That picture was taken by a photographer on July 4th one year at the Smithfield Plantation that is smack in the middle of Virginia Tech. It was built in 1774 by Colonel William Preston for his new wife. He named it Smithfield in honor of her family. The University was built around it and totally surrounds the grounds.
I was reenacting in a couple of units at the time. One was the Virginia 7th Regiments (yes plural is correct), which primarily participated in reenactments in the tidewater areas of Virginia, as well as in other states. The VA7th was quite large and I was a member of the rifle company. The other one was the Virginia 9th regiment, which was known to have done some recruiting there during the war. They were all members from around the Roanoke, VA general area and there weren't a lot of us. About half of them were also members of the VA7th, and most of the rest were from Explore Park where they volunteered, as did I, at the Vause Stockade portraying the 1750's time period with hand-built buildings and stockade. Instead of having 40 to 100-tents set up like the VA7th could, we typically 4 to 10 tents.
I wish I could remember what the comment was that got me laughing. I remembered the laughing but not what caused it. The full-length version of that picture was actually used by the Smithfield plantation as the cover of the brochure they provided to visitors. It was good times with good people with amazingly diverse versions of Brunswick Stew for dinner on at least one night. It was never the same, as Brunswick Stew was basically made out of whatever you had on hand at the time. To be perfectly honest, one fellow's wife loved to throw these stews together so she would make the stew a day ahead, put it in the fridge, and then her husband would bring it in a big pot and we'd heat it over the open fire for most of the day. They were always delicious!
Smithfield Plantation - Mansion.
me:
The bare-bones VA 9th Regiment recruitment company:
We were always looking for musicians, especially drummers:
And here's some shots of the VA7th, which I mentioned was much larger. They also had 2 cannons. Here's one in use and you can easily see what the "Fog of War" was when multiple cannons were being employed:
If I recall correctly this reenactment was of the Battle of Brandywine, in Pennsylvania. There are multiple rows of tents here at the Continental Army contingent. I think we had about 20-tents there and one of our two cannons. At the end of the reenactment both sides gave cannon demonstrations where the opposing tried to rush the cannons. If we were reasonably in the path of a cannon we were required to become a casualty to more accurately display the results of cannon fire. it was quite an experience having 12 cannons fire at you! You tried to stay out of the 60° cone in front of the cannon because of the percussion from firing the big blank charges. I found myself inside that cone once and immediately dropped to the ground just before they fired it...that was really LOUD as you felt the percussive wave pass over you. After that shot I crawled out of that cone as a wounded soldier might and "died" on the battlefield waiting for the mass resurrection at the end.
One of the cool things we did here was build facine breastworks. We cheated on this though. We did stand up vertical saplings and weave horizontal saplings in and out of them until they were abut 6-ft tall. Then we'd tie them up and move these ~10-ft sections into place, which is exactly how the colonist built fortifications so quickly. When they were in place, they'd then dig trenches in front of and sometimes behind the fortification putting all the soil from the trenches on the sides of the facines. Making the facines was surprisingly quick work; digging the trenches was what took the longest. HOWEVER, we had a back hoe that came in and dug out the kitchens. I can tell you about those kitchens later if you are interested. They were kind enough to give us the dirt from that digging, so we didn't really dig any trenches The open spots you see in the wall is for the cannon batteries.
And this is our Captain Mike Cecere (yes, the author), as he sits in a battery inspecting the start of another series of facines in front of him. That's my rifle behind him and to the right. The Continental Army was badly beaten at Brandywine, but was able to retreat without losing the entire army. And, it was a fun and enlightening experience to reenact. No wonder the British were amazed at how quickly the Continental's could build fortifications. The facines were quick to make and if you have enough men digging the trenches for the earthworks, a lot could be done in one night.
