Monocacy 150th

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Monocacy, fought just to the south of my adopted home Frederick, MD.  Sadly, I wasn't able to be out on the field today, however this past weekend I did get a chance to do some living history on the battlefield.  It was great to get out and be a part of the hobby once again.  My last living history event was Cedar Creek back in 2011, so it had been a while.

Myself and about a dozen other living historians portrayed Alexander's Battery of Baltimore Light Artillery on the historic Thomas Farm.  The Thomas farm is located on the south side of the Monocacy, and surrounded on three sides by the river, Baker Valley Road, and Interstate 270.  It was on the Thomas Farm the Jubal Early's Army of the Valley assaulted Union positions the afternoon of July 9, 1864.  Skirmishing had taken place earlier in the day on the north bank of the river, however Early decided against a direct assault on union forces comfortably positioned near the Gambrill Mill.

Instead the bulk of Early's force forded the Monocacy near the Worthington Farm, maybe a mile west of the Thomas Farm and began what turned into a general engagement with Rickett's Division of the federal VI Corps.

The general plan of the Battle of Monocacy, with some minor discrepancies.

Alexander's Battery was the only artillery unit attached with the small Union force that fought at Monocacy.  They occupied a hill (right about where the R is in Ricketts on the map above) on the Thomas Farm for most of the battle, delivering a slow deliberate fire against advancing confederate infantry columns and artillery batteries positioned to the north and west.  After expending all its ammunition, the battery withdrew from the field in good order.  Alexander's Battery had the additional distinction of leaving with more guns that it arrived with.  The federal garrison force that guarded the Monocacy River crossings had a 24 pound howitzer, and a mountain howitzer attached to it.  Not wanting these guns to fall into confederate hands, Alexander's Battery brought them off the field before they left.

Yours truly talking a bit about Civil War artillery at Monocacy.  Taken July 5, 2014.

Artillery has always fascinated me, so I enjoyed being able to get out and work the guns.  Sadly though, the place the National Park Service located us was a full mile away from the nearest parking area.  When I was there on Saturday only about ten people ventured out to see us.  Otherwise though, the event seems to have been well attended by spectators, and many good photos of the various groups and demonstrations are available on Monocacy National Battlefield's Twitter and Facebook pages.

Me hard at work as the '6' on the Napoleon crew.

We did three demonstrations throughout the day.  For the first two I was selected to be position number 6.  Now if we were live firing with actual shells this might be a cool thing to do.  The 6's and 7's on Civil War gun crews were tasked with preparing ammunition for the gun.  So if a battery commander ordered 'Shell, 1000 yards' to be loaded, the 6 of each gun would adjust the round accordingly.  Historically, for a 1000 yard shell I would have cut the fuse for a burn time of 3.5 - 4 seconds, screwed it into the shell, and then handed it to the '5' to be delivered to the '2'**.  However for just firing blanks, all I did was take a tinfoil package filled with black powder out of the limber and hand it to the 5.  It wasn't the most glamorous work.

For the third demo however, I was put in the '1' position.  This is probably the most dangerous position on the gun, because it's the guy who rams the round to the back of the gun.  If anything goes wrong and the round prematurely explodes the 1 could have a very bad day.  I made it out fine though, and the experience has made me want to get back into the hobby.  But with guiding taking up my weekends, that'll be a challenge to fit in.

**If you're interested in how to load a cannon, check out this video.  I might put it on mute when you watch it because of some corny music, but it does a good job of covering the fundamentals of the process.