I wanted it to let me make the exciting photos the cover, but it wouldn't let me.
I wanted it to let me make the exciting photos the cover, but it wouldn't let me. Anyway, There were Americans there, but far more Canadians. Assignment was random, though, and let me assure you that red-neckery is not exclusively south of the 49th parallel.* Mostly, though, people were into the spirit of the thing.
They marched us at a really reasonable pace, so not hard at all. A lot of streets in Niagara Falls must have been closed, since the British and Americans were marching from different sides of town to Drummond Hill, which is pretty central. And we had a police escort all the way. People were standing on their porches and lawns and stuff. It was pretty neat. Fife and drums all the way.
When we got to the battlefield, they kind of tried to reorganize us, but not too hard, and we did our competing song and huzzah thing. Then they sat us down within about 3 feet of the near side of the field. May I just say, once again, that even without shot, cannon and flintlocks are freaking loud and smelly.
Kudos for including prominent representation of the Indian/First Nations participation in this war. The organization was not perfect, but well above average. This was a complicated thing to pull off.
Irony is that the reenactors were all Canadian. However, they explained that they and their American counterparts regularly play both sides of the fence, so have unifroms and knowledge of both sides. They can have some difficulty arranging to get back and forth, as well. In addition, there has been, and will be, so much going on with reenacting the War of 1812, that they have all been constantly busy. They said most of them will not be at the reenactment of the Battle of Fort McHenry (when a drinking song began its rise to anthem status), but that they will almost all be at the White House in August as part of a commemoration of the burning of Washington.
* I say this because it seems there was a lot of trash talking that went on at the time, so we were given some minimal things to do, like sing Yankee Doodle Dandy ** and say Huzzah! after our officers yelled God Save America! All of which was back talk to the British singing God Save the King and Rule Britannia, and saying God Save the King! There were people standing around saying there was no way they were going to make them say Huzzah to God Save America (muttered imprecations, etc.) Seriously? Bite me. The whole point of this exercise is to celebrate the fact that we haven't shot at each other since, and aren't planning to, either.
**Poor planning. Lots of people couldn't manage to remember one verse of Yankee Doodle. The other time appropriate song was apparently Hail, Columbia, which I remembered the tune and most of a verse of, and the reenactors knew, but forget it with the majority of volunteers. So just Yankee Doodle, really pathetically. Not that the British side did such a bang up job with Rule, Britannia. They might have sent out the words and music ahead of time, or at least handed them out today.
#lundyslane200
They marched us at a really reasonable pace, so not hard at all. A lot of streets in Niagara Falls must have been closed, since the British and Americans were marching from different sides of town to Drummond Hill, which is pretty central. And we had a police escort all the way. People were standing on their porches and lawns and stuff. It was pretty neat. Fife and drums all the way.
When we got to the battlefield, they kind of tried to reorganize us, but not too hard, and we did our competing song and huzzah thing. Then they sat us down within about 3 feet of the near side of the field. May I just say, once again, that even without shot, cannon and flintlocks are freaking loud and smelly.
Kudos for including prominent representation of the Indian/First Nations participation in this war. The organization was not perfect, but well above average. This was a complicated thing to pull off.
Irony is that the reenactors were all Canadian. However, they explained that they and their American counterparts regularly play both sides of the fence, so have unifroms and knowledge of both sides. They can have some difficulty arranging to get back and forth, as well. In addition, there has been, and will be, so much going on with reenacting the War of 1812, that they have all been constantly busy. They said most of them will not be at the reenactment of the Battle of Fort McHenry (when a drinking song began its rise to anthem status), but that they will almost all be at the White House in August as part of a commemoration of the burning of Washington.
* I say this because it seems there was a lot of trash talking that went on at the time, so we were given some minimal things to do, like sing Yankee Doodle Dandy ** and say Huzzah! after our officers yelled God Save America! All of which was back talk to the British singing God Save the King and Rule Britannia, and saying God Save the King! There were people standing around saying there was no way they were going to make them say Huzzah to God Save America (muttered imprecations, etc.) Seriously? Bite me. The whole point of this exercise is to celebrate the fact that we haven't shot at each other since, and aren't planning to, either.
**Poor planning. Lots of people couldn't manage to remember one verse of Yankee Doodle. The other time appropriate song was apparently Hail, Columbia, which I remembered the tune and most of a verse of, and the reenactors knew, but forget it with the majority of volunteers. So just Yankee Doodle, really pathetically. Not that the British side did such a bang up job with Rule, Britannia. They might have sent out the words and music ahead of time, or at least handed them out today.
#lundyslane200
Did you get to dress up, too? :-)
ReplyDeleteThey would have encouraged that, but I don't have access to period appropriate garb right now, so I just wore the t-shirt. Red ones were British/Canadian, blue ones were American. The visual effect of the color blocking was pretty neat.
ReplyDelete