Civil War Solider Camp

This blog is going to be about my going into a 1 day civil war camp to become a civil war solider. We did stuff like practice marches, skirmishes, and bugle calls! I can't wait to talk all about it, so why wait. I'm starting!

One of the first things I had to do is to get registered. You supply your name and age, then you go thru a test to see if your sick, to see if you are in good shape, and to see if you pass the requirements of becoming a solider. When you get thru all that stuff, you stand in a straight line, shoulders touching, for roll call. After that, we went on to learning how to quickly move from one straight line to two straight lines, then to four. We also learned how to march in the most efficient way. We got into a 4x5 line and marched to the sergeants orders, and also we turned 90 and 180 degrees. Before lunch, we could march as well as any other group of kids who had trained for half the day.

 After lunch, we got our guns, pieces of carved wood with clickers on them that were really hard to reload. We learned how to march with them before learning to shoot with them, and all the different positions they could be held with. we then learned to point them in different directions, and which shoulder to point your gun over the person in front of you. We then learned to fire and reload the guns quickly. we began to march, then stop suddenly stop, go into two lines, point in a direction and fire. We began to get more efficient and you couldn't tell we were kids, we'd become more Awkward Squad-y. We then got to the best parts!

"United we stand, divided we fall"

The best parts was last, like usual. The fake skirmishes, the games, the bugle playing, the stuff that made a soldiers life sorta bearable. The Flags, our team, got second in the games and we won the bugle playing contest. However, the best was the skirmishes, which basically were capture the flag games that we got to play. We were separated into two teams, the Union and the Rebels, and we fought like two kids wanting the last piece of candy. The Union won both times. (Note to capture the flag players: DO NOT LEAVE YOUR FLAG IN A BUSH!) We didn't get anything for winning, but we all had awesome times and wanted to come back next year. If you want to sign up next time, then you should go here and check it next summer: Buffalo Niagara Heritage Museum/ Amherst Museum!