Post Holiday dinner

Our annual Post-Holiday dinner will be held on January 19 at the Hickory House in Reynoldsburg.  Here is a map to the Hickory House.  Please let me know via e-mail (fighting5th@gmail.com) if you plan on attending.

Annual Meeting

Our annual meeting will be held on January 20 at 1:00 pm at Flanagan's Pub in Blacklick. For those of you who are new,here is the map to Flanagan's  We will set our schedule for 2013, elect officers and NCOs, and weather permitting we will have a drill.

Guyandotte Photos 2

Guyandotte

A Hearty welcome to our newest recruit - Ermal Schimp!  Attendance at Guyandotte was way down this year, possibly due to our recent weather issues.  Despite the low numbers, we had a great time.  The people down there treat us so well.  Unfortunately, no one got a picture of the three-legged dog, or the tailess black cat.

Perryville

Sharpsburg 150

Big Sam's perspective.

Antietam

                                             Video from the others' perspective.

Sharpsburg pictures

Sharpsburg

Shiloh Part 1

                               Found these on youtube while looking for Sharpsburg videos.

Shiloh part 2

            I found these on youtube while looking for Sharpsburg videos - for your viewing pleasure.

Kentucky's Fiercest Fighters

One of our newest members,EJ, has decided to write a  series of stories about our adventures.  Here's the first installment:

Chapter One

        Hey Y’all!  My name is Edward Cox.  Please call me E.J.  I am here to tell ya about the fiercest bunch of fighters ever to roam the bluegrass of Kentucky.  They were called the Orphan Brigade and I was part of the 5^th Kentucky Company B.  We called up when the Yankee invaders came to the southland in 1861.  We were a Confederate unit while some of our brothers went to fight for the Yanks.  Even some of the boys that came with me from Ireland to escape the oppression of the English went to fight for the Yankees!  Our Captain’s name is J. Steiner and I will get to the other members of the outfit during the course of the stories in this account.

            The story I am about to tell y’all is something that no history book will acknowledge today.  Just a few days into the creation of our unit, we went with a contingent of Partisan Rangers and an artillery battery into Ohio to destroy the railroad lines in north-eastern Ohio.  We went through Ohio so fast that we did not even encounter resistance until we got to a little town called Carrollton. 

            We were camped and resting after a hard week’s march and one of the rangers came into camp and informed us of a Yankee artillery battery that was camped just east of our position.  We formed up and headed out to take care of said battery.  We came up to where the Ranger scout had spotted the battery and we set up an ambush.  I was positioned in some brush with my file partner, Sam, and the Captain to my right and a Ranger and the rest of the Company to my left.  I lay down and loaded my rifle and then started looking for something to shoot at.

            The way the brush was positioned and the way the land was, the only target I had was a Yankee captain that must have been at least seven feet tall.  Then we opened fire on them.  I fired right at that captains head but somehow I missed.  I loaded and then fired and I MISSED again.

            By then the Yanks definitely knew we were there and they started firing their artillery at us.  Thankfully, by the grace a’ God they overshot us.  The Captain led a small group of boys over the rise in the land and found what was on the other side.  There was regular cannon, a mountain howitzer, a mortar, a group of five regular infantry, and some odd contraption of a gun with eight barrels and a crank.  They came back to the rest of us and we formed up and got ready to charge them. 

            Then we charged.  We ran up that hill a hoot’ n and a holler ’n and making a big ole raucous.  Them Yankee tar-heels were so scared that they stopped fire ’n for a split second and almost looked like they was gonna retreat.  Then they opened up.  We bagged a couple and then we almost overran their line when that one odd-looking gun started up.  He took out part of the left wing of our advance and I my-self was hit in my canteen. 

            The force of the hit knocked me over and I thought for a second that I was really hit.  Then I sort a patted my body to see where and then I felt my canteen and the friggin’ bullet had been deflected by the canteen and through my left brogan.  I sure thank the dear Lord for sav’in my rump.  I sort a crawled and rolled away from the open field and into the bushes.  I got back up and saw what was goin on.

            The entire company was in retreat.  I ran to join ‘em and we started away from the field.  Suddenly we stopped and we were ordered to go back and get our wounded and dead.  My self and some other boys stayed back and fired at them Blue Bobs so that we would not lose boys in the process of retrieving the fallen.  I finally got that Yankee captain and one artillery man. 

            As the boys came a-run-in back to us a gallant cry rose through the gun smoke and scream’ in and dying and cut through the blast of the cannons and the ring of the muskets.  It sounded something like this:

“YYYYEEEEEHHHHAAAAAAAAA!!!

KENTUCKY! KENTUCKY! KENTUCKY!!!”

            And those tar-heel Yankees trembled with fear at the shouting and the screamin that cut the air that afternoon.  We left that field prouder than any soldier could be in the whole Confederate army.  So until we meet agin, “Kentucky a hardy rebel yell to y’all!”

           

       

            

Richmond, Kentucky Photos

The Civil War Trust has listed the battlefield as Most Endangered

Saturday Morning



Sunday Morning. This was the first time in 150 years that Confederates (not pictured above)  have been on this battlefield.



Sunday Afternoon

Captain, deep in thought.

Two of the many Yoder Cousins

150th Gettysburg

Want to get stoked for Gettysburg?  Check out the trailer for the next Gettysburg video.  Pay close attention toward the end.  You might just catch a glimpse of a" featured" VIP.

Richmond, Kentucky

The following was written by Woody (Mooner) Walsh:

Top ten highlights of the 150^th Richmond Campaign:

10.  Nobody got poison ivy.

9.   Nobody got bit by mosquitoes, ticks or chiggers (at least not that I heard).

8.   Harmonic Taps played on Saturday night out by the lake.

7.   Fried ham and fried bacon. Let’s say that again. Fried ham and fried bacon.

6.   Yankee Bob with a black ring around his mouth from eating black powder. Sort of an 1860’s Alice Cooper look.

5.   Nancy bought a rocking chair.

4.   The Captain bought a rocking chair – but he still likes Nancy’s better. And I am talking about Nancy’s CHAIR. So get your mind out of the gutter.

3.   Picking bugs out of Sam’s hair.

2.   The massive conflagration constructed by our fearless, yet gentle, first sergeant that flamed up to about 8 feet in the air to make Yankee Bob feel that our fire was bigger than a 1^st Tennessee fire.

And. Lastly, or should I say, Firstly the Number One highlight of the 150^th Richmond Campaign:

“YEAH BABY!!” Non-period exclamation screamed by the Captain as he skipped and danced to the front of our lines pumping his fist like Tiger Woods after we fired off a PERFECT buck and ball volley at the start of the Sunday battle.

Honorable Mention:

Yankees on Sunday are not firing at us and are just standing there.

Bernie, “Don’t just stand there. DO SOMETHING!”

Irish, “Even if it’s wrong!”

Directions to Richmond

HERE’S HOW TO REACH PARK

Note: Battlefield Park is located on Battlefield Memorial Highway (U.S. 421, the Old State Road)

 across from the Blue Grass Army Depot. The park is approximately seven miles from I-75

 Exit 87, and four miles from   I-75 Exit 83. The Visitors Center is located at the U.S. 25/421

 intersection and about five miles south of Richmond.

Directions:

For Exit 87

(1) Take I-75 to Exit 87, go east on the Eastern Bypass,
(2) At the U.S. 421/U.S. 25 intersection, go south
(3) At the U.S. 421/U.S. 25 split, bear left onto U.S. 421 (Battlefield Memorial Highway) 

and continue south,

(4) Battlefield Park is approximately two miles on the right.

For Exit 83

(1) Take the west exit on I-75 (Duncannon Road) to U.S. 25 intersection,
(2) Turn right on U.S. 25 and travel south for approximately one mile,
(3) At the U.S. 421/U.S. 25 split, bear left onto U.S. 421 (Battlefield Memorial Highway)

 and continue south,
(4) Battlefield Park is approximately two miles on the right.

Hale Farm Photos

 5th Kentucky in action:  in the trench in front of the cannon are Chattanooga, then Junior, Jonesy, Sam,
                                                                Buckeye, and the Captain.  

Yoders on the move

Color Photos and the video provided by the Wider