ALBANY VETERANS DAY PARADE

UNIT COMBATANT AVERAGES & UNIT RECOGNITION STATUS

Thanks to the excellent work by our Membership Coordinator Anne Tamerius we now have accurate information regarding unit combatant averages for this 2011 season. Please check with your unit rep or commander to obtain information about how your unit did. We did have two units that fell below the 8 combatant average indicated in our NCWC Rules as necessary to maintain full recognition status. The two units will have through the first two field events of 2012 to bring their average up to standard.

This is a very difficult and emotional issue. The vote in April of 2011 that set up our current rules passed by only one vote. The Board decided to send this back to the Rules Committee for further study and possible changes while we have time in the off-season to carefully consider what we want to do. If you have ideas and/or suggestions about this issue then contact your unit Board representative or Mr. Donny Cameron who is Chairperson of the Rules Committee.

MONEY - MONEY - THE BUDGET COMMITTEE WILL SOON MEET

Now that we know what our official calendar is for 2012 we can begin the process of putting our Budget together. This is a very important aspect of running the NCWC (though not always of the most interest to our members). Our Budget Committee Chairperson is Jill Ingalls and you should contact her if you would like to serve on this committee or present ideas for potential budget items.

ELECTIONS - ELECTIONS - ELECTIONS - A WORD FROM YOUR CHAIRMAN

Our revised Rules passed in 2010 indicate that you will soon receive candidate information in the Bugle Call to help you decide who your leadership will be for the next two years. Your Election Committee and its Chairperson Mr. Dan Gering have worked very hard to make sure that this will be done correctly. You and your family should receive your ballots in early November. PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO VOTE!!! We have tried to make this process more smooth and efficient.

I realize that many of our members just want to come to our events and have a good time. That is fine but also realize that those events do not just happen. They take weeks (and sometimes months) of planning by your leaders who use a lot of time, energy and resources for YOUR benefit. Taking the time to at least cast a vote tells them that you care about their efforts and want to encourage them.

Will you please do that?

If there is a problem with your ballot then please contact Dan Gering and every effort will be made so that all legal members who want to can cast their ballots.

Steve Betschart
President - Northwest Civil War Council

 

Looking for a few volunteers to help with a CW living history presentation to residents of the Courtyard Village at Raleigh Hills Senior Community in southwest Portland on Saturday, November 5th. Requesting a variety of military, including medical and musician/bugler, and civilians to give a broad view of CW life. Would particularly like to have civilian women join us since the majority of the residents are women and they would like to hear the female perspective. Plan is to have some speaking topics and to set up displays on tables for the residents to see period items and speak to the volunteers. We might also do some demonstrations, but the program format will depend upon the actual volunteers that sign on. For more information please contact Rick East (9th Virginia Cavalry) at rceiv@comcast.net or at 503-645-4979. Thank you for your consideration.

The Rise and Fall of the Civil War Fashion

I open this with a thought to ponder on; I often wonder how the ladies during the times of the Civil War would now think of the woman of these days, with our comfy t-shirts and jeans. I am not sure if they would be amazed or completely appalled. Oh how the times of fashions have changed through the decades.

I have often been asked by many people at the historical events that I attend; are these not the dresses that you Ladies wear now the same style of dresses that would have been worn back during the Civil War. I have to pause for a minute and then proceed to explain that these fancy hooped dresses are not fashions of the Civil War, but are the fashions of the Antebellum Period that have been carried over into the time of the Civil War. Now, of course please do not misunderstand me, the camp dresses were and are the period correct dresses for the camps. The ladies that traveled in the camps with their husbands usually always wore camp style dresses. In the camps, was not place for a fancy hooped dress. Women were working by cooking and trying to take care of the camp(s). The Ladies that lived in the south that were still lucky enough to live in their homes would of course have their Best Sunday Dress to wear on special occasions. I am sure this statement probably may surprise you……..

You will have to remember that during the Civil War, Ladies did not have the funds or the means to acquire the latest dresses. There were blockades that were rising up at the borders between the South and the North. A war was going on and all the women were able to accomplish with their fashion was to take their old dresses, mend what dresses they could and dream of the most up-to-date dresses by looking at Godey’s Ladies Books (Godey’s Ladies Book, first published in 1830 by Louis A. Godey or Peterson’s Ladies Magazine first published in 1859) these books were something to look forward too, in this bloody war. If one was fortunate enough to purchase a book or to even just borrow a book from another Lady, which was in itself a delight.

I have to say my admiration goes out to all of these women who lived in that time, whether a lady was wealthy or poor. Each struggled in their own way, each hour, each morning and each night with the life that was now dealt to them and their families, and mind you this was not a silver platter. It was a life of daily death, war, blood, illnesses, diseases and struggle.
The struggles of these humble worshippers of fashion are a faint representation of what southern and northern women went through during the blockade. Please try to take a quiet moment of imagination to what it must have been like for them , the condition in that time, a society of Ladies, mind you, a very respected society of manners and politeness where Ladies would literally be mortified if they did not have in their personal possession the finest supplies of new dresses, shoes, gloves, linen, buttons, pins, needles, ribbons, trimmings and laces, not to mention the more urgent necessities of new bonnets, hoop-skirts and fashion plates to inquire on.

This was an era of dreams and romance that were to vastly disappear forever into their memories. These humble servants of the Confederacy would first always make sure that their husbands were properly clothed with fabric that each soldier needed to carry him over to harsh winters that lay ahead and then they would piece fabric together to make a new outfit for their child as he or she grew. Ladies had now become doomed to the life of patching, ripping and piecing fabric together, fabric to either repair or hem, or take 2 to 3 old and torn dresses to make a new dress. These humble servants of the Confederacy would first always make sure that their husbands were properly clothed with fabric that each soldier needed to carry him over to harsh winters that lay ahead and then they would piece fabric together to make a new outfit for their child as he or she grew. Confederate women became very ingenious on how to purchase the wool fabric they needed to make and/or repair their husbands’ uniforms. The southern ladies would take their husband’s aged suits or another ladies husband suits (whom was deceased) and sew a new jacket, pants or shirt for their husband.

There is also documentation of ladies sewing Morgan Dollars in her underskirt petticoat and traveling miles to a border state to purchase wool or material from the Union. This way a lady was assured that she would reach her destination with her currency still on her body to be able to purchase the items she needed. The southern lady would then conceal the wool inside her dress to travel back.

The Ladies of Union were a little luckier than the southern ladies, these ladies were able to at least purchase dresses, they most likely would have not been very fancy dresses and fabric but, they were at least new dresses and fabric to keep their men clothed as the war raged on.

These ladies were able to achieve this by having the clothing factories stable in the Union. Southern ladies were not able to purchase fabric as freely as most of all the cotton gin was burned to the ground by the opposing side.

In this time, the Lady would have most likely been secretly dreaming of the new dress that she would soon once again have in her possession after this war has ended. There was no other real escape from this war except to dream of the times that had passed where society and life was Gay. Ladies tried so very hard to forbid themselves of thinking to themselves in the evening light, was there husband alive, was he ill, was he hurt and what is going to happen to our life as we have known. These ladies found an escape in fashion, something to dream and something to forget and something to try and look forward too.

2nd. Chapter to follow- Dress Attire throughout the day.
By Tammara Hodge

FOR SALE

Fellow Reenactors - We are sorry to inform you all but, we are no longer reenacting in the civil war so, we need to sell our reenactment gear and clothing. All the Ladies clothing has been hand made and the ladies accessories have been hand decorated. We have taken excellent care of our items, so there are no rips or tears and there are no stains. We will miss you all, Tammara is still going to be involved with the School History Education and so will still me a voting member but we are no longer reeancting.

Here is the list of items For Sale

1) CSA Artillery Butternut Jacket - Size 50 $30.00
2) Sky Blue Pants - Size 40 $40.00

3) 2 Stansport Cots GI Frames very nice condition used only this season $60.00 for both or $35.00 each.
4) Modern Dome Tent - Sleeps 4 - used 1 time $50.00
5) 2 Sleeping Bags $10.00 each

6) Ladies Matching Camp Skirt and Bodice(Blouse) set $30.00 handmade
7) Ladies Fancy Dress Straw Hats 1) Sapphire Blue Trim Large Brim Hat $25.00 2) Olive Green Trim Med. Brim Hat $20.00 - Both
Hand Decorated to period. Elastic attached to hold hat on your head properly.
8) Ladies Navy Blue Small Felt hat with Soutache Trim $20.00. Hand Decorated and elastic attached to hold hat on your head
properly.

All items need to go

No Reasonable offer refused

For pictures - email tammara98@ymail.com