Last weekend the girls and I went to our first Civil War event of the season, "Winter Quarters." It was sort of like Civil War summer camp (ooh, what a wonderful idea!) We stayed in cozy cabins, ate in a cafeteria and attended Civil War workshops. For Hailey and me, this meant "How to Hand-Stitch Buttonholes", "Make a Chemise" (CW underwear), and "Civil War Hair", a very popular class.
Claire hung out with Sergeant Napier and the other Union fellas. They crawled through mud in search of Rebels to shoot at, drilled with bayonets and I know not what else. We all met up for meals and evening activities.
The meals were decent, except for a little mystery. On Friday night we sat down to a huge platter of saucy spareribs, but as we began eating, we noticed something really peculiar: the bones were little flat plates. I'm not talking about sideways slices of bigger rib bones, but little flat plates about the size of a silver dollar. Anyone know what kind of animal that was?! After dinner, they showed the movie "Abe Lincoln: Vampire Slayer", a sepia-toned gore-fest that we wandered out of about halfway through.
Saturday night was really fun. A Confederate commander from Maryland held a town hall meeting about the John Merryman case. From Wikipedia:
Ex parte Merryman, 17 F. Cas. 144 (C.C.D. Md. 1861) (No. 9487), is a well-known U.S. federal court case which arose out of the American Civil War. It was a test of the authority of the President to suspend "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus" under the Constitution's Suspension Clause. Chief Justice Roger Taney, sitting as a federal circuit court judge, ruled that the authority to suspend habeas corpus lay with Congress, not the president. President Lincoln ignored the ruling, as did the Army under Lincoln's orders. The case was rendered moot by Lincoln's subsequent order in February 1862 to release almost everyone held as a political prisoner.
We, the good people of Baltimore, met in secret to discuss this distressing news. My brother (who at that point was Rufus Lawless, taking the Southern point of view), spoke out against Lincoln's actions. When no one stood up to defend the President, I, Rebecca Walsh, addressed the group and reminded them of the extreme danger our city was in, its unique geographic position standing between Washington City and the rest of the Union, and the Constitutional right to set aside habeas corpus should just such a situation arise. Then Rufus spoke again, urging us to think of the people of the future, who might look back on our actions to determine their own response in times of trouble. If the fundamental right of habeas corpus can be set aside so easily, how might our descendants mis-use that right? In the end, we all voted unanimously against the President's actions. Rufus told us to be very careful not to speak to anyone about the meeting, as our very lives might be in danger.
The meeting was a great success because we all remained in first person. Staying in character is a blast when everyone plays along!
Later that evening, Paddy (Claire) and I sat down to a game of Whist with Archie and the Captain. When Paddy and Archie were soundly beating us, Paddy couldn't resist gloating a little, and the Captain dubbed her "Private Flaunty-Face." He came up with an even better nickname for her though: Private O'Furniture. (Try saying it with her first name.) I really love clever nicknames.
Something else funny happened: Someone who saw Hailey and Claire together, but assumed Claire was a boy, said that they'd never seen fraternal twins who looked so identical. Hahaha!
We drove to the event with Archie, and you can only imagine the hilarity that ensued. We discussed why Archie and Rebecca left Ireland, (he killed a man defending my honor), and what he does now (owns a bookstore.) We also read aloud from Confederates in the Attic, which I'm borrowing to finish, and a book of poetry written by the cats of famous poets - very funny!
Next weekend we are going to a ball! It's lovely to be back in the 1860s.
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