs, and our unit took cover. This suspicion was confirmed when the enemy opened fire, and we began to reply. Our sergeant gave the order, "to the front, form!" My file partner and I scrambled through the snowy undergrowth, taking a position alongside the other files. Upon the order, "Commence firing," Dakota and I began to load and fire as fast as we could. Because of the heavy snowfall, both sides had difficulty with their firelocks. After a flash in the pan, I fired my musket fired twice and others had less luck. On the Whig side, I counted two shots. In the course of the fight, I splashed through a creek, soaking my right foot in below freezing weather. Fun.
At this point, both sides began moving back to their start positions, since neither had gained a clear advantage. Moving back into the mountainous terrain, our unit slowly marched the 3-4 miles back to camp, where we assessed the situation, decided to head out for the weekend. All in all, it was an amazing time. The snow combined with the elevated terrain made for tiring marches, and the sergeant and I moved about 14 miles by the time the weekend was all said and done. (Still just about one average day of marching for an eighteenth-century army.) I rolled my ankle several times in the course of the weekend and was quite sore overall. Despite this, the weekend was absolutely an incredible experience, one which I highly recommend to others. The weather, terrain, distance covered, and short and confusing fight made this experience seem a bit like some of the primary sources I spend time reading. I never felt as though, "I was there", but still valued the immersive experience.
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| A cocked hat after 4 hours of snowfall |
Considering joining our unit (Lt. Colonel's Company, King's Regiment) next time for Kaintuck Immersion! You can find us on facebook here.
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The weekend of March 23-25, 2018, a dozen members of the Augusta County Militia (ACM) and the Shirttail Mess gathered at Pioneer Weapons’ Wildlife Management Area near Salt Lick, Kentucky. We were to portray a cobbled-together Kentucky militia detachment dispatched to recover the dead and wounded of a party that’d been ambushed near the banks of Cave Run Lake and to pursue any Native or British enemies that lingered in the area. On Friday we established a basecamp in an easily defensible hollow a few miles west of the objective. The weather forecast threatened wet snow and rain for Saturday, so we constructed a shelter of poles and tent linen and laid on a supply of firewood. Over supper, Captain Kraus of the ACM formulated a plan for the next day’s march. We’d advance along Buck Creek until we reached the objective in the hopes of reaching it quickly, recovering the victims, and returning to camp.
At first light, we roused and packed enough equipment to spend the night outside of basecamp. We pushed out a picquet near Buck’s Creek while the company formed, and then took up our march shortly after dawn. Three men in an advance party marched a hundred yards to our front and a flanker took up positions on each of the flanks. The middle of the formation was composed of a single Indian file, and our rear guard of three men. We were to form a large square upon enemy contact, with the file in the middle splitting off to the left and right and the advance party and rear guard making closing in if they could. Thereafter we would maneuver accordingly. It was overcast and cold, but still dry. We moved carefully. Men scouted a hundred yards up each hollow before we passed it, and we hurried past open ground.
We halted at the first crossing of Buck Creek and formed a line while the captain and a scout pushed on beyond the creek to reconnoiter. In the meantime, the weather had deteriorated. In our advance of a couple of kilometers, a downpour of heavy, wet snow had begun and showed no signs of letting up. Everything was quickly covered, and near half the men were ordered back to camp to attempt to get warm and dry. The scouts continued up the creek while a few of us held the line at the crossing. Those scouts fell in with a party of the enemy and surprised them. They treed and the captain managed to get a shot off. The enemy, too, managed to fire once, but the weather had rendered arms inoperable. As such, the scouts retreated to the crossing.
With the weather turning serious and several men’s feet wet, Captain Kraus decided that we would maintain a picquet of two men at the crossing and relieve them at short intervals. The snow turned to rain, then back to snow, and all the while we got drenched. When the picquet was relieved, we pulled back closer to the basecamp, which, at this point, offered little respite. The shelter leaked in torrents, weighed down by heavy snow. The company held a council.
The situation had changed from a tactical exercise to a real-world survival situation. Each man was asked to consider his own situation and decide for himself whether he would stay or go. A few chose to leave, but most stayed on. After a few more hours in a losing battle against the elements, however, we opted to abandon the event for safety’s sake and hoped our adversaries decided the same. We marched out to the sound of tree branches snapping under the weight of wet snow. The event was far from a bust, course. We learned valuable lessons with which we can improve our woodcraft skills and, most importantly, came out of a potentially dangerous situation unscathed – even if not very dry.
If you are interested in attending future events like this as a militiamen, check out these websites: Shirttailmess.blogspot.com and augustamilitia.com
Dave Ervin
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Thanks for Reading,
Alex Burns
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