Battle of Charleston

"What a strange time it was! Who knew his neighbor? Who was the traitor and who the patriot?..."

SETTING

Yesterday I went to a 'War of Northern Aggression' OR 'War for Southern Independence' (Civil War) re-enactment yesterday about The Battle of Charleston' on James Island. (Sorry no pictures cause I'm an idiot and forgot my camera... I know that means you're stuck because you don't have any imagination anymore on account of TV and video games...)

...for any history fanatics Charleston, South Carolina is the home of Fort Sumter where the first shots were fired on supply ships when Lincoln attempted to re-supply the fort... South Carolina was also the first state to secede in 1860...

... AND ya the "Battle of Charletson" is no "Gettysburg"... with only maybe 100-150 soldiers fighting instead of a couple thousands... but the 'intimacy' of it meant that we were right in the action... literally 2 feet from soldiers firing, 10 feet from the cannons (DEFINITELY cover your ears), and less than a foot from a horse that very nearly ran into the crowd after getting spooked by cannon fire...

PLOT

...The official story showed some confederate cannon getting stuck in mud, and each side advancing on the cannon and trying to get it unstuck... blah blah blah...

...the REAL battle was about GREAT and HEROIC confederates who were AMAZING and AWESOME and way BETTER DRESSED... who KEPT their PRIDE and DIGNITY in the face of the MARAUDING and MERCILESS and HATEFUL union aggressors...

ACT 1: Character Development

...The union army came marching into a city and fired upon hapless and frightened women and children who then ran to take cover in the trees. Then the confederates came up and defended the women and children and forced the union army back... and Voila... we have Protagonist and Antagonist...

ACT 2: Rising Action and the Building of Suspense

...THE fight over the cannon was 30 minutes of musket and cannon fire (one of the cannons would make a huge smoke ring when it fired that would stay and build and float away which I thought was really cool), infantry movements, cavalry charges, each army attacking and retreating a couple of times... even one 'rebel yell'... and eventually the Confederates got their cannon back... YAY!

ACT 3: Climax

...the union army surrounded, charged, and took the fort, the cannons, and 15 or so prisoners while the rest of the force retreated (walking slowly because 'these colors don't run') to another base set up at the end of the field... Not a chance were they going to give up their flag. (Probably a hard part of the battle to re-enact considering every one of the actors paying roughly $2,000 a piece and $20,000 for the cannons were from the 27th South Carolina Volunteers...)

FIN

...the aftermath is 1 confederate soldier lying on the ground fake dead and probably 20 union soldiers on the ground that met the same fate. 3 union cavalry were also 'dead' on the ground (they held the reigns of their horses as they lay on the ground, and crazily real life their horses kept nudging them to try to get them up), 1 was taken prisoner, and obviously no similar casualties were had by the Confederates... Crazy that whenever a confederate got shot they were only wounded...

...after the battle everyone lined up, did a salute to the brave men and women fighting today for the country, and finally gave a Su-thern great cheer because 'the South will rise again!'... I guess still waters still run deep...