Cub reporter, Ross Meaders, reports on the Hemlock Encampment

For two days, the Ver­mont Civ­il War Hem­locks encamped in Danville dur­ing the 2011 Memo­r­i­al Day week­end. Many attend­ed both the encamp­ment and the Memo­r­i­al Ser­vice held at the Methodist church and a sub­se­quent ser­vice at the Danville Green ceme­tery. The pho­tos in the fol­low­ing arti­cle were tak­en by Janet Car­son. A link at the end of the arti­cle will send you to her more exten­sive album. 

Ross spent a lot of time at the encamp­ment, gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion. Pho­to by Janet Carson

The men had many demon­stra­tions. They prac­ticed drills, they fired rifles and can­nons. The chil­dren got to march with the sol­diers with fake wood­en rifles.

The sut­ler, who over­charged the sol­diers on lemonade. 

There was a tent where a man sold cook­ies and lemon­ade. The price for lemon­ade was three cents. The sol­diers said that the prices were out­ra­geous­ly high. Three cents was a lot of mon­ey back dur­ing the Civ­il War. The vis­i­tors, how­ev­er, loved the prices.

 

 

 

Sgt. Hen­ry Wake­field spoke at the church and at the cemetery. 

On Memo­r­i­al Day, there was a ser­vice and a march down to the Danville Ceme­tery, where the sergeant spoke about two fall­en sol­diers in the Civ­il War.

 

 

 

 

Here are inter­views with some of the soldiers:

Sergeant Artillery George South­wick: The war brings a lot of emo­tion to him because he does­n’t like to see his peers killed. He joined the Civ­il War for the excite­ment, and he did not want his friends to have all the fun. Gen­er­al John Buford inspired George. Gen­er­al John Buford was in the cav­al­ry in the bat­tle of Get­tys­burg. He made the deci­sion to keep the South out of town.

 

Pri­vate David Hare: All his friends joined, so he joined, too. The War is bor­ing at times, because they spend a lot of time at camp, and they do a lot of drills, which David only thinks is nec­es­sary for the sergeants. His inspi­ra­tion is the oth­er men in the reg­i­ment. He enlist­ed for three years, and he will keep that promise.

 

 

 

 

Pri­vate Samuel Hecter: It seemed inter­est­ing at the time for Sam to join. He believes that slav­ery is un-human. He also believes that the way slaves are treat­ed is wrong and cru­el. His hero is Gen­er­al Ulysses S. Grant (who lat­er would become Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States).

 

Doc­tor William Minsinger: William joined his unit because his three sons did, who went by the names of Wil Jr. , Kris, and Kei­th. He is inspired by Phillip Sheri­dan, who was in the Shenan­doah Val­ley. Wil feels that the South should not have seced­ed. He says that the War a lot more pro­longed than any­one would have imag­ined when it began.

 

Chap­lain Richard Swift: He is Chap­lain of the Third Ver­mont Reg­i­ment and the light artillery in the First Ver­mont Reg­i­ment. Before Richard was a chap­lain, he was a drum­mer boy. When he was a kid, he would play Civ­il War, and he did not think about the Civ­il War again until he was fifty years old. Richard would start study­ing the Civ­il War. At age 61, he joined the Ver­mont Hemlocks.

The encamp­ment was made pos­si­ble by funds del­e­gat­ed to the cel­e­bra­tion of Memo­r­i­al Day by Paul and Mar­i­on Sevi­gny. A spe­cial thanks to Paul Chouinard, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety, who spent many hours orga­niz­ing the event.
To view the album pho­tos Ross chose to cap­tion, click here.

To view all of Janet Car­son­’s pho­to album, click here.

 


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