The battle of Pea Ridge occurred on March 7-8, 1862, but they ‘celebrated’ the anniversary this weekend, which was the 15th-16th. There was a small collection of reenactors doing demonstrations, and, as the highlight, the national park brought out their functioning 6 pound smoothbore and had it fired a few times. It’s always great to go out and wander the 4,300 acres (4300!!) of the park, but I thought this would be a good opportunity to get some reference photos for my wargaming efforts.
The demonstration area was in a field south of the Old Wire Road, near Elkhorn Tavern. It being March, the sun was low in the southern sky, so, unfortunately, most of these photos are back-lit. I’ve tried to do some ‘correction’ in Photoshop to reduce some of the high contrast shadows, without totally blowing out the highlights.
Anyway, I hope some of this proves useful to someone, somewhere.
This gentleman is portraying a Missouri State Militia member. He gave a brief tour of an action that occurred just north of Elkhorn Tavern-an artillery duel between a four gun Illinois battery and 22 Confederate guns. The engagement produced a Medal of Honor winner. I’m sure you can guess the ultimate outcome. Excellent presenter. That fellow in the back isn’t a reenactor, just your typical rural Arkansan of a certain vintage.
Model 1841 6 Pounder. Your barrels can’t be too bright, or too brassy. These 6 pounders were prevalent in the early war, but were soon supplanted by larger smoothbores.
Union limber. I’m sure the ‘6 Pounder’ wasn’t on the back, back in the day. Note, the top of the ammo box is NOT padded. I’ve been painting them as if they were for my miniatures. Ugh.
Bad timing, on my part by a fraction of a second. Still, here’s the lanyard being pulled.
They fired the gun twice while I was there. VERY cool. The piece actually belongs to the national park, not a reenactment group. The ranger gave a detailed presentation while the crew went through their drill before firing.
Here’s a dropbox link to a video I took of the artillery piece firing. I was using my little hand-held Lumix camera, so it’s a little jerky, at times.
There was a presenter for each side. Both were great at their job. And not overly-well fed, like some of the other troops.
I probably mix up differing pants and jacket colors too often in my miniatures, if this is anything to go by. Also, note how light the un-dyed (I assume) fabrics can be.
Volley fire
Here’s a video of Confederate volley fire.
Union presenter. Also great.
War face. Note the variety in shades of blue and indigo. I believe these guys were portraying the 24th Missouri Infantry, but I could be mistaken.
Union column approaches
Every Confederate wants to see the Yankee rear, right?
Video of the Union reenactors firing by file.
ArkieGamer 