Stand of Colors 2008

After Action Report -- Stand of Colors, Kansas City Area, May 16-18, 2008

I beg to offer the following account of activities in and near Kansas City, May 16-18, 2008:

The federals didn’t want to fight but the ticks did, and the latter won.

And there were lots of ticks, both infantry ticks and the tick air force, coming down out of the trees. Seemed like they came in two varieties, big brown ones with a white square on their backs, and little ones. You could see little battalions of them crawling on your pants. You’d pick one off and mash him but his brother ticks kept reinforcing. Oh, well, the 9th has always been a bunch of tick-magnets (whoops!). Well, apparently everyone survived this. My doc, an infectious disease specialist, said if you weren’t feeling symptoms in the week after the battle, the little buggers hadn’t transferred anything to you of concern. They did warn us ....  (See note below, faithful reader,  on a more ominous note as to the ticks.) Poison ivy was also in play.

At least Mother Nature otherwise cooperated.

Present for duty:  1st Sgt. Shively, 1st Cpl. Downey, 2nd Cpl. Albert, and Pvt’s Anspach, Shemwell, McMillan; Visser, Lliteras, Pieper, M. Gibbens, J. Gibbens, B. DeVader, Keidel, and Ralph, and your humble correspondent (great - 14 rifles!).

Present for Battalion staff were Col. Amend, Major Albert, Color Sgt. Bell, Musician T. Franklin, with Pvt. Visser capably filling in as an additional major.

Other units present were Dave Burnos’ 1st MO, Mike Girdner’s 3rd MO, Daniel Keith’s 4th MO, Bob Smith’s 9th MO, Joe Broski’s 10th MO, and Elliott’s Scouts. (Has anyone seen the 5th MO?) Robbie Sanders brought up his Arkansas boys (I think that was the 15th, 16th, and 22nd Arkansas), there were some lads from the “Tater Mess” and three guys from “the other” 9th Texas (one looked like he had been fighting all month -- he looked real!). The 11th Mississippi was also present.

Also present were Terry’s Texas Rangers (8th Texas); Shelby’s 5th MO; the 1st North Carolina, Hildebrand’s; the Lexington Ruffians; the 4th Va.; the 3rd Texas; and the 7th Tennessee, all on the cavalry side. I hope I got these names correct.

I’m sure I’m missing some. It seemed like a grand crew over-all, despite what I understand were some pull-outs, and given that it is so close to home, it is worthy of our continued support.  A Rotary man at registration suggested that if things go well, they will do the event again in two years. Kudos to the 9th, lads, for supporting this event in the numbers you did!

Friday night -- getting in and such --

The site was not too remote, being minutes from retail Kansas City MO, and just off Martin City, MO, but was heavily wooded. The power lines running through the area provided but a minor distraction from our “moment.”

First Sgt. Shively chose our camp site, and it was well-sited, just off the tree line, with two massive piles of wood forming a portal to the camp (some of these were just too big to burn but they made first rate stools and tables). Water in a large buffalo and porta-potties were within a stone’s throw.

Sutlers present were Del Warren, of course, and also Fall Creek, Coon River, the tin man, a leather man, and a ladies emporium, among others.

There was also a food court, of sorts, drawn up in  a circle. Of note was the beer garden much appreciated by the 9th, as discussed later. Only complaint -- they closed up too early.

I was amused by the event organizers’ tent which had for sale bottles of insecticide and sunscreen with the SOC logo on it.

Mr. Keidel purchased a new pair of jean wool pants the pockets of which promptly tore out. Chris took them back to Coon River and they repaired them on the spot, to his satisfaction. Also sporting spiffy new duds were  Mr. Anspach and  Mr. McMillan. Mr. Anspach, I might note, has shaved off his “Stonewall” and now sports a mustache.

Parking, as advertised (and subject to some pre-event speculation as to its security) was to be at the former Bannister Mall parking lot with guaranteed 24 hour security. Those parking there could go in and out by shuttle bus. I heard no reports of any break-ins, or thefts. In any event, the organizers provided an alternate parking spot closer in though not close.
 
Most guys showed up preparing to go campaign.

We had a brief officer’s call with mild-mannered Gen. Bobby Crisp. Never having encountered him before, he seemed nice enough and competent. He said that the federals outnumbered us 2 to 1, 300 to our 150. Our cavalry was outnumbered 120 to 50. Nice to see that change. (Apparently some of the Eastern units which were to have come pulled out.)

At one point, I saw the several maps of the area which were apparently circulated around to aid the handling of our scenarios. Seems to me that the organizers wanted to micro-manage the battles, and this was bound to fail given the nature of the beast.

Friday night campfire, and we passed around a little cheer. I passed Friday night in the “A” poorly, as it was too Mahaffie-like, i.e. the noise of trains, traffic, and etc.

Saturday --

Saturday began dry and warm, but warmed up considerably during the fights.

Mr. Visser was tasked to be a major, and cut a fine figure. No wonder the 9th is a pipeline to Battalion staff; of course, the downside is that we always lose good men.

We were to pull out early in the am and did so shortly after 7 am, the 9th being first in the line of march. Although the time was short after reveille, we did have time for breakfast and coffee. The 4th MO went out as skirmishers.

We trudged for a while over progressively rougher ground, some mud, lots of rocks, and eventually up a large hill.

Mr. Keidel was tasked to be a flanker along with some privates from some of the other companies.

Before us was the area where the morning skirmishes would apparently take place. The 9th was then detailed as additional skirmishers to protect the Battalion’s left flank. We extended our intervals quite a bit and advanced to the tree line -- nothing there. So, we fell in with some the Arkansas boys and some others, as there soon appeared federals on our front. We pushed and pulled quite a bit.

Ultimately, we spent all of this early am skirmish away from the rest of the Battalion. Meanwhile, the latter got themselves into a hot little fight down the other side of the hill.

Apparently at a couple of points, Col. Sanders got his butt chewed for supposedly breaking scenario and attacking the federals in their camp. You know, I was privy to overhearing a number of these conversations and it is a great education to learn the practical end, perhaps the political end, of pulling off a reenactment.

Mr. Ralph had joined us for the battle.

In any event, we eventually pulled out to our cavalry’s outpost camp where we might spend the night (more on this later). We got a little bit to eat, made some coffee, dozed and otherwise took our ease.

We had only just recovered a little when we realized that the feds were snipping around a little, so we sent out a small detail, which included about 1/2 of the 9th. Then, only minutes later, we realized that the federals were upon us so we all went out. We essentially followed to where we thought they would be and then chased them to the bottom of one of the big hills, where they made a stand. We fired by company, then broke to the rear, to the right and to the left. We fired a couple of volleys then retired back to our camp. At this point, it had really heated up and many were really feeling it especially with the ups and downs on the hill.

I was unable to locate the rest of our company and so sent Mr. Anspach back to find them. They had, in fact, been pulled back to our bivouac camp.

I witnessed a pretty lively discussion between Gen. Crisp and Col. Sander and another, which was mostly critical of the Yanks, except for the general who was mostly apologetic. Gen. Crisp did say that we put the fear of God in the Yanks, that we were so aggressive, that we scared them. Typical fighting from the 9th -- what did they expect?

After the skirmish, about 12:45, I had determined to take a nap when all hell broke loose. It was a large contingent of federal cavalry attacking our camp, yelling and shooting; we had no pickets out. We had just stumbled to our feet and begun to “couter up,” when they were gone. Hell of a way to wake up and a good lesson for this type of event where we are free to have some unscripted fun.

Afternoon battle. Although we were pushed way back, we eventually pushed the federals from the field, with the support of our flying artillery, tho’ we took better than 50% casualties. This seemed a little unrealistic as we pushed the federals to the tree line with less than half of our numbers. In addition, the confederate “dead” were ordered to capture the federal “dead” so we had a lot of prisoners.

The federals had two very large national colors and one state issue flag but I was not close enough to see the state of issue.

I will also express my complaint that civilians sometimes get too close to the fight for it to be realistic. I don’t mean the spectators. In this fight, you could clearly see through the federal lines and see very clearly, just behind, some of their womenfolk in their brightly colored dresses. Like they were just waiting for the ball!

Something you don’t always see, but do want to see, is the flying artillery we had -- i.e. a Reb canon with cassion pulled by two massive black draft horses. These were all over the field, and followed our battle line. Sometimes their firing was uncomfortably close but when we knew they were about to fire, and took precautions, it was not bad at all.

We returned to our remote camp and a vote was generally taken of where to camp for the night, where we were or back in out static camp. Given the relatively short distance this camp was from our static camp, its lack of any real novelty, and the enticements of our static camp, such was our vote (the presence of the beer garden might have helped sway the vote).

Upon our return, we all took to tick-picking, an unpleasant but necessary affair. I think all of us had the little buggers on us, many having already bitten in, many still circling our flesh for a good place to bite. Sgt. Shively, Cpl. Downy, and Sgt. Major Sutton all stripped down to get at the them. We all tried to help the other search them out in some of those hard to reach parts. Some more comments follow below. We sprayed down with some more Off or whatever was available, although, at this point, I had to question the efficacy of any measure taken against these ticks. You will, faithful reader, find more tick anecdotes at the end of this report.

The beer garden (“happy hour” beers for $2) proved a lively affair with many of the lads telling tales, and hoisting a few and generally enjoying the end of the day’s activities. Those rounds did keep coming! Unfortunately, the food venders had all closed by that point so we were drinking our supper.

Saturday night --

Messrs. Jason Gibbens and Matthew Gibbens were joined by their ladies and did the dance. The rest of us were in our tents by approximately 10:30.

Sunday --

We stayed in bed a little longer Sunday morning and the much anticipated running fight did not come to pass. So, an easy breakfast. I think we were a little tuckered out.

Capt. Smith’s 9th MO. boys stayed the night at the remote camp and were none the worse for the wear although they apparently did have a skirmish with the Yanks.

After the morning roll call, I passed out our new mascot, “Homey,” the 9th’s dead chicken, to the first recipient, 1st Sgt. Shively, for his prodigious ability to attract ticks.

We also had letters from home for Mr. DeVader and Mr. Ralph. Later, some light shopping and some biscuits and gravy at the food court. Quite tasty!

I pulled another three ticks off me on Sunday morning.

Later, we had a weapons inspection and Mr. Shemwell’s rifle still appeared a little fickle.

The lads from Captain Girdner’s 3rd MO uncovered and brought over a man who had run, and also confessed seditious sentiments, so he was given a drumhead court martial, apparently by the vote of their men, and sentenced to death. I pointed out that the articles of war dictated that when a unit was in garrison, the death sentence had to be approved by the commandant, here Col. Amend. The matter was promptly reported to him and the sentence was confirmed. Musician Franklin was also present and beat a doleful note, and the guard of four men took the man down although it took two firings to do the job. We couldn’t find the man’s lawyer to finish the job.

Col. Sanders was still irritated, complaining that we were doing all the work in the fight, that the federals did not want to do any probing for us, that our camp was away from everything, etc. You have to really appreciate an officer like Col. Sanders who not only knows his stuff, but advocates for the common soldier.

Later, we ambled over to the remote camp to prepare for the battle. Per usual, the 9th’s own inimitable brand of humor was quickly in play. Some took naps as it was quite a wait.

While waiting for battle on Sunday, I chanced to talk to a private and asked him of his treatment for ticks. He said his grandmother had passed down to him that you could pour a cup of bleach into a bath, and the ticks would pop off and rise to the top. Later, Mr. Shemwell’s wife, an infectious disease nurse with Johnson County, suggested that this was absolutely not a safe way to remove ticks.

The battle was about 45 minutes, beginning with a  salvo at 1:30 and we marched to it. It seemed like it was longer than it was, but, boy what a fight it was!

Our dismounted cavalry engaged theirs on our left and the 1st Missouri Battalion and the Arkansas lads were to the right. We advanced to the crowd, when federals appeared to our left. We engaged them but had to keep an eye to our right where federal cavalry appeared, and twice had to refuse the flank to protect it. At another point, the federals got behind us and we had to face about to get out of there. Finally, they forced us back to near the tree line, and we withdrew, giving them, however, our right flank which they fired into with terrible effect. Good hot, fight tho.

Missed Mr. Keidel’s cooking. Glad to have Mr. Lliteras and Mr. McMillan back in the ranks and both fought well. I would also like to thank Mr. DeVader who previously left Kansas for greener pastures in Colorado, but came back to fight with his brothers in this one.

Here, as promised, faithful reader, are some of the other reports of our tick jamboree --

Captain Keith reports the following from one of his men:

“Hey captain, seeing as we are keeping score, my official count of ticks removed at SOC was 91. Ask any of the fellas, I kept count all weekend. Had a great time with you and the boys, sure am looking forward to Hulston Mill.”

Col. Sanders reported as follows:

“I think I beat that but did not make a count but I think I am still finding them I had to have an MRI done yesterday and was afraid they were going to find some I had not yet.”

First Sgt. Shively reported as follows:

I actually lost accurate count around 30, but if I had to make a guess, I would say 36 or so, of which roughly 1/3 were attached.  That includes 4 around my  neck, 6 around my waistline, and 5 that were attached to more intimate places.  For all my efforts, I earned the  Homey the Chicken award, a very dubious honor.  It should also be noted that Mr. Visser informed me that his count was up to 35 little buggers at the end of the event.  I also want to thank all my pards for playing the monkey tribe and picking the bloodsucking pests off of my person.

It was kind of a magic moment to see all the boys stripping down to try and rid themselves of the pesky little critters. Not that seeing everyone stripped down is magic but that it reminded me  of everything I have read of louse picking.  All we needed was someone running a candle along the seams of their uniform.”

Col. Amend wrote as follows:

“Gentlemen, who had the most ticks? Check with your men. Let's find out. I had a total of 23 during and after the event. It will be a hell of thing to have bragging rights over. LOL!”

On a more ominous note, I have received two (2) reports of soldiers, not from the 9th, who were infected with Rocky Mountain spotted fever apparently as a result of tick bites at SOC.

That’s all for now.

Your obedient servant,

Brian Cox
Captain, commanding
9th Texas Vol. Infantry
1st Missouri Battalion