Bentonville, NC 145th Anniversary of Civil War Battle

Dad and Mom have often talked of going to a Civil War reenactment, especially since we've lived in NC.  Late last year we began hearing of the weekend celebration taking place the 3rd weekend of March in Bentonville, NC.  They would be celebrating the 145th anniversary of the battle that occured there three weeks before the surrender of Robert E. Lee.

So when our co-op decided to plan a "field trip" to the Saturday battle, we purchased our tickets (at a discounted price:).  And we marked our calendar for the big day.

We arrived at the battlefield around 10:45am.  After walking though some of the army campgrounds, we decided to go sit in line and wait for the gate to open.  We had our lawn chairs and umbrellas since we'd have to wait 2 hours for the battle to begin.  So if you see yellow "caution" tape in some photos, it's because we had a front row seat.  Unfortunately, all the "Event Staff" told us that "any seat is a good seat" but they were wrong.  We could not see the Confederate troops at all but we saw lots of Union troops setting off canons.

Confederate troops preparing to march to the battlefield.

More Confederate preparations.

Union troops making their way to the battlefield.

Union troops marching to the battlefield.

This reminds me of photos I've seen in history books.

There were about 10 canons at the battle yesterday.  Each time the order was given, a man with a bag would go to get the ammuni*tion.

Then the man with the bag (I'm sure he has a title but I don't know what it is) would show it to the commanding officer by his canon for inspection.

Then the man with the bag would take it to the soldiers by the canon for them to load the canon.  At that point they would cover their ears.

Then BANG!!  The ground would shake and smoke would fill the air.  I'm quite proud of this photo because I was able to capture one of the smoke rings that appeared sometimes.

A man sitting beside Dad who has been going to events such as this one for many years told him lots of trivia we would not have known otherwise.  One bit of information he shared is that they were only using about 1/4 of what the canons would actually hold.  This was to keep it from being so loud.  And to think it wasn't the real thing.  Gave me a new perspective of what it may have been like for the soldiers 145 years ago.