I do hope you'll pardon my protracted absence; updating is far from a habit, as yet. Today's post was inspired by my first "away game", this past weekend. for several weeks, I was unsure as to whether I would be able to go to Fort Niagara, because of possible new job conflicts, etc. However, things worked out, and my friends Susan and John Bortniak, of Compagnie Franches De La Marine, Dumas, (did I get that right?) invited me to ride and camp with them. Normally, for French and Indian War, I camp and fight with Joshua Beall's Company of the Maryland Forces, (British Provincial Regulars) but in the uncertainty beforehand, I apparently never actually told Beall's that I was coming! It worked out, though, and I had a great weekend. I had never been to Niagara, nor to any F&I fort other than Fort Frederick, Maryland. (Home base for the Maryland Forces)We arrived late Thursday night, and I was able to grab bunk space on the second floor of the North Bastion. The bunks there are better described as 7-foot-deep shelves along two walls. The 7' depth makes them a LOT more comfortable than the less-than-6-foot length of the bunks at Fort Frederick, since I can actually stretch out, without having to drape my ankles over the footboard! Compagnie Dumas ' camp was just in front of the bastion, which allowed me to still be a part of the camp. Friday and Sunday, I fought as French, skirmishing as Milice on Friday morning, and as a Marine for the other battles, and on Saturday, I joined my Beall's comrades in my usual Maryland Provincial guise. The best part was the reenactment of the routing of the French re-enforcements at La Belle Famille, Sunday morning. Advancing with the French line, and passing under the branches of a tree, I spotted Beall's Company about 15-20 yards ahead, on my right oblique. When Lieutenant Tom Kerling (commanding Beall's) gave the order to present, all I saw was a row of muzzles. They'd spooted, me, and I was going to 'get mine' for going Frenchy on them! Since I knew 7 or 8 of my friends were aiming at me, (actually, over my head) there was no way I could NOT take the hit. I took it as a wound, so I wouldn't have to lie for 15 minutes with my arm awkwardly pinned under my body, and crawled back to a small tree, dragging one leg, pathetically. After our (French) forces were decimated or driven off, and the Brits started marching off, I began hurling insults at the Brits: "Batard Anglais!" "Je chouchez avec ton mere!" "Elle a' un moustache grande et noir, et une arierre comme un chameaux!" "English bastard!" "I bed with your mother!" "She has a large, black moustache, and a rear like a camel!" It was only when I heard laughter on my right that I realized that some of my "French" companions actually WERE Quebecois! I'm not sure I would have had the guts to shout my bad French, had I known that they were there!
There was one thing I learned, though, that gave me pause; few of my French friends have friends in the British camp, and vice-versa; given that my reenacting crowd includes a lot of bleed-over between units, (we have Brit provincials, French Marines, Rev War Brits and Hessians, and Jacobites, plus several people who are associated more with Mount Vernon, Carlyle House, and the Claude Moore Colonial Farm, than with any military unit) it hadn't occured to me that there wouldn't be a lot of mixing between sides. I hope I'm wrong, and there's a lot of mixing, but if we're not mixing together, simply because the geography of British camps and French, or American and British, Scots and English, Union and Confederate, pyhysically separate us into out own, insular groups, then I think it behooves us all to venture to the enemy camps of an evening, and find that the people we "shoot at" during the day, are just as prone to bad puns, obscure Firefly references, and historical enthusiasm as we are. If you're one of those unfortunates whose unit mixes primarily with its own side, may I propose stealing the "sister city" program from towns acroos America, and have each unit become "sisters" with an "enemy" unit, to help each other/ I think it would be awesome, and the hobby could only become that much better!
