Introducing Rebecca Walsh

It's taken me all week to find time to post about last weekend's Civil War pumpkin patch trip.  What a weekend!  It poured rain, it hailed, and I became an Irish girl from New York City.

There were about ten of us camping.  I liked the gentlemen of the Union very much, as I knew I would.

 This is Sgt Archie Napier.  You probably remember him from the South as Sgt Rufus Lawless.

This is Mike.  Sgt Napier told me a great story about Mike.  The two of them and another soldier were in a battle, and had been driven off apart from their unit (but very near the audience.)  The other soldier fell, and Sgt Napier turned to Mike and said, "Oh no, we're all that's left!"  Mike's eyes flew open in shocked surprise, he clutched at  Archie's sleeve, and dropped dead at his feet.  Such comic timing!  I liked Mike right away.

This is Donny.  He goes barefoot in the rain and is very like Brennan.  I can't wait to get the two of them together!

And this, on the left, is Brian.  He recited a long quote from Shakespeare's Henry V.  That makes him totally awesome in my book!

So these are the guys that made camping in the rain fun.  Here's what we had to deal with:

That's the hail right outside my tent.

This is Clarence washing dishes with the rainwater runoff from our tent fly.

Notice the water sheeting down the left side of the picture?  And all the hail on the ground?

This is the soldiers trying to save a fly that blew over, standing out in the rain while I take pictures from under shelter.

So why, you ask, was this fun?!  Well, besides the great humor and camaraderie of the fellows pictured above, I got to meet Rebecca.

Rebecca Walsh is my Yankee self.  In actual fact, Rebecca Susannah Walsh was my great-grandmother.  She came from County Galway, Ireland (to Australia, actually, since that's where my mom's family hails from.  Ooh, hails, get it?)

Rebecca kind of took over me, and with a wildly exaggerated Irish accent, I said whatever came into my head to the dozens of visitors we had at the pumpkin patch.  And here's where re-enacting gets really interesting.  It turns out Rebecca is different from Abigail, funnier and lighter-hearted.  She's got a bit of attitude.

I think it's absolutely fascinating to get in the skin of these two Civil War ladies, and to realize the differences between the two sides in the war.  As Abigail from Alabama, I feel under attack and fiercely defensive of my family.  As Rebecca from New York, I feel my family is making a noble sacrifice, but that somehow seems easier.  I had such a blast playing Rebecca!

Here are some more pictures from our weekend:

Soldier's row.

Sgt Napier swearing in a new recruit at the bayonet station.

The beautiful side effect of the storm.

Clarence.

The neighbors.

My Ellis Island look.

I put a heated pot lid under my feet to keep warm.

In spite of the weather, or maybe because of it, the farm scenery was stunning.

Back home, it took me several days to shed the Irish accent, much to my children's dismay.  But what fun!

Rebecca/Autumn