I never thought I would have the chance to dress up as a Civil War soldier and fire a cannon. Yesterday, I posed as Edmund the Union soldier. I was placed on a cannon team of 8 men and we fired the cannon 10 times throughout the day. Our team was so awesome because we did not miss fire once.
Now, firing the cannon is one hell of a good time. The sound of the explosion is so loud that your ears ring even though you have ear plugs in and it creates such a force that it moves the cannon backwards. The gunner gives his men three commands: Load, Ready, & Fire. And in the three commands the cannon team can prepare and fire the cannon. I can only imagine the fear in many soldiers eyes when they saw dozens of cannons just open fire as they charged the fields. My favorite way of firing is fire by sections. There was a total of 6 cannons out yesterday and when our captain (Ranger Jim Lewis) order "fire by sections" the to left canons will fire first, followed by the two center, and finally the two right.
Trying to portray life as a soldier is a little more difficult and not as fun. I did not like eating a huge hunk of ham, cheese and bread for lunch (especially when some guy used his dirty hand to cut it - yuck!) The only way i could drink water was through a rusty canteen bottle that gave the water a nasty tin taste - not good. And even though it was a gorgeous day outside yesterday, wearing a wool uniform is not very comfortable (someone tried to convince me that wool is great - wool "breathes" - my wool is broken then because it did not breathe once.)
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