Learning how to drill as a new recruit

6th North Carolina State Troops at Bentonville March 11, 2011

Last Saturday (19 March 2011) I participated, with other members of the 6th North Carolina State Troops, in a living history program at the Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site as part of their Civil War Sesquicentennial commemoration. The program was called "TO ARMS! TO ARMS" and featured us reenactors portraying civilians answering the call to duty, to be recruited into the Confederate Army. My previous post describes my experience being recruited. This post will describe what it was like to learn drill for the first time. For this program, the reenactors were instructed to "forget everything" we knew about drilling and pretend we didn't know a thing...not too hard for most of us after a long, idle winter off the drill field.
 After taking the oath of allegiance to the Confederate government and then being sworn into Confederate Service, uniformed officers pushed and prodded us into a line facing a mean faced drill sergeant.

 "OK. you ignorant sod-busters, shut up and pay attention!" 

 I was getting the feeling the honeymoon was over... 

 "How many of you dumb farm boys know your right from your left?" 

 A scattering of hands were sheepishly raised. 

 "This is your right" said the Sergeant, like he was talking to a group of dimwitted school children. 

Facing the men, he pointing to the right with his right hand. This was instantly mimicked by a several of the recruits who pointed in the same direction, the mirror image of the sergeant, which of course was their left hand. 

 "No you idiots! that is your left hand " roared the Sergeant to the delight of the spectators. 

Looking confused, recruits started turning around in circles, pointing every which way and babbling to each other about which is right and which is left. The Sergeant was clearly losing control. 

 "Quiet in the ranks! Get back in line! Now pay attention." 

 He walked up to a recruit in the center and, roughly grabbing him by the shoulder,  spun him to the right. 

"This is right face!" 

 Now he spun him 180 degrees to the left, "This is left Face!" 

 Glaring at the recruits he shouted "Got it? GOOD! Now you try it!" 

 "Right FACE"

Most of the recruits turned right, but a few turned left.

"Your other right!" screamed the Sergeant spinning a lefty to the right position. 

"Now, come back where you started when I say front." 

"FRONT!" 

 Most of the recruits turned back to face him, but a few of us had the same idea to mess things up, so we faced backwards. 

 "Front...FRONT....FRONTTTTT!" screamed the exasperated sergeant trying to get our attention. 

 We ran through our "facings" several more times, demonstrating to the crowd how challenging it was for the sergeant to get all the men to follow the same command. Being quick learners, we soon had these simple commands committed to memory.

It was said that farm boys joining the army often didn't know their right foot from their left foot.  Maybe this knowledge wasn't important in farming, but it is critical in the army. The drill sergeants quickly realized that the farm boys knew the difference between hay and straw, so by sticking some hay into the laces of one boot (called brogans) and straw in the other, the sergeant could call the cadence of "Hay foot , Straw foot" instead of "Left, Right, Left."

We didn't suffer the indignity of shoving straw in our shoes, but the event narrator told this story to the spectators. Is it true? Who knows, but it is an entertaining story.  

Now that we had learned our left from our right, it was time to engage in musket drill and the sergeant attemped to lead us across the street to the drill field. Spectators trailed along as if following the pied piper. We were marching in single file, but like so many kindergartners on a lovely spring day we soon bunched up and started chatting amongst ourselves as we lolly-gagged in the general direction the sergeant was headed. 

 The poor sergeant was nearly apoplectic when he turned and saw what a disorderly mess his single file line had become. 

 "What are you men doing? Get back into Line! Single file there! Quiet in the ranks!" 

 He soon marshaled us into a line again and we arrived at our destination. As the Spectators gathered to watch, He ordered us to re-line up by height. Playing the dumb recruits, we wandered around in confusion in disorder before the NCO's and officers got us lined up properly. The Sergeant explained the difference between a rank (all the men in either the front or rear line) and a file (each pair of men, one in the front rank and one in the rear rank). Next he gave the order: "In each rank Count TWO's"

 Trained recruits would replay "One, Two, One, Two, One, Two" and so on, down the line. But we we're trained recruits.... 

"One, Two, Three..." 

"Hold on!" said the Sergeant "There is only ONE and TWO! There is no three! 

"Yes there IS!" someone yelled out, "it comes after two, they taught us that in school" 

"QUIET IN THE RANKS" Screamed an onlooking officer 

"You don't have to shout..." Said another voice from the ranks 

 "ONE!, TWO!, ONE!, TWO!, ONE!, TWO!" shouted the sergeant as he walked down the line poking an index finger into the chest of each front rank man in turn. 

"Now you try it!" The recruits has some more fun pretending to be confused and messing up this simple count, drawing chuckles from the onlooking spectators. By this time even the dullest of the spectators understood this better than if we had tried to explain it to them.  

Once we were finally counted off, we learned how to form a column of four, again with much pretended difficulty and confusion, to the consternation of the officers. The recruits complained about the heat. They complained because their feet hurt. They complained because the musket was heavy. Sometimes when an order was given, a voice would mutter "who voted him to be the boss anyway!" 

 At one point an officer disgustedly shouted, "You men are hopeless! this line looks terrible! You should come here and see how bad you look!" 

 Half the men in the front rank took his invitation at face value and rushed toward where he was standing to have a look. 

 As the crowd roared in laughter, the officer sputtered "What are you men doing? Get back in line!" 

 The men slunk back to their places and several of them were heard to mutter "well he said to come take a look!". 

 All the reenactors played their parts well. The officers and NCOs were properly stern and demanding. The raw recruits were...well...raw and clueless. But, now it was time to show the crowd what we really knew. We told the crowd to fast forward six months into the future after we had  been properly trained and, with the reenactors on their best behavior, we ran though the facings and manual of arms without flaw. We marched around the field in fine formation, fired a number of nearly perfect volleys and for the finale, we fixed bayonets and charged the crowd. Their applause told us they were impressed. 

 This program gave spectators a better understanding of what it took to drill raw recruits. Now it was their turn. Officers asked for volunteers. Young and old alike came forward to try mastering the skills that eluded us all morning.  NCO's handed out wooden muskets. The new batch of "recruits" were lined up and counted off. They were about to discover the joys and pains of reenacting. The rest of us broke ranks and headed to camp for lunch with a fresh appreciation for the skills we had mastered over the years.

To Arms! To Arms!

 

Members of the 6th North Carolina State Troops at the Bentonville Living History on March 19, 2011

Harper House, Bentonville Battlefield, NC- Throngs of people gathered in small clusters on the lawn of John Harper's farmhouse in Bentonville, NC on the morning of Saturday March 19, 2011. It is the sesquicentennial commemoration of the War Between the States. Even at 9 am the brightly shining sun was warm enough to drive people into the dappled shade of the ancient trees in front of the house. Red, white and Blue bunting hung limply from the second story balcony in the stillness of the morning. The air buzzed with excited conversation as dozens of small groups of men and woman talked amongst themselves. Small children played soldier with wooden rifles and chased each other through the crowd. Others clung to the thick spreading lower branches in trees that invited children to climb them. 

Rick Starting the day in "civilian" togs

I wandered onto the park-like lawn and joined the festive atmosphere with my reenacting friends from the 6th North Carolina State Troops. Like most of the others present this morning, we were wearing the garb of 19th century civilians and portraying local citizens who had gathered to join the Confederate Army. This was an event sponsored by the North Carolina department of Cultural resources and the Staff of the Bentonville Battlefield. The public had been invited to witness a living history program portraying camp of instruction  for newly enlisted, "green" troops. The frustrated officers trying to whip us into shape called us "pasty faced shopkeepers and oafish, sod busting farm boys", but that was later in the day after the speech making and merriment ended and we were being turned into cannon fodder.

My friend, Tom Justus, and I stood at the edge of the crowd in the shade of a tree. He unbuckled the straps that formed a carrying sling around his black instrument case and withdrew his ever present fiddle. The thin, high pitched drone of an irish jig punctuated the still air as Tom scratched out a tune. Normally this would have drawn a crowd, but with all the activity in the yard, we were barely noticed. 

Suddenly a hush fell over the crowd and we looked up at the balcony. A gray haired man, nicely dressed in a black sack coat and black short brimmed hat, waited politely while the crowd quieted down and gave him their attention. He was John Harper, owner of the farmhouse whose lawn we were gathered on. He welcomed us and lamented the occasion that brought us together...the coming war. He referred to the telegram received by our governor, John Ellis, asking for 75,000 troops to quell the rebellion. He reminded us of the reply, "you can get no troops from North Carolina" which was met with rousing cheers from the gathered crowd. Mr. Harper encouraged us to enlist in the Johnston volunteers and regretted he was to old to lead us himself, but assured us the war would be over in a matter of weeks since we all know that a good southern boy can whip any 12 Yankees!

At the conclusion of the speech, uniformed army officers funneled the eager volunteers into lines for examination by a medical officer before being enlisted and sworn in. By this time some spectators had gathered behind us to watch. Looking at my gray haired friend Tom, and thinking about the gray streaking my own beard, it occurred to me that we could no longer portray eager farm boys anxiously running off to a great adventure. Men of our senior years needed no excuse to stay out of the army, so why would we have been present?

Perhaps we could portray veterans of our own boyhood adventure in the Mexican war. Older men who wanted to prove to themselves and fellow villagers that we were "able bodied men" willing to fight in this patriotic cause. That would be a more likely impression for us to portray at this stage of our reenacting career.

As Tom packed away his fiddle, we remained where we were, surveying the youngsters in a rush to enlist.  I remarked to Tom, and some spectators within earshot,

"Remember when we were boys and they told us the war with Mexico would be over in a week? That sure  didn't work out so well, if you recall those dusty marches across the dessert. Are you SURE we still want to enlist"

 To which Tom played his part perfectly by reminding the skeptical character I was playing of "duty and honor" while the spectators behind us chuckled.

We soon found ourselves in a long line. In the distance, officers laboriously filled out paperwork. A reenactor behind us joked that it didn't take him this long to enlist in the real army. Tom and I started chatting about our first person impressions. A first person impression is the 19th century person you are portraying. They can be a real person or a fictional person. The important thing is that you stay in character and be true to that persons core knowledge and beliefs. This can be as simple or complex as you care to make it. Some reenactors invent elaborate characters or portray ancestors or once living soldiers through detailed research into every aspect of their life. I asked Tom if he was going to be a blacksmith which ties into his passion and profession as a medieval armorer. He had thought about this and decided he would portray a foundry-man or maybe a railroad metal worker as a tribute to some of the skilled "mechanics" that comprised the 6th NCST and in tribute to the company shops near his home. I hadn't given my character much thought, but as the lined moved closer, I decided I would portray my Great-Great Grandfather, John Walton.

John Walton was born on Applyby-Magna, England in 1830. In the 1861 English census he lists his occupation as a coachman in Cheddleton, England. John Walton never traveled to America. At the time of the war between the states he was 31 years old and had a large family. 

Had he lived in America, he would have been a prime age to have fought, either as a volunteer or later as a conscript. What he thought of this war in far off America was never recorded. I am the descendant of John's son George, who arrived on these shores two decades after the war.

I stepped up to the doctors table.

"Name?"

"John Walton" I replied

The doctor did a double take. "Are you related to the Waltons?"

"I am "the Waltons", sir" I replied

He gave me a foolish grin, undoubtedly thinking about the 1970's T.V. show, "The Waltons" which caused me to suffer through high school with the nickname "John-boy" .

He continued checking off items on his examination form, without actually examining anything. Another Doctor told me to touch my toes. Playing up the "old-man" angle, I placed my right hand on the table, to steady myself, I bent my knee and lifted my foot to touch my toe. The Doctor gave me an exasperated look and exclaimed "not that way!"

I calmly turned around placing my left hand on the table and raised my other leg in the same manner, to the amusement of onlooking spectators. The doctor gave up, shoved my papers toward me and told me to  report to the enlisting officer before turning to the recruit behind me and shouting, "Next!"

I joined another line. Welcome to the army...hurry up and wait!

Tom and I were looking over the forms in our hand. Even though Tom is a head shorter than me, both our forms said: height 5' 10".  The forms said we have brown hair, and brown eyes. I looked at Toms white hair and beard. It turns out we both have hazel eyes, which may be a greenish hue, but not brown. I wondered how they got that so wrong.I guess in their hurry to enlist us they glossed over some of the details.

I started thinking about how excited I have been in the past, when researching, to find a soldier enlistment papers or other "official documents" in a  soldiers compiled service record. Their height, hair and eye color brought them to life a little bit. But now I have to question how accurate those "facts" really are. I never thought about it before, but if this information was not recorded by the person themselves, it may be questionable. Just because it is on a form, doesn't make it accurate.

When I got to the recruiter he glanced over the form, looked me over, filled in a few more items and sent me to a group of recruits waiting to be sworn in.  I sat in the shade and had just gotten comfortable when a officer got us into line and we we sworn in.

I was now officially a soldier of the Confederate states of America!

Next: Learning how to Drill