Cannon fire rocks OMV

BY TOM FONTANA
Correspondent

Cannons and muskets roared, smoked filled the air, and Blue and Gray bodies went down as Old Mill Village held its annual Civil War Days on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 4 – 5.

On Saturday morning, Civil War reenactors set up camp and cook fires on the rolling grounds of the Victorian-era museum town on the outskirts of New Milford, spending a wet, chilly day as ‘living historians,’ some even enduring the frosty night there in their tents.

“We near froze last night,” said Paul Andre, leader of the 10th New York State Volunteers, a heavy artillery division operating two Civil War replica cannons along School House Ridge.

Andre, an art teacher at Homer High School in Homer, N.Y., started the reenactor group about 10 years ago at the school.

“We were inspired by a reenactor who visited the school,” Andre explained. “There were only a few students in our Living History Club at first, but then they started to recruit others, and the 10th Volunteers were formed.”

Members of the 10th, wearing authentic Civil War artillery corps uniforms, travels to various battlefields and living history demonstrations throughout the year, as does the 137th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, also on the field this day.

The 137th recalls the actual regiment formed in September 1862 from Tioga, Tompkins and Broome counties. Those troops fought in several battles during the war, and are remembered with a monument at Culp’s Hill on the Gettysburg battlefield. A Civil War author has written: “On the second day of the battle, the fate of the Union right flank lay in the hands of a single regiment – the 137th New York.”

On Sunday afternoon, these Union reenactors faced a handful of Confederate opponents, clad in butternut-colored uniforms, aiming their own muskets and cannons at the ‘enemy,’ thrilling a crowd of over 100 spectators with an ‘engagement.’

The battle began in the open field below the museum visitor’s center, as rebel skirmishers hiding near the covered wooden bridge pelted the Federals with hot lead, which the Union troops enthusiastically returned. At the height of the battle, cannons of both sides roared at each other in the village green. The deafening sounds as smoke obscured the view of the soldiers thrilled young and old in the crowd.

“I like the Civil War,” offered nine-year-old Cole Stauffer, a fourth-grade student at Roslund Elementary School in Tunkhannock. “My favorite president is Abraham Lincoln, because he thought everyone in the world should be free and equal.”

As canister for the cannons ran out, and the Blue and Gray shouldered their muskets for a final attack, Rip Howard of Hop Bottom was speechless.

“The uniforms, the running, the noise, the screams and the drama,” he commented, “make me imagine what the actual battles must have been like on a much larger scale. In our world today, we have no concept of the effort and sacrifice the people of that era had to have to survive.” (‘Rip,’ whose real first name is Lewallace, is actually named after a Civil War general, General Lewis Wallace.)

The living historians also included several women in long dresses and bonnets like those who assisted at troop camps during the Civil War. Civilians were also depicted, including the dapper Richard Ryczak, from Chapman Lake, in top hat and tailcoat, accompanied by his wife Millie in a ball gown, both ready break into a Kentucky reel to celebrate the Union’s success.

When the noise stopped and the smoke cleared at Old Mill Village, the Union had triumphed, with most of the rebels immobile on the ground. But they did eventually rise, and were honored with a round of applause from the spectators.

Coming up next at Old Mill Village is the annual Historic Ghost Walks for two weekends on Friday and Saturday nights, Oct. 10, 11, 17 and 18, from 7 to 9 p.m. A scary terror tour will be conducted on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 24 and 25 from 7 to 10 p.m.
For more information, visit www.oldmillvillage.org; or call Christina Button at 570-434-3353.