A Child’s Memories

My Dad was a career Marine. We lived in California, where he and my mom each won several State Muzzleloading Championships. We moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia in the summer of 1960. Sometime during the year, we lived there, my Dad came home saying he had been invited to go to a Muzzleloading shoot. He came home all excited, to say he had joined the 17th Virginia Infantry, CSA. Things of course were simpler then. His friends had lent him a uniform, leather goods, a musket and ammo and “put him on the line”. He was hooked. In the summer of 1961, we moved to North Carolina. It didn’t matter. Daddy traveled to shoots and sometimes took us all with him. In those years, the N-SSA didn’t have a permanent home. Skirmishes were usually held at Army bases, like Fort lee or Fort Meade. They allowed us to camp on base and use their range. Mother and I wore hoop skirts, and my younger brothers wore smaller versions of the men’s uniforms. There were costume contests like today, but much simpler. Anyone could enter and they didn’t check your “underpinnings”. When I was a teenager, I was told I could not wear my tennis shoes. I had to have authentic footwear, so I went barefoot. At the end of each shoot, any lady in a hoop dress was invited to hand out streamers. Each team would have one man stand on the 25-yard line with a guidon and the ladies would tie a streamer on it. Sometimes it was a musket with a bayonet. Once a shooter stuck is arm out and I tied it on his finger.

When you arrived at a shoot, someone would direct you to where your team was camping. When we started using Venskoskie’s farm in Winchester, we always camped different places, along the creek to the left or right of the bridge, up in the corner by the cows, top of the hill, even on the range side of the creek. The cows were taken out of those fields on Thursday. You had to watch for cow pies when pitching your tent. We had a camping trailer, but my brothers and I slept in USMC pup tents and “mummy” sleeping bags Daddy had requisitioned for the weekend. You could stay through Monday, but the cows came back on Tuesday. There were portable toilets and Army “Mules”, water trailers, to use. When they switched from wooden to fiberglass porta-johns, you had to be careful with your flashlight or lantern. It was quite a show from the outside. At Nationals Jack Rawls would drive a pair of mules, branded US and CS, pulling a wagon around the camp. He’d stop and pick up riders at each camp site. We’d go all around Fort Shenandoah and be dropped back again. The Fife and Drum Corp, quite large as I remember, marched and played all around the Fort also. On Saturday night the Grownups would dress in hoops and uniforms and go into Winchester to the Blue and Gray Ball. The bachelors would stay in camp and watch the kids. When I was a teen, we waited for an older “guardian” to fall asleep in his chair around the fire, then scattered like cockroaches. Usually, we went to visit other teens in other camps. We were expected to behave so we did not get our dads and teams in trouble. As a military brat, my brothers and I were already used to that mind set.

When I was 16, the N-SSA did not allow girls to shoot. Even though I was used to shooting a musket in competition. But my 14-year-old brother, who was six feet tall was. Guess I’m still not happy about that. When they let girls shoot, I was married with small kids so it didn’t fit my lifestyle and my mother had by then fallen on ice and broken her shoulder, so she couldn’t shoot anymore. But when I was, let’s say older, with grown kids I joined. I shot with my dad and my three brothers. After my dad died, two of my four sons, my daughter and my son-in-law also joined. These days my folks and oldest brother are gone, and my daughter is busy with her own family. But two brothers, two sons and I can still field our own legal musket team. Some things haven’t changed. Learning how to sit in a lawn chair in a hoop skirt came in handy when I first tried it with my leather goods. When I tell newer members these things, they have trouble believing them. No permanent campsite? No permanent, flushable bathrooms? Your dress had a zipper/Velcro in it? Ladies wore hoop skirts just to watch the shoot. You could lean on the fence to talk to the shooters? The safety wore an orange hard hat. The captain stood on the right-hand end and hit a timer, no stop watches? Yep. Good memories.

Work Skirmish Saturday, June 18, 2022 Fort Shenandoah, Virginia

Last year’s Work Skirmish fell prey to Covid. Hopefully that is in the past. The 2022 National Work Skirmish will be held on June 18. We have plenty of work so come on out! Some of the projects to date are as follows: a. Work around the Historical Center i. Paint as needed ii. Outside stairway along left side to emergency stairway continuing to back of building. iii. Handrail on front porch b. Maintenance of Cardiac Hill stairway c. Trim Brush d. Playground maintenance e. Replace treads on main bridge.

All teams with members who would like to volunteer please respond to Jeff Hall at jchall23.jh@gmail.com, and/or Tim Scanlan at nssapropertymgr@aol.com so we can properly plan the work, obtain the required material, and provide lunch.

Thanks for your help.

Jeff Hall Property Management Staff Officer