Morning Drill

"You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word."
Al Capone, kind of.


I was issued my 1866 Springfield rifle recently, which I will use for firing demonstrations at Fort Larned.  Forced to learn the manual of arms through repetition and muscle memory, I started carrying the rifle around while giving tours.  I quickly realized that people kind of liked walking around with a fellow with a .50 caliber rifle on his shoulder.  It also lends itself to the possibility of some intangible interpretive opportunities: tension, nervousness, and fear on the Indian Frontier.

Temperatures have been warm following some vicious storms last weekend that left the Pawnee Fork as high as anyone had seen it "since 1993" and left standing water around all week, which made the corn and the mosquitoes happy.  I had warned them that strange weather follows me.  Since then it's been in the high 90s daily but at least there is low humidity and breeziness, which makes marching around in a wool uniform somewhat bearable.  I took to watching Ken Burns' "The Civil War" so as to remember that a lot of other people had it a whole lot worse in that uniform, and I don't complain anymore.  Once one gets sufficiently sweaty, it isn't so bad anyway so long as the Kansas wind keeps blowing; it usually obliges.

This week, I also started researching various first person accounts - diaries and letters - to get a better picture of people's experience out here.  One illuminating account is that of Capt. Albert Barnitz of the 7th Cavalry, who wrote to his wife frequently and often with a bit of wit and sarcasm, which spices things up.  I'll use some of the quotes I've found while overhauling the park's website in the coming months.  Look for the NPS to dramatically upgrade its websites' design next month!

Fort Scott's "Good Ol' Days"

My mission for this week was to haul Fort Larned NHS's 1871 Washington model ambulance across the state to Fort Scott's "Good Ol' Days" event, a city-wide festival more or less like a county fair without the livestock.  Driving the truck and trailer across the state was enjoyable and I got to see a lot of Kansas countryside.

There didn't seem to be a coherent theme to the whole event.  I thought it was like Summerfest, though without the headlining bands, or the fixation on beer, cheese, and sausages.  Thankfully unlike Summerfest, everyone kept their shirt on.  For its part, Fort Scott NHS was paying tribute to armed services throughout the nation's history.  Outfits spanned the American Revolution through today, and numerous military band performances I couldn't see or hear from my position went on throughout the weekend.

I was stationed with my ambulance in front of the Hospital, right by the main entrance to the site.  It proved to be a good location, right up until the time the CH-47D Chinook helicopter roared in and parked on the parade ground about 100 feet from me.  After their dramatic entrance, I said to the folks around me, "Well, that was fun, now who wants to look at my wagon?"

Dramatization.  I was closer.

So basically everyone bypassed me and made a bee-line for the helicopter all day.  Adding insult to injury, by afternoon it was 95 degrees and sunny, and the few people who stopped by my wagon mostly asked if my wool uniform was hot.  I must have looked it.  I probably looked hot when I was laying in the shade under the wagon, too, demonstrating "how to loaf under a wagon."  I tell you, I'd rather have been out there when it was 10 below zero.  I stuck to telling them the safety reason why wool was important when using gunpowder.  Mercifully, there was lemonade in an air-conditioned room for us to take breaks in, but getting cooled off just made me feel slimy in that uniform.

Then in front of me, the "All-American Lumberjack Show" was underway, so I got to shout over the sound of chainsaws, hot saws, and the emcee who used the phrase "on over here" far too often.  Watching the log-rolling was the most entertaining part; the rest was just noise to me.  Everyone in the show was from Minnesota or Wisconsin.

Later on, a crowd gathered again for the Chinook's departure. After liftoff, it circled for a high speed pass with one guy saluting in the window and another standing in the cargo hatch as they blasted by the fort.  OK, I admit it was pretty badass.

The weekend continued Sunday with band performances, and more lumberjacking.  I was somewhat more comfortable as it was a little milder outside, though the lemonade had run out. Still only a few people were interested in my wagon and I spent most of the morning reading "Theodore Roosevelt: The Strenuous Life" while ironically loafing on or under the wagon.

We departed Monday and drove part time in the rain across the state.  Not far into the trip, I saw a cloud that looked terrifyingly like one I had seen in a tornado safety training just a week or two ago.  The cloud was all alone, a giant arc shape level with the ground, and rotating like a street sweeper.  The front edge of the cloud was lifting up violently while the back side was swooping down just as fast.  This is precisely the type of cloud that can form a tornado as the rotation twists toward the ground.  I nervously watched as we cruised down the highway with an invaluable wagon strapped to a trailer by a total novice (me).

Dramatization

About the time we got to Hutchinson for lunch, I noticed some slack in the straps holding the wagon to the trailer, which necessitated redesigning the whole strapping system in the middle of a rain shower.  We got it back in one piece, but not before I clobbered a pigeon with the truck around Stafford, KS.  So there was one fatality.

All in all, it was a successful adventure.  I wished I had been able to see more of Fort Scott while I was there, but I was too loyal to my duty as wagon interpreter to wander off for long.  Those guys out in back had it easy with their big shade tree, I tell you.

Fort Larned NHS Memorial Weekend

We had a busy weekend with over 100 volunteers that checked in for at least part of the event and over 1,000 visitors over three days.  The fort was alive with people in period dress, fiddle music, and the smell of baking bread.

Here I am in my 3rd Inf. Co. C uniform (with cavalry boots I tell people I won in a card game).  The leather satchel is for transporting the artillery rounds so that flying embers won't blow me and the rest of the cannon crew up in a battlefield situation.

Saturday, we had beautiful, warm and breezy weather for the kickoff to the event.  My morning started with a crash course in mountain howitzer loading and firing.  I got the easy, but nonetheless terrifying, job of carrying the powder charge from the caisson to the cannon.  I was literally getting instructions and pointers while the speaker was addressing the crowd of about 140 people for the first demonstration.  Amber got it on video.  We got better with practice, and did the entire thing "by detail" so the audience could hear the commands and follow the action.


Click here to see the video if it doesn't load in your browser.

 Later, we rotated around so we could practice the different jobs on the gun.  By the second day, I got to pull the primer, which was a good thrill.  I have an image burned into my mind of looking over at our volunteer Clive, in the gunner position, and the intent look on his face when I gave him the nod that I was ready to fire.  I can say that it felt quite natural.  On the third day, I operated the sponge rammer.  We had a perfect record going until we had a misfire during the last show.  Apparently, the round was either not seated correctly or had something wrong with the foil so that it didn't get seated correctly in the breach of the gun.  I thought it was my fault for not ramming it properly, though everyone said it looked like I had rammed it even better than the first one I had done.  In any event, it finally went off on the third try, and we got practice dealing with a misfire.  "It happens to everybody," they said.

The cannon is pretty interesting to operate.  Each man has a very small part in the machinery, but has to be in the right place at the right time all the time.  It's choreography.

The small arms demonstration was paired with our cannon demonstration.  The third day we also demonstrated the trap-door 1866 Springfield and how much faster it can fire than the 1863 muzzle-loading model.

On Saturday, I participated in the "vintage base-ball" game.  I made up some old-timey flyers to advertise the event.

Again with the baseball game, we were learning in front of a huge crowd.  We didn't know all the different rules from regular baseball - highlights include being able to catch the ball off a bounce (helpful when you don't have a glove).  So the club vintage baseball teams played first, and then the "Fort Larned Soldiers" took on whoever wanted to stay and play as the "All-Stars" in the afternoon.  The Soldiers had a rough time running in their flat-bottomed shoes and found by about the 6th inning that they were better off without them.  We finished 9 innings; 99% of the crowd did not.  It would have been a very close game if not for the first couple innings in which the All Stars got a sizable lead.  The Soldiers were happy not to get shut out since most of the volunteers were not athletes (though the two park rangers on the team did quite well, I might add!).  Oh, and the catfish and peach cobbler was good, too.

Our other main responsibility as the soldiers of the fort was to handle the flag retreat ceremony, which involved a wardrobe change into the dress uniform and some ceremony and marching.  It also involved the chief ranger, playing the role of first sergeant, harassing the privates after falling in for flag detail about shining their buttons.  For my part, I tried not to laugh, but couldn't help it most of the time during this fun part of ending the day.  The rest of flag retreat was a fairly solemn event as everyone still visiting ringed the parade ground to watch as we marched out, recovered the flag, and marched back.  Again, we were getting pretty good at it by the end of the weekend such that the bugle calls were starting to make sense.

The soldiers were only part of the activity at the fort.  We had surgeons in the hospital, ladies in the officer's quarters, blacksmiths, carpenters, Buffalo Bill, buffalo soldiers, horses, and more.  My favorite part other than the things that go "boom" was eating the bread from the bakery.

It was a fun event, and I'm looking forward to the next one.  Next week, I'll visit Fort Scott for their "Good Ol' Days" event, for which I will haul Fort Larned's ambulance across Kansas.