For our field trip this week we went to check out
Fort McHenry National Monument. We had never been before. We went with our buddies and had a picnic lunch. It was a beautiful day.
They have special reenactment shows for the summer visitors. This was a demonstration from the Fife and Drum Corps. They played Revolutionary and Civil War era songs. Then they demonstrated some of the calls that drums were used for: call to arms, call to eat, wake-up calls etc. Their instruments are replicas as close to the original style as we can make today. He explained that the drums don't have dampers like most do today because the drums needed to be loud enough to be heard on the battlefield.
Brother S says that he wants to be a drummer...
We looked around the fort's various halls, rooms, and ammunition storage basements.
This is one of the more modern cannons.
This was another reenactment station -- she was making cookies for the troops in a dutch oven.
They had a demonstration of arms and firing techniques. Front line firing while the second line reloads, all at once firing, every other man firing, that kind of thing. It was incredibly loud! and their were some misfires, which is true to real life for troop in those days. It was so interesting to see them using powder and muskets, and having to reload after each volley like they would have back then.
Their was a lot of smoke after each round. The guide told us that that is why in descriptions of battle fields you hear about things being so smokey that it was hard to see.
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