American Civil War!
We are very lucky to live close to the American Museum in Bath, and often visit to enjoy their musical afternoons and living history displays. Every year in the early autumn the American Museum plays host to SOSKAN, the Southern Skirmishers Association who come and re-enact skirmishes from the Civil War. The museum comes alive with soldiery and families from the 1860s.
The ladies costumes are gorgeous and very colourful
and there are lots of photo oppotunities
Re-enacting crosses all generations
But it's not just about looking pretty - there's work to do too, as this battlefield nurse will testify
Getting ready for the battle...I'll let the people who fought this war explain it from now on....
"Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came."
Abraham Lincoln
"We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top. In our youths, our hearts were touched by fire."
Oliver Wendall Holmes-
"The next time we met was at Appomattox, and the first thing that General Grant said to me when we stepped inside, placing his hand in mine was, "Pete, let us have another game of brag, to recall the days that were so pleasant." Great God! I thought to myself, how my heart swells out to such magnanimous touch of humanity. Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?"
General James Longstreet talking about General Ulysses S. Grant after his death, New York Times, July 24, 1885.
"What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world"
General Robert E Lee
"Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield."
Sullivan Ballou
"A question settled by violence, or in disregard of law, must remain unsettled forever."
--- President Jefferson Davis, CSA
"If I ever disown, repudiate, or apologize for the Cause for which Lee fought and Jackson died, let the lightnings of Heaven rend me, and the scorn of all good men and true women be my portion. Sun, Moon, Stars, all fall on me when I cease to love the Confederacy. 'Tis the cause, not the fate of the Cause, that is glorious!"
--- Maj. R.E. Wilson, CSA
"It is well that war is so terrible—we should grow too fond of it."
- Robert E. Lee during the Battle of Fredericksburg, 13 December 1862.8
"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."
- Anonymous
"The hoarse and indistinguishable orders of commanding officers, the screaming and bursting of shells, canister and shrapnel as they tore through the struggling masses of humanity, the death screams of wounded animals, the groans of their human companions, wounded and dying and trampled underfoot by hurrying batteries, riderless horses and the moving lines of battle-a perfect Hell on earth, never, perhaps to be equaled, certainly not to be surpassed, nor ever to be forgotten in a man's lifetime. It has never been effaced from my memory, day or night, for fifty years."
Massachusetts private-
(At Gettysburg...)
We'll fight them, sir, 'til hell freezes over, and then, sir, we will fight them on the ice."
A Confederate soldier at Gettysburg
"War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."
General William Tecumseh Sherman
"Well, it is all over now. The battle is lost, and many of us are prisoners, many are dead, many wounded, bleeding and dying. Your Soldier lives and mourns and but for you, my darling, he would rather, a million times rather, be back there with his dead, to sleep for all time in an unknown grave."
Major General George Pickett, CSA, to his fiancée, July 4, 1863
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
Abraham Lincoln
Remembering the fallen of that terrible conflict...
In the words of one Confederate Soldier on the final retreat to Appomattox...
""My shoes are gone; my clothes are almost gone. I'm weary, I'm sick, I'm hungry. My family have been killed or scattered. And I have suffered all this for my country. I love my country. But if this war is ever over, I'll be damned if I ever love another country."
Thank you for looking through this blog. I hope you haven't found it too depressing...It just seemed more fitting to let the soldiers tell their own story, than try to explain the complexities of this dreadful conflict.
Many thanks to SOSKAN for being such willing models and providing such a varied and interesting weekend. If you get the chance to see them at any point I would strongly recommend going. Of course no soldiers were really harmed in the making of this blog and they have the bonus of being able to resurrect their dead after the battle! 
Thanks for looking
Jacqui x
- Southern Girl's blog
- Login or register to comment on or report this content
-
Log in
zamów zdjęcia
Najwyższej jakości zdjęcia przez internet
Reply to comment
Brilliant blog!!
Dave!!
http://www.myfinepix.co.uk/competition/entry/395559
http://www.myfinepix.pl/gallery/110
Reply to comment
Great blog with some really great action shots ,thanks for putting this up
Reply to comment
good actions shots in this i forgot all about it lol so i did not go but went light painting instead.
well done on the blog
my blogs
http://www.myfinepix.pl/blog/138
Extreme entry
http://www.myfinepix.pl/compet
Reply to comment
You have done the memory of these men proud Jacqui, a very emotive blog, so realistic. The quotations certainly describe the feelings of soldiers caught up war, all praise to the members of the acting group too. Your photos are great with some fine action shots, well done you. Thanks for compiling this, it must have taken ages!
http://www.myfinepix.pl/blog/148038/469556 Madeiran flower festival.
Reply to comment
Jacqui, this is an absolutley wonderful blog. Every thing and everybody looks so authentic and makes you think you are really there looking at a war. It must have ben amazing to see. I love how you have used the actual words of the soldiers.
Your photos are incredible, so well captured. Thank you for compiling this fabulous blog, I have really enjoyed looking at your photos and reading all about what happened in that terrible part of American History. You have made it seem as though I was looking at a film, so interesting. Pam.
The Giants Causeway. http://www.myfinepix.pl/blog/1529/346856
Reply to comment
A truly superb blog. Excellent photography and very informative dialogue. Most enjoyable and thanks for sharing.
If you've time, please have a look at my Photoblogs & Gallery
Reply to comment
Absolutely stunned !
Brilliant pictures that to me look so authentic but then I'm not American but even so...
Great not to have un-costumed people in the backgrounds. What a marvelous oportunity you have taken great advantage of.
This is the type of event that I would dearly love to see myself and don't often wish That I could have gone to myself but your photographs really do it justice.
I liked the informative narrative and your smoke ring from the canon of which I've only ever seen one so well formed before, and I totally missed taking a photo of it
Well done.
My Blogs. My Articles.
Reply to comment
This is a brilliant blog - a fantastic set of images and, just as Ray says, it looks completely authentic! Great stuff, thanks for posting
Reply to comment
Outstanding. I have the highest repect for the effort you have made to produce this wonderful piece of quality work. You have reset the bar at a dizzying height.
Wonderful authenticity to the pictures, particularly the ones obscured by powdersmoke. The quotes are amazing and apt.
Reply to comment
Awesome. I felt like an onlooker at a 'real' battle. The photography is fantastic. You have done a great service to the memory of all who died and those that suffered. Probably one of the best blogs I've veiwed.
Thank you so much for the time you have given and then for sharing this blog.
Jean
http://www.myfinepix.pl/blog/119926/337260
Reply to comment
Awesome fabulous photoblog Jacqui with stunning photography, excellent informative narrative and beautiful presentation. A delightful interesting colourful collection of photos showing the event. Thanks for compiling and sharing.
Reply to comment
Hello Jacqui
Just catching up.... I will say this though, I think the photography in this is absolutely stunning. The angles, the atmosphere you captured, the stunning use with focus, everything about it is great. Not a lot more I can add to other comments. You should be very proud Jacqui, I am chuffed for you and I hope many more pop along to see this stunning photoblog.
Brilliant. XXX
Steve
My gallery: http://www.myfinepix.pl/gallery/117
My Photoblogs: http://www.myfinepix.pl/blog/117
Reply to comment
I don't often visit the blogs these days, but was pointed here by your chat item. The compositions you've put together are really excellent. You must have had a field day (excusing pun). Superb blog, and very interesting to see.
http://www.myfinepix.pl/gallery/339
Reply to comment
Great blog, great subject. I think you helped educate many on such an awful conflict. A lot of Americans gave their lives during that war. I felt like I was looking back into the 1860s.