KEEPING POWDER DRY: MOISTURE IS NO GOOD FOR MUSKET FIRING
The re-enactors with the British 64th Regiment of Foot faced their worst foe -- rain -- during a Revolutionary War encampment yesterday morning at Historic Bethabara Park.
"You can't fire your muskets very effectively," David Gobel of Charleston, S.C., a lieutenant with the historic 18th-century infantry regiment, said.
Wind follows a close second to rain as a challenge for the re-enactors, and it was somewhat windy yesterday at Bethabara Park.
"It's hard to have good fires when it's windy," Gobel said.
The encampment will end today at 3 p.m.
The re-enactment group consisted of two officers, five soldiers, four women and two children.
Many members of the regiment hunkered down in the Brother's Sleeping Hall building at Bethabara Park to wait out the often-heavy rain. Once it stopped about 1 p.m., they ventured out to put on weapon demonstrations and company drills for the park's visitors.
David Snyder of Efland, the regiment's captain, has been with the unit for 33 years. He said he joined partly because of his interest in military history.
"I know that the history that we learned here in America is biased by us being the winners," he said. "So I wanted to see it from the viewpoint of the side that lost the war."
Yesterday, Snyder showed off his outdoor cooking skills as he prepared squirrel stew in a big tin pot over a hot, hardwood fire.
Over the years, rough weather hasn't been the only hardship group members have had to endure during their re-enactments.
There were fire ants everywhere during an August 2007 encampment in Camden, S.C.
Gobel missed that one but heard plenty of stories.
"They said that the fire ants were so bad you could not hide your food anywhere," he said. "They hung it from the rafters in their tents and the fire ants climbed up there and got into the food."
He said that the majority of the re-enactors left their tents that weekend and found motel rooms.
Dressing the part of an 18th-century British officer takes layers of clothing and isn't cheap. The battle uniform that Gobel wore yesterday included a waistcoat vest, knee-length pants, a linen shirt with ruffles, wool stockings, a three-pointed beaver hat, a wig, and a gorge, which is a symbol of an officer on duty.
He topped it off with a $400 red coat with black facings. He has a dress uniform coat worth $1,300.
"We're very authentic," he said.
Kevin and Melinda Wood, of Kernersville, bought their children Hannah, 7, and Nathan, 10, to the encampment because their son
was studying the Revolutionary War at Kernersville Elementary.
Nathan said he never knew that some British officers used beetle juice -- a pigment made from ground-up cochineal beetles -- to dye their coats and that the soldiers were able to load and fire their muskets in 15 seconds.
"It's pretty cool," he said. "I've never actually been to a Revolutionary War re-enactment like this. I've always been to Civil War re-enactments."
fdaniel@wsjournal.com
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