Update Part One!

Well I really haven't done an update in quite a while so i'm going to do a few right now. It all starts a few weeks ago when Ron and I took part in our first Rev. War Re-enactment. We were very nervous about how we would do, meeting new people and scariest of all: sleeping out of doors (in a canvas tent to be precise)!

Our First Event: Battle of Bordentown.

The battle reenactment took place over the the weekend of June 9 - 10th. It was a large event celebrating the 325th Anniversary of Bordentown, NJ. We were joined by our unit (2nd New Jersey Helm's Coy) and about 1,000 other participants for a hot, humid, couple of days.

Our Tent

Ron and I got there late Friday night and were given a bale of hay and our tent. So we set up, chatted for a bit and then got settled for the night. Now I have a big bug issue but I did my best not to look too hard for critters in our tent. The night air was soo humid that we could barely get to sleep, we slept in our underpants on top of a sheet we laid down. At 6 AM the sun flooded through the canvas tent waking us far earlier than either one of us like. We through pillows over our faces and tried to sleep again only to be interrupted by revile which blasted us into the world of the living at 7:00!

This is what Ron looks like when he's cranky in the morning and has a camera shoved in his face.
Some of the people in our group were kind enough to loan us some clothes and we were fortunate enough to buy alot of our gear on the cheap from people giving up the hobby. In the end, we were able to put together our "Impressions" or costumes.

And so there were Ron and Nikki in the 1770s. My role is that of camp follower, which means cook, although (full disclosure) in reality the male soldiers would have done their own meal preparations (meager as their rations were) and camp followers would have done laundry or possible made some extra money by sewing or reparing uniforms and other accessories.

I spent most of my time around this table

and this fire!

The Food

The menu for the day consisted of Eggs, Ham, Cheese and Bread for lunch and for dinner Beef Stew and Three Bean Salad with more bread. Tres magnifique, it was interesting learning how to cook over an open fire and how to stoke and keep the fire roaring. I could never do this by myself of course.

The Battle

Ron may have more to say on this than me, but here are the facts the battle took place on a large open field, with several hundred Brittish, German Hessians, Americans, Dragoons etc. There were eight cannons that alerted the entire town to their presence with loud bursts of fire!

The show was just ok from the perspective of the spectator. It was a bit confusing to see what was going on, and at one point half the army marched to an area that was completely obscured by trees and fought there for about 30 minutes. The tourists were less than impressed unfortunately!

Side Notes

• Turns out ol' Ronald and I aren't too fond of tent camping (on the ground at least, bring on the airobed thank you!)


• I refused to use the port-a-john and held my bladder all day until we could get to a modern bathroom (thanks Bordentown McDonalds)


• Ron had heat exhaustion and he got quite sick. We had to flee in the middle of the night even though I thought that was crazy (ha ha)


• A spider was hanging from the top of the tent nearly in my face!

Even with the side notes Ron and I still had a good enough time to go back in two weeks to the battle of monmouth, although this time we planned a little bit more.....but that is a story for Update Part Deux.