August 17-18, 2007

The Ninth supported the Watkins Museum in Lawrence the weekend of August 17-18, 2007, for its annual Civil War on the Western Frontier activities. Although their activities extended over a two week period, we participated in their Civil War encampment on Saturday in South Park opposite the Douglas County Courthouse and bordering the retail hubbub of Massachusetts Street. The site and location present great opportunities for a larger event on the lines of Mahaffie, but that will take considerable efforts and time to realize.

Present for duty were Herb Shemwell, Brad Anspach and his wife Kim, and your humble correspondent for the 9th, and  Steve Slater and his lady friend, and Cpl. Rick Gardner and his son of Jackman's 16th Mo. Also present was Charles Walthall who, with his son, presented an artillery impression and also set up an SCV table.

Although enemy forces under Gen. Mosquee and Col. Chigg made repeated and determined attacks on our camp throughout Friday night, we survived to meet the next day's activities. The civilian presence through the night in the environs of South Park was somewhat unusual, but thankfully no homeless wanted to join us in our tents.  In addition, the park's water sprinklers  opened up on us later in the night and gradually advanced to effective range of our camp. Pvt. Shemwell performed picket duty and stopped the assaults with some carefully placed firewood scraps.

A free pancake and sausage feed considerably brightened our outlook on life in the morning and our numbers began to swell as our comrades began to arrive.

We were welcomed by appreciative crowds and were able to explain the life of the Civil War soldier and conduct some firing and drill demonstrations. We also handed out some recruiting material for the 9th and welcomed a new recruit, Tate Bartlett, who we have apparently rescued from a Yankee outlook.

Although our turnout was thin, I am optimistic that our numbers will increase next year.


Brian Cox         

                 

Filming for BloodyDawn movie from Lone Chimney productions. The 9th displayed its continuing support of historical preservation this summer with its assistance to the producers of a film version of Tom Goodrich's Bloody Dawn, about the raid on Lawrence in August 1863 by Quantrill's raiders (for those old enough to remember, Tom fell in with the 9th at Topeka's Railroad Days in 1993 as a raw recruit). Check out the website of Lone Chimney Films at http://www.lonechimneyfilms.org/. The weekend of August 12, 2007, Shawn Bell, Evan Andrews, Bill Luther, Tom Leahy, and your humble correspondent helped Lone Chimney Films complete their film recreation of that fateful event. Bill was one of the Lawrence male unfortunates, Evan played a raider who escaped lynching by the enraged citizens by shaving his beard and donning female garb, Tom expanded his considerable skills at historical impression by recreating the infamous Quantrill, your humble correspondent was a dusty, dirty raider, and Shawn was the make-up man and all around handy man on the set. Although the pay was negligible, and the weather was blazing, a good time was had by all! I understand that the 9th assisted in earlier "shoots" and will try to have more details later. Our profound thanks to Lone Chimney Films for permitting the lads of the 9th to participate in this important event and to add our our already bulging film credits. Brian Cox