We are off to a great start! Georgetown was our first reenactment of the season and we had a pretty darned good turn out. Ken Darnell, Taylor Seehorn, Mike Eaton, Charlie Lemons, and I were joined by three freshfish; Chad Woford, Mike Spratt, and Everett Hatton. The fish did a fabulous job for their first time out. Chad and Everett has said they are ready to start getting their gear and have been added to the list. Mr. Spratt has an uncertain future due to a medical problem. I'm sure he'll come out of the Surgeon's tent just fine and will be in the line with us soon.
We will be completing the leathers purchase which was approved at the annual meeting this month so we won't be scrambling to get that gear together anymore.
Georgetown was probably the last time we'll see Taylor in the line for a while. He's headed off to Basic Training and AIT which should keep him quite busy for a while. That means we have three of our active members deployed; David Owens and Greg Dodge in Iraq and Taylor off to BT. Thanks for your service lads...we have not and will not forget about you.
Wayne Fielder
Family Day - July 21st at Camp Nelson
Come one! Come All! Bring your families out to Camp Nelson and let's all get to know each other alittle better. We are all used to meeting each other on the field and acting like little boys. It's time for us to bring the families into the fold. This will be a very low key day...wear your shorts and Tshirts.
What to bring:
Remaining Events this season
Mill Springs will also have a School Day on the 28th where we can provide some service for them.
If you can make it please let me know SOONEST. This will help me plan for what we can offer them.
We've gotten off to a good start this year, folks! Our first event of the year as a collective group at Mill Springs was a success. Many thanks to our Preacher, Brother Wayne! Due to his participation our Temperance Rally, albeit short, did much to amuse some soldiers and (more importantly) some spectators. Worth repeating on a larger scale.
Although we do have other events scheduled for the year, our main focus is on a return trip to Mill Springs in late September for the national event of 2007. The Society has been asked to contribute time, experience, and ideas to help with civilian reenactors' life at this event. We look forward to the task at hand and have faith that we will project the positive, respectful image the 7th Kentucky, Inc. has strived to maintained from it's inception.
Another goal for us this year is to work on recruiting new members. We enjoy speaking with others about what we do and what the reenacting community does as a whole. We are always interested in those who wish to actively participate at events and will go out of our way to include them in our activities.
Other events we are looking at this year include:
We have some clothing we acquired through a sale. If anyone's interested in seeing the clothing or purchasing, please contact Carolyn Warnick. The clothing belongs to the corporation so all sales go towards funding our activities. Don't be shy!
That about wraps it up for this newsletter. Don't forget to send pictures of yourself and others at events to the website! Photo albums of what we do speak louder than you can imagine.
Keep cool in this awful hot weather......and I'll see you all soon!
On June 23 and 24 of this year, the 5th Indiana Battery participated in the Mill Springs Artillery Weekend. Along with the 12th USCHA and two crews from Mill Springs (4th KY Inf,CSA), we demonstrated loading and firing the big guns. Attendance was good, we had nine military each day plus a small group of civilians on Saturday. We were visited on Saturday by Parson Fielder and a group of temperance ladies, however I believe their message fell on deaf ears. No winner in the artillery shoot this year, as no one was able to hit the target. Congratulations to Lonnie Brown of the 12th, winner of the rifle shoot for the second year in a row. I would like to express my thanks to Bill Neikirk and the 4th KY for all the effort they put into making this such an enjoyable event, food was great and the company even better.
YOS
J.D. Borland, Capt.
Next will be Stones River Artillery Weekend July 21 and 22, in Murphreesboro, TN
I've been asked a couple times how do you get started researching your Civil War Ancestors. We'll take this month's "Tales from the Ranks" and step backwards a bit. So, for your reading pleasure, a brief tutorial on finding and researching your American Civil War Ancestors.
The first thing we need is names. Surnames, or last names, preferably. To get these names we can start by talking with family members such as grandparents about their parents, aunts and uncles. You will want to go back a couple generations or so trying to get surnames and maiden names for the ladies in your group.
The next thing you will need to know is the county where these people may have lived in 1860. Having the county will tell us where to look in the 1860 census to find more names that you might not have known about.
So now, we have names and a county or counties. From there we take alittle trip. If you live close to, or even in, the county in question I would recommend going to either the County Courthouse or the local public library. In the Courthouse you will want to look at the Census for that county for 1860. The clerk should be able to help you find the census and how to look up the names you are interested. It seems that counties differ on how they have the census...some have microfilm and some have books so it really just depends on what they have. If you go to the public library you will want to ask the librarian if they have a genealogy room or section. They will lead you to where they have such information and, again, you start in the Census of 1860 to gather up some more names.
If you are closer to Frankfort than the county you are interested in, you should probably go straight to the source which is the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives(KDLA) or the Kentucky History Center. The rest of the process is the same, check the census for the county you are interested in and gather more names. The librarians and/or clerks should be most helpful.
Once you have a good number of names we have a couple options. If you are in a public library, odds are you have some computers with internet access. I would get on the web and go to the National Park Service's Soldiers and Sailors site. While this site is anything but complete and accurate, it's a good place to get some pretty solid leads on Civil War ancestors. If you don't find a name there I wouldn't automatically rule that name out. In our research of the 7th Kentucky we are finding about 15% more names on the muster rolls than were included in the Adjutant General's Report(AGR) which was compiled AFTER the war based on the final muster reports supplied by the regiments. If your ancestor was mustered into a regiment but was discharged, killed, or deserted in the first few months of enlistment there is a better than average chance that they won't be in the AGR and therefore not on the NPS site.
If you are at the Kentucky History Center or KDLA, they will have something I call the "Civil War" book. This is an index of names that served in Kentucky organizations during the war from both sides. Look up the names and compare that information with what you found on the NPS site. Since the clerks of the time only had names to match to, you may well find George Smith serving in several regiments on both sides of the war. This can be frustrating but...welcome to the world of research. The book will tell you the organization(example: 7th Kentucky), branch of service(example: Infantry), which side(example: US), Microfilm drawer and roll number where you will find their complete muster record. Again, the clerks here are your friend. They can help you find the microfilm and get it mounted on the machines.
This is where the real fun begins. You will have to scroll through the microfilm looking for the record you are interested in. At this point you should be so excited to get into the meat of it that you are willing to run through the many feet of tape. Some microfilm readers have a printer attached to them so you can print the entire record if you like. Beware, however...libraries are usually strapped for cash and will charge you for each PAGE you copy\print. I'm all for helping out the libraries but 50 cents a page can add up considering a soldier who enlisted in 1861 and re-enlisted in 1864 could EASILY run 30 pages of muster records.
I would like to schedule a trip to the Archives sometime if you guys are interested. We might give that a shot sometime in the winter months.