Battle of Monocacy

This weekend is the 155th anniversary of that battle, which prevented the Confederates from advancing to Washington D.C. (ps: No airport was hurt in today’s re-enactments ;)

The park service organized demos of various activities -- including canons, muskets, music, and infantry -- all on the grounds of the battle.

Some things I learned from talking to various members of the event:
- while some soldiers were stationed at various locations for 3 or 4 years, many "only" saw 40 days of battle. The rest of the time was spent drilling for battle.
- there were 40,000 soldiers who served as musicians for the army.
- while in battle, the songs were played at one or even two octaves above the original song, so that they could be heard over the noise of the battles. That's how today's band played the songs and it really was shrill.
- during battle, drummers and fifers were positioned in at intervals in a line (with the main guy next to the commander) in order to echo out the instructions (charge, retreat, etc) throughout the troops.
- there were sharp shooters even back then -- taking shots from as far as one km out. 
- canons took a variety of ammo, but had to "rest" for 10mns in between shots to cool down before they could be loaded again.
- the more 'modern' canons were fashioned out of copper -- a nice golden color when new, steadily changing to green as time went by.

That's about all I have for you today: it was so hot and humid, I thought I was going to pass out.  I couldn't help trying to imagine what it was like for those soldiers, dressed in wool clothes at the height of summer around here...

ps: better pop in large