OSWEGO, N.Y. - The Columbia Rifles' 2004 Camp of Instruction (COI) weekend was held on April 17-18, 2004 at historic Fort Ontario, in Oswego, New York, at the southeast corner of Lake Ontario. For the first time in the CR's five-year history, the weather gods did not take a big ol' dump on the COI.
Past CR COIs are near-legendary for their poor weather: the 2001 COI (a.k.a. "Valley Forge") was held in tents in the Finger Lakes region in 10 inches of snow with daytime temperatures at 33 degrees and nighttime lows about ten degrees less; the 2002 COI (a.k.a. "The Deluge in Fort Ontario") saw nearly continuous rain throughout the weekend; and the 2003 COI, popularly known as "Ice Station Columbia" and "Camp of Ice", featured a vicious ice storm, loss of electrical power and heat at the fort for most of the weekend, snow, and nighttime wind chills in the single digits (in April!).
After four years, we finally got a break: the 2004 COI was cloudy but almost entirely precipitation-free, and had daytime temperatures in the mid-40s. Further, despite many pre-event predictions to the contrary, there were no Biblical plagues-no locusts, the lake didn't turn to blood, there were no tsunamis, and no firstborn died. Simply put, we were stunned and thankful.
It was the best-attended CR COI ever with forty military participants (29 from the CR, five from the 122nd NY not also CR members, three from the Living History Guild, and three from the 151st New York) and three civilian cooks.
Participants arrived starting around 4:00 p.m. Friday afternoon. Friday evening was the usual, season-starting meet-'n-greet among friends, with just a short (honest!) set of welcoming remarks by yours truly. Perhaps the highlight of the evening was Major Soup Bone and Captain Josey Albert-fully decked out in commissioned officer kit-strutting pompously around the fort giving orders to everyone in sight. If you weren't there, you missed an eye- and earful.
By 11:00 p.m. the boys were making Z's on their bed ticks in the fort's barracks building. During the night, Jeff Lau, Nick Redding, and I beat a retreat from our room upstairs in favor of the lower floor to escape the gawdawful racket emanating from Fleeter's[1] nasal passages. While Fleeter could be an entire snoring soundtrack on his own, he had assistance from other professional snorers in the same Room of Hellacious Noises: Sparky and Chawls Heef.
My small alarm clock went off at about 5:45 a.m. and, shuffling upstairs, I shook Garr Gast awake. He staggered outdoors with his bugle and committed the morning crime that most buglers do in the pre-dawn hours at reenactments. The boys fell in and the roll was called by Orderly Sergeant Harry Connelly, after which the barracks were policed, bladders emptied (not necessarily in that order), and the boys lined up at the cookhouse next to the barracks building. A hearty breakfast was ladled out by the civilian cooks: Chris Piering's wife Teresa, Doug Oakes's wife Terri, and Greg Renault's girlfriend Freda, assisted by Chris Piering, John "PoJohn" Pell, and PoJohn's young daughter Amber. The cooks and their assistants served up their usual first-rate grub throughout the weekend.
Classes and instruction commenced at 7:15 a.m., with a very good, hour-long class by Charles Heath titled, "Facings and Spacings". In this talk, Charles reviewed in entertaining style the basics of maintaining intervals in formation, and marching step length and speed via limestone markings placed at measured intervals on the gravel path around the fort's parade field.
A two-hour session run by Steve Tyler on the manual of arms, fixing bayonets, and stacking arms followed. After over three hours of drill, the lads settled down for an hour-long talk by Charles on his favorite subject (other than event water supplies, of course): "How to Make Interesting Rations from Uninteresting, Period-correct Ingredients". Chawls sat under the mess fly outside the kitchen and gave an informative talk on everytown locations where reenactors can obtain basic, period-correct foodstuffs to "kick up their rations a notch". If only Emeril Lagasse could have been there…
The midday meal (lunch? dinner?) was at noon, followed by a thought provoking, 45-minute talk by Steve Tyler-a former National Park Service ranger-on "Historic Interpretive Techniques NPS-Style". Next, Tom Craig-who reenacts atop a horse when he's not pounding the ground in the ranks of the CR-gave an excellent presentation on the equipment and role of Civil War-era Federal cavalry. Tom had a saddle and most of his cavalry kit-sans horse, of course-to show the infantry pukes the amazing array of complex, animal-related gear that must be procured and properly managed by those who elect to ride during events rather than walk. Tom proved to be an excellent and entertaining speaker, well versed on his subject, and we look forward to future COI talks by him.
After three classroom-type sessions in a row, it was time to get back on the drill field for some physical exertion. A two-hour skirmish drill was held on the huge lawn outside the fort's walls, led by Kevin O'Beirne and Chris Piering, with Garr Gast doing a good job bugling the skirmish calls. During skirmish drill there was a fifteen-minute interlude of rain, in which the "super-hardcore" reenactors hid in the fort's sally port, lest they get wet and melt. We took advantage of our time in the tunnel to practice some firing drill, without firing, of course, because that'd have gotten the muskets dirty. When the brief rain stopped, we headed back out to continue skirmishing. During the skirmish drill, the company, split into two, decent-sized platoons and practiced a variety of skirmish deployments, advancing, retreating, firing, rallies, and assemblies. The boys all did very well and quickly responded to the bugle like real soldiers.
When this was over, we'd covered everything on the day's agenda and so training ended around 5:00 p.m.
The evening meal (supper?) was doled out at the kitchen starting at 6:00 p.m. under Orderly Sergeant Connelly's firm gaze and New Jersey-accented instructions. The grub was warm and plentiful and went down well.
The mess cooks insisted on some type of officer supper thing, so they corralled John Tobey, Steve Tyler, Dave McKenna, and yours truly into a fine meal served in the guardhouse on stoneware arrayed over a tablecloth. The meal was excellent and topped off with Jamison's Irish whiskey. The waiter, a certain man named PoJohn who's feigned subservience didn't convince anyone of any such real instinct on his part, grandly announced that dessert would be a strawberry pie made just for this very occasion, and that he would return in just a minute with the prized treat, for which any real CR member has a mania bordering on obsession.
Needless to say, after we were woozy with Irish whiskey, PoJohn returned ten minutes later with an oh-so-upset (yeah, right) countenance that betrayed the words that soon escaped his lips: "Sirs, I regret to inform you that the pie has been stolen."
Our worst fears were realized. Tragedy had struck. Oh, the humanity.
Thereafter followed an evening of accusation and counter-accusation around the fort, at one point punctuated by a 10:30 p.m. company formation at which a certain officer who will remain nameless but who wrote this article, screaming at the top of his lungs that he wanted the pie back. "Lieutenant McKenna thinks this is a pie. Congratulations Mr. Pell, your weekend pass is revoked. This is CONTRABAND!" Frankly it was sad, shameful and a disgrace to the unit. Yes, the thieves were disgraceful… That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Charles Heath wrote of the incident, "Of all the possible entertainments, Major Philip Francis O'Queeg's search for his delicious strawberries... I mean pie at Fort Caine, er, Ontario was hysterical, and may be one of the funniest damn things I have ever seen. Tasty it was, and Soup Bone got the blame!"
Months later, it was smugly reported to this writer by one Teresa Piering, while aboard a cruise ship in the Gulf of Alaska and therefore in a position where no one could do anything about it, that it was the mess staff who "stole" the pie, that it had been planned months in advance, that the mess staff and Chawls Heef ate the pie sometime around midnight on Saturday night, and that the pie had insultingly been hidden in my personal kit in the barracks for most of the evening.
Talk about being had. And then some. And then some more.
Saturday evening included the annual CR business meeting which was mercifully short-literally only one hour, including all the jokes about how cooking bacon in the dark is ruining the hobby… (A2003 inside joke). The evening included some brews that seemed to put most guys in a good frame of mind-some more than others.
On Saturday night, the same group of three sleepers again adjourned to the lower level of the barracks. Fleeter's snoring was audible even in our new abode. Some type of industrial strength noise muffler is probably needed. I'm sure OSHA regulations, which say that continued exposure above 85 decibels is harmful, were being violated. (Note to self: Ask Brian Roman and Mike Jolin to check into CR liability aspects on this.)
Sunday morning dawned with reveille, breakfast, and cleaning out and policing the barracks and grounds. When this was done, John Tobey gave an excellent, 45-minute presentation on common sense methods for telling reproduction equipment from originals. It was a "hands on" demonstration, with original (relic) and repro versions of three different equipment items passed around; one repro was even produced from the very original haversack the boys got to handle in the session.
Dennis Schank (151st NY), one of the most well-read drill mavens around, ran a very good 90-minute company drill largely centering around platoon drill, in which he was assisted by newly-minted 2nd Lt. Dave McKenna (122nd NY). When company drill ended at 10:00 a.m. about half the boys opted for early discharge and started for home. The balance of the lads, about 22 in number, assembled for battalion drill.
What's that, you say? How can a mere 22 men conduct battalion drill?!
It was easy. We had four "companies" of five men each: two "corporals" who held opposite ends of a 30-foot rope, two sergeants (company left and right guides), and a company commander. Chris Piering and I took turns as the battalion commander and second-in-command. With this structure, we had a small but fully functional battalion that occupied a 40-yard front when in line that was able to practice all the company-level intricacies of battalion drill, complete with properly dressing the companies on guides-on-the-line.
The drill was not only useful from a strictly functional viewpoint of allowing men to practice battalion drill, it gave a lot of fellow the chance to step up to the sergeant's role during drill and allowed some fellows who had not done company command before to get some experience in a low-stress environment. The company commanders were Pete Smith, Dave McKenna, John Tobey, and Harry Connelly.
The battalion drill, done outside the fort walls, covered a lot of maneuvers together with how to properly assemble the battalion in line. This drill lasted for a little over two hours and, by around 12:30 p.m., the weekend was over.
Pete Smith reflected on the battalion drill, "It was the very first time I served as an officer, and I learned a lot-especially the stuff I really need to bone up on! On my ride home I had a chance to reflect on the battalion drill and it started to all make sense. I screwed up a little but I learned from it. All in all I really enjoyed the weekend and the friendship of all the pards in the CR and other groups. It was a great event."
I don't know how we got so lucky with the weather. Our carpool (Josey, Nate "Pretty" Albert, Nick Redding, and me) was barely one mile from the fort on our way out when the heavens opened and it started raining like hell. Someone up there had mercy on the 2004 COI, indeed.
Scott Schotz (151st NY) wrote afterward, "Dennis Schank, Ryan Willard, and I all thought the COI was great! We learned, we had a great time, and we were part of one hell of a good infantry company. Thanks for letting us attend. There were a lot of fellows from all over, and we really enjoyed the weekend, and the fort's atmosphere made it even better. Thanks again to all the CRs!"
Mike Jolin, who joined the CR around the time of the COI, said, "My hat is off to all the folks who worked so hard on the COI. What a great weekend! Everyone was very gracious towards this 'newbie' and I enjoyed the weekend immensely. The presentations and drills were most informative and really gave me a solid base on which to build. I'm not one to give compliments lightly, so please know that I'm sincere in my praise of the instructors-for all their work before and during the event, which did not go unnoticed by me and other participants with whom I spoke. I'm really glad I've joined the CR."
As usual, the event's revenues exceeded its expenditures. Chris Piering took up a collection for the Friends of Fort Ontario preservation organization, and then contributed a hefty donation himself (paying for all the food consumed at the event out of his own pocket) thus resulting in a total donation of $400 to the Friends of the Fort. Not bad.
It was a great weekend of training, drill, classroom instruction, fun, and high comedy. If you missed it, you missed the best CR COI to date. Pray we get lucky again in '05.
A MORE ENTERTAINING READ ON THE 2004 COI
by Charles Heath
The 2004 CR COI was a fun & highly educational weekend, and a "Wish you were there"-type postcard thing would be appropriate for those who weren't able to attend, because they missed a good one.
The trip up was a bit tedious due to Pothole Shifting Season hitting the I-81 corridor a bit early this year. PennDOT will be moving the northbound potholes to the southbound lane next year, and at the time of my trip up to Gnu Yawk for the COI they were harvesting the main crop of seed potholes. Northeast of Hair-ass-burg is a hard road to trabble, and Dante failed to mention this particular circle of Hell; however, I made good use of the time by looking at geology.
Arriving in Oswego in the dark (which is totally different from cooking bacon in the dark, I might add), I went to the Oswego Center for Teenage Culture (McD's) and asked directions to the fort. Not only did I get great directions-it helps when you're just a mile away-but the fellow told me about a low-clearance bridge, because he assumed I was driving a tractor-trailer. Now, why did he think that my Tidewater, Virginia ass might not be native to the shores of Lake Ontario? Hmmm.
I got to the fort and settling in was fine. I was billeted in a room with a man who is one of the finest snorers I have ever encountered[2]. My hat is off to you. I tried to match his best efforts on Saturday night and only then, after Friday night's tutelage, may have gotten somewhat close the art of Our True Master of Snoring. He was impressive. I'm not sure if that was first-person snoring, but a camp of instruction event is about teaching and not "Hey, pard, what did you do before you snored?"
I was an ax murderer before the snore. Don't mention it again.
Breakfast was good. Hell, no, it was excellent. Who wouldn't want to be a soldier with grub like that? All one had to do was stand in line and food appeared on your plate in no time at all. The coffee was neither watery or stout enough to dissolve a standing horseshoe, which meant that it was also tasty, hot, and enjoyable, which is a situation with which I am certainly not accustomed whilst in uniform.
Major Queeg had me slated to be first on the list of tortures to be inflicted on the boys who'd showed up for some type of teachin'/learnin' thing. Because breakfast was such a hard act to follow (it was like real food-scary, for a reenacting event), I had devised the Thirty-three-inch Step Torture. "Aha!" they exclaimed, "There's no way that Chawls can use chalk to mark step lines on gravel!" "He'll never take us alive!" and stuff like that. Ahem.
Some coarse, ground-up, dairy barn calcium goes a long way, boyos. Combining this with my incredibly sadistic sense of humor, we spent a while learning about 13-inch spacing and some other things. Mostly, they learned how to lock arms, kick, and reset-if you weren't there you probably don't get what this means. While it seemed silly, it beat standing there saying that boring old, trite, well-used command, "Step off at the same time, boys." Frankly, I think they looked just darling as a Brigade (40 men) Chorus Line.
When that wasn't enough, and even though we didn't have a metronome, we did the airborne shuffle around the parade ground's lovely little driveway. A reminder: "double-quick time" does not mean, "run like a scalded dog/Frenchman". After about an hour of that they were ready to mutiny, or hijack the nearest rusty Great Lakes freighter. Additionally, if you ever want fun, have the men lock arms while facing to the front, and give them this command: "By the right flank, march." It's fun to see who figures out that they need to unlock before it turns into the Spanish waltz.
More coffee.
We had another training session. My Gawd, it was the manual of arms, position of the soldier, and all that stuff, all run by The Quiet Man. I forgot to ask about Reverse Arms, Fling Arms, and the command for "drop arms and flee"-a well-used CR military maneuver-and some other things. Well, no one died and that's a plain, everyday, commonly good sign of a fine drill.
Kick. Reset to one.
Some bozo droned on about rations for an hour. At least some snacks were provided during this talk and, best of all, no one was blinded by the bacon. Someone had to tell the CR that cooking bacon in the dark is bad and ought not to be allowed at any future events, lest civilization as we know it fail.
Lunch…Ah. Here I perfected my Jonah impression by pouring half of my stew down the front of my sack coat whilst trying to butter a chunk of delicious bread. I could get used to this garrison food. Canned peaches, too. Mmmm.
After lunch Steve "The Quiet Man" Tyler presented some good, basic information about interpreting the history we portray for John Q. Public. It's a shame it was timed immediately after lunch in a very warm barracks room, because a good number of these lads were in Siestaland. I think that Steve's talk actually deserves an article, not just 45 minutes after lunch.
Tom Craig of the nefarious Nutmeg Boys[3] gave us a good talk about saddles and cavalrymen. We, as a group interested in authentic experiences, asked if we could kill him. Tom asked, "Why?" We replied that we'd never seen a dead cavalryman. I don't think he took many more questions after that. The passages he read from Adams and Starr(?)'s book on Federal cavalry were enlightening. I don't think that anyone who hasn't traveled by horse for a number of days can truly understand the amount of maintenance required by equines. When it comes to this, most folks remind me of kids who want to drive tanks in the modern army: they forget that if you want to ride, you have to perform maintenance, and such tasks never end.
Without firing a shot we did firing drill. I enjoyed the application of Mark Jaeger's research on firing at the left oblique. I'm not sure why, but my rifled musket rammer seemed 5 feet long, 40 lbs in weight, and was greased with lard. I'm glad no one was injured during Fumble-n-Drop In Nine Times.
Kick. Reset.
We did a very good session of skirmish drill, and it was enjoyable. We had a good bugler, and he blew/blue well. Afterward we ate supper and then we had a meeting. Meetings are usually boring, but this one involved several fistfights, a shooting, a stabbing, some accusations as to who Luke Skywalker's father really is, and only three pairs of eyes were gouged out. Adding in some easy going and plentiful libations really calmed things down and got everyone on the right footing for a new season. Afterward, we thanked the Hell's Angels for being our sergeants-at-arms and reenacting Altamont.
After the meeting we sat around the al fresco cookhouse, talked about everything from Chernobyl to Recon 4.7.1, and generally solved world hunger, and other minor problems. After about the 73,445th beer I actually said something nice about folks with whom I've feuded for years and, by that point, I knew it was way past time to get some sleep. I went upstairs and snored, loudly (see para. 4).
Kick. Reset.
Sunday morning was foggy. This was a switch, because in 2003 it was under about a half-foot of ice (so I heard), the year before had about 8 inches of rain, and the year before that it was about 14 to 18 inches of snow. This year we had fog. Thank God it wasn't locusts, the plague, an earthquake, lice, or some such nonsense. Despite the fact it wasn't a first-person event, the fog had very good first-person, left on time, and didn't ask a single ice-breaking conversation starter question.
Kick. Reset.
The Tobey gave a really nice lecture/lab session on material culture: a how-to on comparing reproductions with relics. People got to feel, touch, fondle, caress, have foreplay with... some relics. We shoulda had another 30 minutes for this one. It seemed like it lasted about 10 minutes, and that was way too brief. I hope this evolves into an article soon.
Kick. Reset.
After that we had company drill. Instead of the usual company drill where folks do whatever it is they do, we went right into platoon drill, courtesy of Dennis "I reenact in the snow" Schank (Vasectimonius Drillius), who did an excellent job. I've enjoyed this in the past and it was very good this particular Sunday morning. A lot of past tidbits on platoon drill fell together for me at this one.
Kick. Reset. Clean up the barracks. Police the grounds.
Thus ended the regular portion of the event. After half the folks were on their way home, a band of rogues, renegades, and disreputable sorts (marked by long knives at their waists) went out to dance with ropes. This was a good session of battalion drill without troops-who pretty much stand around a lot in most battalion drills and then practice company maneuvers during it anyway-and I think that the company commanders, sergeants et al (and offal) had an enjoyable and educational time without having 100 to 200 men standing there enduring a "prolongation of the bore". Well done.
We departed. I didn't go far, and ate a nice lunch with the Pierings, Pells, and others. The food and coffee were just right.
I know we gave the cooks three cheers, but it should be mentioned again that Teresa, Terri, and Freda did a heck of a job feeding the hungry horde at Fort Ontario during the COI. Although I suspect she's related to PoJohn ("Real Yankee, Trust No Imitations!"), something tells me the "daughter of the regiment" will grow up to be a very pretty gal. It was nice to see how far the Officers' Mess has progressed from what we did for (to?) Lt. Jeff Sherry on the piazza during the 2002 CR COI.
It's really cool that the state parks department staff allows us use of the fort, and pretty much a free rain (or reign if you will) with it.
Traffic on the way home was mild. Old Whitey The Wundertruck did well and, on a good downhill grade, she got over 80 mph a few times and we arrived home in central Maryland at dusk.
Highlight of the Event: Not slamming the butt of my musket on my right little toe at order arms. Not once.
On a serious note, it was a darn fine weekend: it had good training, good conviviality, and great weather. Most of all, it was a couple days with a great bunch of people.
Oh, at some point during the rations lecture, I mentioned the foiling of a plot to steal a pie by using a box with a false bottom at the 2002 Camp Curtin event. This led to the theft of a pie at this particular COI, and the "return" of said pie many hours later. Somewhere between solving world hunger and putting the first farb on Mars, the pie was consumed with vigor. Mmmmm, tasty!
Charles Heath is a member of the Columbia Rifles from central Maryland
[1] CR and 122nd NY member Dan Fleet, who's snoring beats even Sparky's and Chawls's.
[3] Inside joke about the "Winter 1864"
2004 event. See the after action report on that event to figure
out what this means.