Be Excellent To Each Other

After the success of the Silverstone Half-Marathon we decided to find a new challenge to raise money for the ABF-Soldiers' Charity. Our plan is to attend a multi-period in August 2012 and take part in every battle, regardless of time period! I'll be writing up my experiences during the training programme and thought I might as well post them here too. For more details about the team and the project, visit our website and/or join our Facebook group. Photos to follow at some point

Chapter 1 - Training weekend with the 95th Rifles - 26/27th February 2011

It's cold, wet, the grass has turned to a muddy bog, and my platoon of skirmishers have just been ordered to flatten ourselves against the ground so the reserve can fire a volley over it. As I lie face down in the mud, waiting to hear the crack of the flintlocks, I suddenly become aware of something, and grin. Unlike the rest of the recruits in the platoon, I'm not wearing white. We rise up out of the mini-quagmire, and wait to resume our skirmishing. My blue 1860s US uniform is just as mud-stained as the white trousers and white tops of my peers, but we've spent the weekend drilling and training together and the differences between us no longer mattered.


Most re-enactors, and most groups, like to pride themselves on their attempts at achieving as authentic an impression as possible. Which is why any passers-by or the WW2 group in the barn next to us must have been slightly confused when, amidst the ranks of the 95th Rifles, a Napoleonic group, were three yanks and a token confederate. They might have been even more confused, not to say concerned, by the speed with which the four of us were loading our weapons compared to that of the rest of the company. Between us we had a muzzle-loading Springfield, a single-shot Sharps (pun not intended, but made me smile when it dawned on me on the way back), and a Henry repeater. Still, at least our guns were less susceptible to rainfall than the flintlocks. It was very generous of the 95th to let us train with them in our clearly non-period garb, and whilst we might have looked enviously at the smart green of the Chosen Men and their shakos, we were quietly glad that leather neck stocks were not so common in our chosen period.


We spent much of the weekend drilling. We drilled in squads, in platoons, and as a company. We started out doing basic foot drills with the rest of the company's new recruits, and after a brief introduction to the early nineteenth century marching style and pace (I found both easier and smarter than what I have learnt in the American Civil War) we moved on to facings and turnings and similar basic manoeuvres (I did like the fact that as riflemen they could go to the easy at every halt, rather than wait to be told!). My friend Matt had the hardest job of the squad when he found himself at the right hand end of the line, so had to take in all the extra movements the person standing there has to do during facings and suchlike. I was at the end of the left, but after a few false starts the sergeant decided to concentrate on moves involving Matt having to do the hard work. He did very well at this.

It was drilling here, on the wet morning of the cold first day that we realised just how difficult the challenge was going to be for us. All of us had to forget everything we knew about drill and start afresh with these Napoleonic commands and methods. For instance, the foot movements for turning on the spot are completely different - I was probably doing a mixture of ACW and Napoleonic footwork by the end of the weekend, but am not sure. Other times, the commands related to lengthier and involved more stages than in the 1860s. 'Present arms', for instance, wasn't just the single movement we do but had three separate stages. Other times, the commands would be lengthy or more complicated but would involve doing something was exactly the same as what we knew. I had trouble interpreting one series of instructions but when we started to move I realised we were going into skirmish drill!

We also had the chance to try some manoeuvres and drills which the company seldom do due to lack of numbers. I'm not an expert on the ACW drill books (such knowledge is forbidden to privates) so I don't know if there are similar moves in our period, but it was great fun to try out protective 'chains' (squads of four men taking it in turns to advance, fire, and retreat to the squad), backwards wheels on a central point (I was in the centre, so I can proudly say it was the first wheel I've done perfectly), and, a highlight for me, rolling fire in columns. In this we were formed into columns of three and split into squads of six men. The first squad advanced, fired, then wheeled out to reload whilst the next squad advanced to take their place. Whilst they were firing and wheeling out, the original squad had wheeled back to the end of the column, where they would advance until they were at the front again. We kept this moving for a quite a while and it was brilliant fun.

As the 95th Rifles were a skirmish unit, we did a lot of training in skirmishing. However, it was a lot more controlled than how we do it in our period. The officers and NCOs were relaying commands to us through a series of whistle blows, with a certain pattern meaning 'advance', a certain pattern meaning 'fire', and so on. Whilst the command was also, initially, also spoken, they soon started using the whistles alone. It wasn't hard to get used to responding to the whistle rather than the command, but I think I preferred the more independent style of skirmishing we practised later. The sergeants kept on reminding us to worry more about finding cover than the neatness of the line.

We all had a chance to fire their flintlocks, and some of them had a go on the Henry and the Sharps. As I'm used to how the percussion cap weapons of the American Civil War fire, and the time it takes to load them, I was fascinated by not only the slowness in the loading procedure (grasping a gun between one's thighs is a very odd position to adopt in order to load it!) but also in the delay between the flint creating the spark and the shot being fired. Their safety rules insist upon men waiting for thirty seconds before checking for a misfire, as it can take that long for the powder to ignite and fire. We will need to ensure we are properly trained in the safe handling of all the weapons before we take to the field with them.

Throughout the whole weekend we were made to feel very welcome by the 95th Rifles, and we all had an excellent time. Their NCOs and officers treated us just like they would treat any of their recruits, and by the end of the weekend and many hours of drilling in the rain we were starting to get the hang of what we were supposed to do. Between now and August 2012 we're going to be learning many more different drills and tactics, and we'll have to find some way of keeping them all in our heads. It's going to be a long and challenging road to Broadlands but after this weekend we're all excited by it.

Looking inconspicuous ...


I'm not balancing that Sharps very well. Bad Rifleman Kern.