Photos by numerous volunteers.

I, like many of you, love this organization. I have grown up in it and can’t imagine what I’d do if the North-South Skirmish Association was to fold for some reason. In case you are unaware the membership of our organization is aging, and we need to recruit more members to survive. Now this article isn’t designed to be a doom and gloom article, in fact it’s the opposite.

Let us talk about the 2023 official Recruit Skirmish held on March 25th at Fort Shenandoah where we did exactly that. Thanks to the outstanding recruiting efforts of Robert Harrison (Rob) we had 51 participants register to come out and learn what the N-SSA is all about.

It was a cold wet morning, so we had 38 show up to learn and participate. The morning started with a safety instruction by Rob who went over the basics, you know black stuff first then the shiny thing. In case you have never been to a recruiting event the firing is done slightly differently than a regular skirmish. All recruits are paired with a mentor / instructor and they fire at a distance of 25 yards. The skirmish is broken down into phases.

Phase one is where the recruits learn to shoot our muskets and get an idea where they are hitting. To accomplish this, recruits shoot paper pie plates on a cardboard backer at 25 yards. Those recruits who are excelling are given smaller targets to continue to test them. From what I observed this was a fantastic way of handling it, the recruits that were struggling were still able to make hits, those that were hitting continued to be challenged.

Phase two is where we spice things up. The recruits were counted off into eight-man teams for a full-fledged skirmish. We all know the joy that comes from breaking targets, now couple that with doing it for the first time. It was like watching a kid on Christmas when you saw the recruits go after these targets. I personally got to watch one recruit break the stake with his final shot and man the smile on his face was infectious to all those around him.

In between the phases the recruits were treated to a hamburger and hotdog lunch as well as an artillery demonstration. Some recruits were even allowed to fire the cannons. This is how it’s done everyone, bring them out and put a gun in their hands. The magic of black powder will do the rest. As of writing this article according to Rob we have already had 20 individuals sign up for membership.