Bohemian Brigade

Beginnings

dedicated to my sister

Some where near the end of the 1980's or the early 1990's, I became aware of this little event called “Civil War Days”. It was held at the Heritage Village, just a short way from where I live.

Now ,Heritage Village is Pinellas countys

historical museum. It is a collection of old historical buildings from the countys past,moved from their original locations and set down on this piece of land,nestled among tall pines and palmetto scrub. It is joined together by brick walk-ways constructed from old pavng bricks saved from some of the old roads as they were re-paved and up-dated.

There are still a substantial number of these old brick roads in the county,here and there,and a few here in Largo that I remember from my childhood. I can actually recall being somewhat hypnotized by the sound of the tires on these roads,when mt Dad would come and take me home from daycare.

At any rate, this cluster of small historical buildings ,would host this small event every May. I have no idea how many of these there were over the years,but somehow I eventually found out about them and one day that I happened to have off(Sats and Suns off were far and few between in my career), I grabbed my 35mm,and went to see what it was all about.

I knew nothing about the hobby of reenacting at that time,so I had no expectations,one way or the other.The Internet was still over the horizon,and although not simpler,life was just...different. Any phone that wasnt attached to a jack in your baseboard,at that time,was as big as a shoebox,and as I said,I took my 35 mm,because digital still conjured up references to your fingers and toes.

There was no formal scenario as I could tell,and mostly this was just a hodge-podge collection of guys from units in the state close enough to make a weekend of it. Seems to me they had enough musicians on hand so as to have a sort of concert. There was most likely some kind of weapons drill and whatnot,but I dont recall. There actually was a small cluster of sutlers tents,that to me at the time had some really amazing stuff in them. I still have the kepi that I paid forty dollars for,and to my way of thinking its a damn fine hat. By todays standards its just high-end sutler row stuff,with no big name attached to it,but I wouldnt be ashamed to wear it,providing I could find the right time and place. Its gray wool with a black trim. A half dozen people have told me a half dozen things that that signifies,anywhere from medical,to musical to militia,and now I understand that it could be any number of things depending on when and where.

So this being all new to me,was really quite fascinating. I had some vague idea that there were people who dressed up and held reenactments around the country here and there,but really knew no more than that. As mentioned,this small event was a hodge-podge of different units,with little organization that I could tell,with one mock battle on both days ,preceded by an old fashioned baseball game. Now, I know there are guys out there that have been doing this for fifty years and more. As with most things in my life,I had again come late to the party,and at the time didnt know how much later it would be still.

The first young man I encountered when I arrived at Heritage Village that day was a Wheats Tiger impression, and boy did he seem pleasantly surprised that some one actually knew what he was without asking.. As near as I can recall,and have no idea where my pictures may be from that day to prove it,he was a darn good impression,although it was the beginning of my arguments over the Tiger pantaloons,that lasted for years.This kid was wearing a pair made from mattress ticking,and they looked reasonable to me,and actually made good sense. To this day, I believe there is still a decent argument to be made for these,but I sure dont want to start it with any of the people I have come to know, since then.

Aside from that,the kepi,I purchased,and running into my bosses son,who has since become quite an accomplished professional photographer,I really dont recall much. The mock battle was tiny,and interesting,because I had nothing yet to use as a yard-stick. I went home with my roll of film and my cap and a business card with a reenacting point of contact. I called this guy that lived in St Pete and he laid out all the things I needed to know about joining his unit,which I remember was a Florida chapter of the 33rd Va. We chatted for a bit,I said I would be in touch,and that was the end of it. As it turned out,I wouldnt attend another Civil War Days at heritage Village,for over ten years,and as fate would have it,that would be the last one that the county hosted there. The usual reasons. Money,security,blahblah.

As is the case with Civil War Days, I dont actually recall what year it was that I first attended Olustee.

I do know that my sister had lived up there about eight miles from the battlefield for quite some time,before she caught wind of this event. As a matter of fact I went to the battlefield with her on one of my first visits with her up there,long before I knew of , or went to, the reenactment.

The battle of Olustee took place about midway between Jacksonville and lake City Florida,and the town of MaClenney,where my sister lives was at that time the Barber Plantation( that family still being prominent in the area),and served as a “jumping off” place for two soirees out toward Lake City in 1863/64,the latter one in February that culminated in the largest battle in Florida during the War.

I had vague recollections at the time of reference to Olustee in the families Encylopedia Brittanica,but as with most places,it was too far off the beaten track to visit on any of our trips north and out of the state.

Ah,there are so many twists and turns and forks in the road of life that seem random,until the years pile up,and you look back and they all seem to fit.

Well ,to the best of my recollection, I most likely went to my first Olustee reenactment as a spectator somewhere in the mid 2000s. For the sake of argument,lets just say 2005. Now Olustee is one of those events held on the actual battlefield,it being a State Park rather than under the control of the NPS. That,plus the weather( hey its Florida) makes it a huge draw from all over Florida and the Southeast as well. I was not prepared for what I was going to see. The internet was in full swing by that time,so I had been exposed to the imagery of reenactments,and had even begun to work from some.It opened up a whole world of possibilities in Civil War painting that I hadnt dreamed of before that time. Troiani and others had already been on the market for ages,but that was something that seemed very far out of reach for me. I had met Rick Reeves,as he lives only across Tampa bay from me. I had been to his studio,and seen his collection of clothes and hats and props he uses to dress guys up in for subjects in his paintings. I have since reconnected with him via the wonders of FaceBook,and continue to enjoy his work.The possibilities for painting subjects were somewhere in my mind when I went to this first “Real” event. So I loaded up my 35mm (still late to the party,here),boarded Amtrak and headed up for the long weekend.

Olustee cant really be called anything but mainstream,but of the mainstream events out there,to my mind,it offers the very best mixture of progressive and hardcore impressions. Enough so that the really ridiculous isnt nearly as noticeable as in some places.. On average the event hosts anywhere from a thousand to seventeen hundred participants,and a really wide assortment of sutlers. All this I wasnt aware of back in 2005,and so had no inkling of the treat I was in for.

I was in total awe at what I beheld,and still its one of my fondest memories. I was blissfully innocent,as well as ignorant,so it was all good.The music, The vast campgrounds full of old timey stuff and soldiers that stepped out of history books,as far as I was concerned More horses than I had ever seen in my life,and cannon! My God there was an impossible number of guns there. At least a dozen. Thats a decent battery for each side.I was like a five year old at DisneyWorld! I think my sister had more fun watching my long continuous Civil Wargasm than I did having it. To be sure,it was a carnival atmosphere,but as I said I was blissfully ignorant of such things at the time,and thought this was probably the norm,if I thought about it at all . I still wonder after ten years now what she must have thought at my uncontrollable ecstasy at seeing not ONE but THREE full sized Sibley tents. Things I had only heretofore seen in paintings and the rare Civil War era Photograph.

I dont know for sure,but I think my eyes must have glowed like a childs on Christmas morning! I wouldnt know for sometime that there were other grown men just like me,given certain circumstances surrounding the reenacting of this War that I had studied for so long. Other fifty year old guys that got positively giddy over the silliest of things regarding the War. Then it came time for the soldiers to march out to the reenacting field. As luck would have it I was standing right along their route from the camp.At Olustee,as with most other events,that I would eventually know, the opposing sides marched to the fight by different routes. Makes sense. Well I just was not prepared to see what must have been 700 Confederate soldiers march by right in front of me.I think it was even closer to a thousand,that year. I was hooked. That memory stands out as clear as any that I have in my mind.

I believe I returned to Olustee twice more as a spectator,before I started formulating in my mind an art show at the event. In 2008,I met Justin Murphy there,hawking his graphic Novel about General Patrick Cleburne,and that sealed it for me. I would rent sutler space,and bring up a few pieces of work to sell and for exposure. I had huge plans. I could become part of the event! Being a sutler also meant dressing in period garb and having real canvas. I was on my way to becoming another Civil War artist and possibly even being published. I began working on a series of paintings ,now that I had a plan. I wasnt sure what I wanted to paint,though. I had so many ideas that I was paralyzed. I suppose outside of the usual scenes of gallantry,what I really wanted to do was build a market among these reenactors getting tons of commissions to paint portraits. Seemed simple. Seemed inevitable.Mostly it seemed doable,and at this point,now might still be. So I had in my mind to start collecting an outfit. I knew nothing about it at all,but vowed to get started the next year that I was there. At that point I didnt know that you could buy these things anywhere but on site. I had a kepi,already from the Civil War days,and set my eye on a frock coat at what sutler tent,I really have no recollection . At any rate,although it sounds as if I was on some irrepressible,unstoppable mission,when you return to your current century, life not only gets back to its dull and rutted sameness,it also has a nasty habit of “happening”.

Its easy to remember where you were when Kennedy was assassinated or when the towers came down. Just recently I remembered this last week,being the anniversary of the Challenger disaster,actually seeing that happen in the sky all the way across the state on my way to work that morning.These things have a way of standing out even more so that other events personal to one-self. It would be easy enough to go through some of my records(if I took the time to look for them),and see exactly when my “ heart event” happened.

Oh,I know it was the Friday before Easter week. Not Good Friday,but the week before. I left work because of it. I just cannot put my finger on the year. Doesnt that beat all?

The sequence of events really doesnt matter in a chronological way all that much,but I believe I had my Heart event (minor attack) in March following the 08 Olustee,and for all intents and purposes ,since it really has little bearing,for now,I will leave it at that.

In the end,my motives were to get a kit together,so I could go places that regular spectators could not. To be able to get up a lot closer and use my camera to take pictures to work from,instead of borrowing from the internet.So admittedly,I wanted to get into the hobby more for my art,than from some sense of honoring the past,although that aspect was never far from mind.So this led to a year of painting “Colonel Bowman Bringing in Georgia”,a large painting that I am quite proud of still. A picture of Colonel Bowman,the over-all deputy commander of CS forces at Olustee,and quite a tall striking figure.as he leads the Georgia troops onto the field,to more or less save the day and win the battle.

Back-tracking some here,The heart event had me on Plavix for two months,and an aspirin regimin,That began very heavy rectal bleeding,at which point my Cardiologist sent me to a Gastro -enterologist for a Colonoscopy,which uncovered not one,but two large cancerous tumors in my colon.As a matter of fact,I was almost completely blocked,and surgery was very close to an emergency affair. I had somewhere between 14 and 18 inches of my large intestine removed. I went back to work for close to two years before the cancer decided to show up in my liver. Chemotherapy was how I spent the 1861 events of the Sesquicentennial. My dreams and schemes of somehow getting to Charleston to witness the opening of the fun,forgotten,if not exactly dashed upon the rocks.Never mind having anything to do with first Manassas,at all. So by June of 2011,if things played out for the worst, I was given anywhere from 27 to 36 months left to wrap up my Earthly affairs.My first goal at that time was to get to the big Mayan 2012 thing to see how that would shake out,and to see if not only would I be checking out,but maybe,I would in fact,be joined by the entire planet. I laugh now,but I think at the time I considered this a real possibility.

Back to Olustee. I had put myself together,what I considered a respectable kit,by the event of 2012,which would have been the 148th anniversary of the battle I had finished Col Bowmans painting,which I hoped might get me in some kind of reenacting”Door”,and headed up to the event,prepared to be some sort of Hollywood “extra”. I still had no idea how these things worked at the time. It is of some note that in a previous year I had taken a nice painting up that I had done of Lt Col Keith Kohl,and although he was quite flattered and has it hanging in a place of honor in his home,no doors were opened for me with that. He was busy with a newborn,and the death of his father shortly before that. I still make a point of stopping by his tent and saying hello whenever I am there.

Well I got to the event with Col Bowmans piece and stashed it in the hospitality tent,where the ladies were kind enough to look out for it for me,until I had the oppurtunity to present him with it. This painting is about 42”x46” so it was a bit of a struggle just getting it from the parking area into the event.. I proceeded with it,back to the CS camp at what I figured was an oppurtune time,to find that Col Bowman was off at some event that the big braids tangentially do at these affairs,so I left it with his adjudant. Long story as short as I can make it,he was totally unprepared for such an offering,and as with many things like this,it was entirely impossible to measure his gratitude!. At that point upon me sheepishly asking if it was possible,he made me an honorary member of his staff ,to fully participate in the Sunday battle.What crazy fun,I had the next day!I naturally stayed on the sidelines,but that was fully enough. I think I made Col Bowmans event extra special that year,and had,myself a blast.

There I was in my mostly sutler row gear,armed with a huge LeMat pistol,With a huge gray beard that I had begun cultivating as soon as my Doctor placed me on disability,looking quite formidable!

. The day before,as I wandered around sutler row looking for trinkets to enhance my “Staff” officers position,I overheard much talk about how huge the events for the 150th Antietam were going to be.

It was then and there that I made a note to inform my Oncologist that his next assignment was to get me to one of those 150th Antietam events. I am not sure if I sincerely entertained any real hope to get there,but it gave me reason to at least ATTEMPT optimism,and in doing so,I think in the end it helped a great deal.

After Saturdays battle,and having received my “commission” for the next day,talk around Col Bowmans tent turned to my plans in the hobby,and what units might be available for me to join.

It is here that my real journey began

Colonel Bowman suggested that I might look into a role as a war correspondent. He informed me that with my talent, I should endeavour to become what were known as “special artists”,for newspapers such as Harpers and Leslies. He assured me I would be a welcome addition to the hobby in that under represented impression.

. The seed was sewn,and I believe at that time I decided if I was going to a 150th Antietam event,it would be as such an impression. I came home from the 148th Olustee armed with a sort of plan,and went to work. The first thing I did was to go to the Florida Reenactors Online webpage and look into the civilian link. I really had no idea of where to start or who to ask,or even what to Google,for that matter,but I was determined to find out,and somehow become a part of this reenacting community,ina role that I thought I was more than qualified to do,on a very authentic level. Although at that time,I wasnt even sure what an authentic level was. I recall finally Googling Civilian Civil War reenactors and hit on a site called the “Bohemian Brigade”. I had six months to figure out who ,what ,why ,and where I was going with this.Or even if I would get there.Some how,though,I knew I had found my spot. My ..Beginnings.