{"id":52440,"date":"2014-06-27T15:45:15","date_gmt":"2014-06-27T19:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=52440"},"modified":"2014-06-27T15:45:15","modified_gmt":"2014-06-27T19:45:15","slug":"my-american-legion-magazine-article-about-gettysburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=52440","title":{"rendered":"My American Legion Magazine article about Gettysburg"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

For those who don’t get the Legion magazine, shame on you.\u00a0 However, I did want to share my piece from this month.<\/p>\n

Riding with the Cavalry At the 150th anniversary of Gettysburg<\/strong><\/p>\n

Civil War enthusiasts gathered to re-enact a pivotal episode in U.S. military history.<\/p>\n

\"0714_Gettysburg_Opening\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One hundred fifty years after it really happened, we were once again engaged in that most doomed of\u00a0military ventures: Pickett\u2019s\u00a0Charge.
\nI had spent five straight days in the saddle and was happy to be out of it, marching on foot toward some 3,500 Union soldiers about 500 yards away, and among my fellow Confederates in rural Pennsylvania, where the blue and the gray annually revive their epic clash.
\nI had ridden with the 1st Virginia Cavalry for days, but now, in this ill-fated charge against the North, a lack of horseback troops meant I had to transfer to the 1st South Carolina Infantry. We gamely held up the right flank while trying in vain to stay abreast of the entire line. The mission was soon to unravel, as it did in 1863.
\n\u201cStay on line!\u201d yelled our mustachioed commander, who I\u2019d only met 20 minutes earlier. \u201cStay on line!\u201d Amid the chaos of the battlefield, he was perfectly suited, brandishing two sabers held out parallel to the ground and trying to get us to either slow down or speed up depending on the actions of those to our left.
\nAs I marched on foot, Michael Schramm, an accomplished equestrian, snarked at me from the rank directly to my rear: \u201cI told you, dude. Death before dismount.\u201d I was perfectly content with my feet on the ground since my horse had decided he didn\u2019t like the shouting and noise of the cannons and decided to exit the battlefield early \u2013 bearing me, his rider, clinging to the saddle horn. I was happy to walk in an infantry unit from South Carolina, the state in which I attended military college.
\nDuring the four days of battles leading to this ultimate ending, I had served as a runner for Brig. Gen. Doug Nalls, commander of the Confederate Cavalry, and Gen. Brian Gesuero, a firefighter from Clinton, Md., and commander of the 1st Corps.
\nI hadn\u2019t been much use as a runner because my horse and I seldom agreed on which direction to head. At one point, as I was trying to leave the field, I inexplicably found myself in the heart of a saber battle roughly 10 feet from \u201cGen. Custer,\u201d who smiled at me and said, \u201cNot today, bud. I live through this one.\u201d
\nBut on this particular Sunday, as rain clouds threatened to douse the roughly 20,000 spectators in attendance, I got to the battle the old-fashioned way, in boots obviously made for a man with feet several inches smaller than mine. Among the Civil War\u2019s most enduring jokes is that Army boots came in two sizes: too big and too small.
\nCannons roared, men swore, spectators cheered, and I just tried to stay on line with my unit. It wasn\u2019t easy crossing a gully-scoured battlefield, often through surprisingly deep water.
\nAt 200 yards, we saw our last obstacle: a wooden fence halfway between us and the enemy.
\n\u201cCharge!\u201d
\nBugles blared, men yelled the rebel cheer, and on we charged. We closed with the fences and struck. And everywhere along the line the fence went down, except the section I hit. I managed to get a lungful of needed air when Schramm and the second rank struck me and pushed me into the fence again. Eventually, we surrendered to the inevitable and went around it.
\nAt 50 meters, the Union soldiers opened up on us. It was a slaughter. I couldn\u2019t help but wonder if\u00a0the men on the first go-round had thought, as I\u00a0did, \u201cWhat are we doing here?\u201d That\u2019s when I\u00a0became a Civil War statistic.<\/p>\n

\"Me\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Schramm, who had been the best man in my wedding and served with me in Bosnia, had asked rather innocently several months earlier, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you come do an embed with my unit?\u201d After 19 years as a cavalry scout and an infantryman, including a stint with the Old Guard at Arlington National Cemetery, Schramm had transferred to the Air National Guard to be a loadmaster. But his flight physical revealed a lung condition that precluded further service, and he was medically retired. So when he asked me to embed in his unit, I was understandably confused.
\nHis unit, it turned out, was not of this century.
\nIt was the 1st Virginia Cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia, where Schramm served as a major and adjutant in charge of seemingly everything from logistics to ensuring that greenhorns like me didn\u2019t get trampled to death by their horses. Schramm is a battle re-enactor, one among a welcoming and gregarious group of people.
\nMy wife, Caroline, and I sat around the campfire at night, eating food prepared by Mike\u2019s wife, Jo, and discussed everything from current affairs to 19th-century military tactics. They told stories of re-enactments past, when conditions were significantly less hospitable than what we had on this anniversary date. They chuckled over lost boots at New Market and commanders who tried to revise history by winning battles their ancestral counterparts had lost.
\nThe uniforms and weapons can get expensive, so most re-enactors have middle- to upper-middle-class incomes. A basic kit for an infantry re-enactor starts at around $1,000, with just the uniform, weapon, tents and assorted gear. For the cavalry, the cost of caring for horses is added, as are additional weapons like pistols and sabers.
\nLife as a cavalry troop under Brig. Gen. Nalls was easy compared to that of the infantryman. At 6 a.m. each day, bugles and drums would call the infantry to training. They would march through camp to a nearby open field, while those of us who depended on our equine friends usually slept in.
\nWe fought about two battles a day and at night shared stories, camaraderie and fire-cooked meals. It was the best of camping, adding in the excitement of battle that resulted in no casualties. (This is probably why such re-enactments are so attractive to veterans.)
\nSchramm, a member of Mathews American Legion Post 83, lives in the Shenandoah region of Virginia. He introduced me to Vietnam War veterans, as well as those who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, on both sides of the re-enactments. One of the infantrymen marching with us from South Carolina introduced himself as a Legionnaire and Korean War Navy veteran. The 16-year-old boy next to him talked about his desire to serve in the military when he turns 18.
\nThe American Legion Family was well represented on the general\u2019s staff, as we were joined by Logan Metesh and his wife, Jennifer. A firearms specialist with the National Rifle Association, Logan has been a member and adjutant of Sons of the American Legion Squadron 320 in Spotsylvania, Va. His great-grandfather, Joseph Davie, served in World War I as a horseshoer with Battery D of the 10th Field Artillery. \u201cIt came full circle for me to serve in the cavalry,\u201d he said.
\nLogan and Jennifer were both fighting in the Army of Northern Virginia this time, but they trace their ancestors to the Union side \u2013 Logan\u2019s family from New York and Jennifer\u2019s from Wisconsin. Only in their 20s, they are veteran re-enactors. \u201cWe met at college (University of Mary Washington) during a meeting for a Civil War walking tour of our campus,\u201d Logan says. \u201cI got her started into infantry re-enacting, but she has been riding horses since she was a kid and wanted to combine the two. I told her if she could find a cav unit, we could join. She found the 1st Virginia Cav, and the rest is history.\u201d
\nJennifer rides carrying a saber entrusted to her by Blane Piper, a Legionnaire who served as a radioman in the Navy from 1961 to 1964. He had been a member of the post (as well as SAL and the Legion Riders) with Logan, and a re-enactor commanding a unit in Gen. James Archer\u2019s Brigade. At the 135th anniversary of Gettysburg, Piper carried an engraved saber presented to him by his men. Unable to attend the 150th, he asked Jennifer, a corporal with the 1st Virginia Cav, to carry it into battle for him.<\/p>\n

I never got the name of the man who shot me.
\nBut as I lay there moaning in the grass, knowing I would never win an Oscar, I could see him smiling. And when the Union troops moved out over our position, chasing the now-fleeing rebels, he did stop to check on me.
\n\u201cYou doing OK, bud?\u201d he asked with a wry smile. \u201cYou need any water?\u201d I told him I was good but wished he hadn\u2019t killed me.
\n\u201cNever mess with us Hoosiers, son,\u201d he said as he stepped over and past me.
\n\u201cDamn,\u201d I muttered. \u201cKilled by a guy from my own state.\u201d
\nAs the rain started to fall, I regained my feet and stood at attention as a bugler played Taps, bringing closure to a milestone anniversary of a historic battle that will stir back to life this year. The battle will always resume, as long as there are people like us, who so deeply appreciate military history that we\u2019ll happily step back in time, put on the ancient uniform, mount an insubordinate horse, draw sabers and march online into an enemy stronghold, hearts pumping with excitement, always knowing the ultimate outcome.<\/p>\n

Mark Seavey is a writer for The American Legion Magazine and editor of the Burn Pit blog.<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

For more information on Civil War re-enacting and the 151st anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg on July 4-6, visit the<\/strong> Gettysburg Reenactment Committee\u2019s website.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

– See more at: http:\/\/www.legion.org\/magazine\/222853\/riding-cavalry#sthash.eRBi6d6F.dpuf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 For those who don’t get the Legion magazine, shame on you.\u00a0 However, I did want … My American Legion Magazine article about Gettysburg<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}