Oh man Grunherz, you would have enjoyed the reenactment of the Champion Hill battle in Edwards, Mississippi 1982. It rained the entire weekend, we drilled in a thunderstorm with lighting popping all about...doing wheel turns over uneven terrain full of ant beds. The commander was on a horse with sword held high. If we'd been struck by lighting, it would have hit 130 men. There were two lines of 130 men each.
The battle ensued, with me next to a Napolean cannon (twelve pounder). This was very loud going off. There was a master switchboard that detonated the cannon hits, using black powder charges in the ground where the cannon balls would hit. There were 4 Confederate cannons and 10 Union cannons.
The battle was so realistic, I decided to become a spectator from a nearby hillside, so I could see the action, which was like a smoke filled basin with intermediary dispersals of smoke revealing entire combat companies of Confederates and Yankees. These were brief views and only lasted about a second or two.
There was a Discovery Channel crew there to record the event.
It was raining the entire time...three days, and the Mississippi National Guard was called in to help people get out of camp. The red clay roads were so muddy, only a Deuce-and-Half could get us out.
One thing I learned from that experience was how to keep a fire going using a fire pit. Our camp sustained a fire in pouring rain for three days...the only one to keep a fire going. People were coming over to borrow burning logs to restart their fires. We dug a three foot deep fire pit with a draining trench soon as we got there, and filled that sucker up with logs. We dug draining trenches around the tent to drain away rain water. We had the driest camp in the place, all things considered.
Les
