Our Strangest Fan Letter to Date
Kind Sirs:
As you and undoubtedly most San Franciscans well know, Civil War reenacting is never a particularly comfortable endeavor. Especially during the long, Alabama summer, when we must take to the roasting battlefield in our heavy burlap jackets and scratchy woolen trousers, when the heat of combat is exceeded only by the steamy, tortuous environs between pant and leg. Why, after the Battle of Hooper’s Mill, my unmentionables were no less miserable than the Okeefenokee Swamp, and even with generous applications of salves and medicinal powders, my chafed thighs remain quite tender to the touch!
So you can imagine my surprise and envy when, during the annual reenactment of The Massacre at Blood Mountain last month, I spied through my field glasses several Union reenactors charging toward our redoubt … wearing luxurious, seersucker pants! Gorgeous, Union-blue pants, loose-fitting and ingeniously horizontal in nature. Feeling as cool and fresh as a spring morning in the Shenandoah, those Yankees broke through our lines and annihilated the regiment with even more speed and vigor than was historically called for. As I pretended that the thrust of a Union bayonet had pierced my spleen, I crumpled to the ground, moaning: “If only my men had such fine and stylish pants!”
Weeks later, while leafing through the latest issue of Confederate Quartermaster Monthly, I saw an advertisement for these wonderful pants, these so-called “Summerounds,” available for a limited time only in …GREY! I can not adequately convey to you in this modest missive the tears and Rebel Yells and other assorted enthusiasms with which my men received the news. Needless to say, each and every one of us has ordered copious amounts of your grey Summerounds; with the Reenactors’ Ball fast approaching, one cannot have too much fine toggery.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Before our grey Summerounds can delight the belles, they will delight in the thrill of battle! After victory at Culver’s Crossroads, we will once again be roundly defeated at the Skirmish of Crabapple Corners. On that day, the creek will run red with blood, after the dye is poured in. We will imagine that Union rifles are shooting real bullets, that swords have razor-sharp edges, that there are actual horses to trample our mangled, perforated corpses into the mud. As always, we will gallantly pretend-fight to the last man. But as that last man falls to the ground, he shall do so, this year, in comfort and style.
Huzzah, Summerounds, huzzah!
Most Sincerely Yours,
O. Rutherford Pickling III
Captain, 134th Alabama Volunteer Infantry
Adjunct Professor of American History,
Cyprus City Community College
As you and undoubtedly most San Franciscans well know, Civil War reenacting is never a particularly comfortable endeavor. Especially during the long, Alabama summer, when we must take to the roasting battlefield in our heavy burlap jackets and scratchy woolen trousers, when the heat of combat is exceeded only by the steamy, tortuous environs between pant and leg. Why, after the Battle of Hooper’s Mill, my unmentionables were no less miserable than the Okeefenokee Swamp, and even with generous applications of salves and medicinal powders, my chafed thighs remain quite tender to the touch!
So you can imagine my surprise and envy when, during the annual reenactment of The Massacre at Blood Mountain last month, I spied through my field glasses several Union reenactors charging toward our redoubt … wearing luxurious, seersucker pants! Gorgeous, Union-blue pants, loose-fitting and ingeniously horizontal in nature. Feeling as cool and fresh as a spring morning in the Shenandoah, those Yankees broke through our lines and annihilated the regiment with even more speed and vigor than was historically called for. As I pretended that the thrust of a Union bayonet had pierced my spleen, I crumpled to the ground, moaning: “If only my men had such fine and stylish pants!”Weeks later, while leafing through the latest issue of Confederate Quartermaster Monthly, I saw an advertisement for these wonderful pants, these so-called “Summerounds,” available for a limited time only in …GREY! I can not adequately convey to you in this modest missive the tears and Rebel Yells and other assorted enthusiasms with which my men received the news. Needless to say, each and every one of us has ordered copious amounts of your grey Summerounds; with the Reenactors’ Ball fast approaching, one cannot have too much fine toggery.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Before our grey Summerounds can delight the belles, they will delight in the thrill of battle! After victory at Culver’s Crossroads, we will once again be roundly defeated at the Skirmish of Crabapple Corners. On that day, the creek will run red with blood, after the dye is poured in. We will imagine that Union rifles are shooting real bullets, that swords have razor-sharp edges, that there are actual horses to trample our mangled, perforated corpses into the mud. As always, we will gallantly pretend-fight to the last man. But as that last man falls to the ground, he shall do so, this year, in comfort and style.
Huzzah, Summerounds, huzzah!
Most Sincerely Yours,
O. Rutherford Pickling III
Captain, 134th Alabama Volunteer Infantry
Adjunct Professor of American History,
Cyprus City Community College
