LESSONS FROM SCOUNDRELS

I’ve been working on a documentary about the Civil War for the past few months, and I’ve been intrigued by the number of books that use military leaders as models for modern business. A great example is Tom Wheeler’s TAKE COMMAND, LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM THE CIVIL WAR, but there are others that focus on the business styles of Ulysses Grant and the command model of Robert E. Lee. All important lessons, no doubt.

But having spent quite a while on studying a single battle, it’s clear that most military decisions have little to do with Vision and Expected Results, and a lot more to do with just hanging on, keeping your head down and hoping for the best.

And there’s one great leader of the Civil War who has been overlooked, but whom I believe can reveal extraordinary insights into modern business.

His name is Daniel Sickles.

He is almost universally reviled as the worst commander the Union Army ever had. And he has much to teach us.

Sickles was no slouch. He’d served as a State Senator in New York and a US Congressman. When he discovered his young wife was having an affair, he stalked and shot the interloper on the streets of DC, then was acquitted due to “temporary insanity” – the first use of that defense. Though he had no military training whatsoever, Sickles managed to get himself appointed to a generalship in the first months of the war. And by 1863, when all the political appointees in the Union Army had been shot or quit, Sickles was still hanging in there, despite the best efforts of his superiors and his soldiers.

Which brings us to Gettysburg. On July 2, 1863, the second day of America’s largest and bloodiest battle, Sickles was ordered to hold the vital center of the Union line along Cemetery Ridge. And here is where we can learn valuable lessons.

LESSON 1 – PRETEND YOU DIDN’T GET THE E-MAIL
Sickles didn’t like the ground he was ordered to hold. It lay in a shallow valley, with high ground on each side. So on his own recognizance, Sickles moved his troops a mile forward to hold higher ground at a spot now known as the Peach Orchard. Though it might seem to be a better position to the amateur, it was a disastrous move. Sickles’ new position dangerously weakened the Union line… and the bulge in the line made Sickles’ troops vulnerable on two sides. Commanding General George Meade sent multiple couriers to call Sickles back… and he got no reply. Meade called for a meeting of all Union commanders later that morning… Sickles didn’t show. Meade had to personally ride out to Sickles to order him back… but by then the Confederate assault on the Union Center had begun, and Sickles’ Corps was there to stay. Here’s the lesson from the Great Scoundrel – don’t directly disobey orders, just pretend you never got them.

LESSON 2 – DON’T LET THEM SEE YOU SWEAT
Sickles advance had the exact result Meade had feared – the bulge in the Union line was attacked from two sides, and the Union position was so weakened that the Confederates nearly broke through – which would have meant a Rebel victory and perhaps a very different end of the Civil War. Sickles’ men were being torn apart from two sides. At the height of the Rebel attack, a cannonball slammed into Sickles and nearly tore his right leg off. As a medic hustled him onto a stretcher, arterial blood pumping on to the ground, Sickles hissed to his adjutant: “Take the cigar out of my pocket. Put it in my mouth. Now light it!” As he was carried away through the devastated remnants of his unit, Sickles sat upright and calmly puffed on his cigar with a grin. The lesson could have come straight from Napoleon: “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace!”

LESSON 3 – MEMORIALIZE YOUR BLUNDERS
Sickles leg was amputated that afternoon, and two days later he was in Washington DC, bringing the news of the Union victory at Gettysburg. As one of the first people to report, Sickles could easily control the message and make sure that his actions sounded heroic. But the Great Scoundrel needed more attention… and he got it. Sickles learned that the newly-created Army Medical Museum was looking for “specimens of morbid anatomy.” So he donated his amputated leg to the museum, along with the cannonball that took it off, and for the rest of his life he would bring distinguished guests of the Capital to visit the severed leg. Now, this brash step did two things – it kept Sickles’ “magnificent sacrifice” clear to all and sundry, and the sheer boldness of his display made it seem as if he must be proud of his accomplishments at Gettysburg. Never mind that he unnecessarily sent thousands of young men to their deaths and nearly caused a Confederate victory… Sickles’ leg mutely trumpeted pride that dare not be contradicted.

LESSON 4 -- STICK TO YOUR STORY. ANONYMOUSLY, IF YOU HAVE TO
Sickles amputation kept him off the battlefield, but not out of the war. He proudly proclaimed himself the hero of Gettysburg for his dubious actions, and began a smear campaign against General Meade, suggesting that Meade had secretly planned to retreat from Gettysburg. The best defense is a good offense, and this was as offensive as they came – especially since Sickles had no qualms about writing multiple anonymous letters to the editors promoting this viewpoint. But it put Meade and his supporters on the defensive and the aggressive attack on Meade’s character quite possibly prevented Sickles from facing a court martial.

LESSON 4 – OUTLIVE THE BASTARDS
General Lee died within five years of the end of the war. General Meade died two years after that. General Grant went on to become President and died in 1885, finishing his memoirs just in time. But Dan Sickles outlived them all, dying peacefully at age 94 in 1914. Along the way he managed to get elected to Congress again, serve as Ambassador to Spain (where he had an affair with the deposed Queen Isabella II), and finally getting forced out of public life due to yet another financial scandal. His greatest contribution to America may have been in leading the movement to preserve Gettysburg Battlefield. Sickles introduced the legislation to create the National Military Park, then led the fundraising and monument-building. Perhaps the arrogant bastard felt the whole battlefield was a monument to himself. Perhaps he secretly felt humility for his actions and wished to memorialize the men he had led to their deaths. Whatever his reasons, The Great Scoundrel managed to preserve America’s hallowed ground, and for that we must thank him. And we should thank him for this final lesson. Daniel Sickles was eventually awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg in 1897… 34 years after the fact. Sickles had simply outlived everyone who contradicted his story. If only we all could do the same.

PEAK OIL & THE JACKLEG HISTORIAN

I was pleased to see the phrase “Jackleg Historian” enter the blogosphere this week, even if it was used negatively. Political commentator Kurt Nimmo’s blog “Another Day In The Empire” refers to neoconservative Jonah Goldberg as a propagandist and a “jackleg historian.”

Now, I can’t weigh in on the opinions of either man, but I’m a little disturbed to see jackleg historian used as a pejorative. I think we need more jackleg historians, not less.

Nimmo’s blog seems to be one of a growing number of sites devoted to a looming collapse of American society. Whether it’s Peak Oil, global warming, financial Armageddon, imminent war or The Rapture, a growing body of evidence points to a horrible Doomsday looming just over the horizon. Even the Comptroller General of the United States recently warned that America may well collapse just like the Roman Empire. When a Washington policy wonk begins talking about the Fall of Rome, it truly means something scary is at hand.

But a jackleg historian knows that this is not the first time America has faced collapse. I just spent a week on a farm in Maryland, re-creating a famous battle for a cable network, and I can tell you that the boys who re-enact the Civil War have done enough research to know what Societal Collapse is all about.

The worst-case scenarios of even the most dire predictions of Peak Oil are no comparison to the reality that our ancestors faced just a few generations ago.

Currency became worthless. The financial markets evaporated. Jobs disappeared. So did entire families. Cities became unsustainable, in some cases leading to rioting that took hundreds of lives. Martial law curtailed individual freedoms, and some of those freedoms were not restored for a decade. Farmlands were laid waste by armies of men who stripped the countryside, then burned it after they passed. It was called the American Civil War, and it was Collapse writ large. Never before had the nation literally turned on itself. Never before had American slaughtered Americans. Never before had Americans burned American towns, destroyed American farms, killed American civilians.

The citizens of America knew that the Civil War was apocalyptic, and some even saw it as the beginning of the Tribulation from the Book of Revelation. Don’t believe me? Just listen carefully to the lyrics of the Battle Hymn of the Republic: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the COMING OF THE LORD…” Later verses are even more outwardly apocalyptic, and its chorus could be sung by any desperate fundamentalist who eagerly greets the imminent End of the World with a starry-eyed “Glory, Glory Hallelujah!”

Read about the citizens of Gettysburg as they prepared for a military invasion, for a first-hand account of what “Survival Preparedness” really is all about. Read Gabor Boritt’s THE GETTYSBURG GOSPEL for a look at what “collapse” really means for a small American town – 10,000 dead men in the streets and fields. 40,000 desperately wounded men crowding every building, home and alley. Farmland destroyed for a generation. No doctors. No water. No food. And no help coming from anywhere. It makes Hurricane Katrina look like a Sunday School picnic.

So a jackleg historian can tell you that societal collapse is nothing new… and he doesn’t have to go back to the Fall of the Roman Empire to find comparisons. If we are indeed facing some sort of horrific collapse -- from Peak Oil, international terrorism, financial Armageddon, housing bubbles gone awry, water shortages, global warming, or any one of the many suspects – then a jackleg historian may be exactly what this country needs to see how we got out this kind of mess before.

In Praise of Re-enactors

Civil War re-enactors are an interesting bunch. In making historical documentaries, I’ve worked with re-enactors from eras that ranged from the Roman Empire to WWII. But the Civil War guys seem to be the most hard-core. For better or for worse.

All re-enactors are sticklers for accuracy, by definition. But it’s only the Civil War re-enactors who will refuse to go on camera or even call “cut” if they notice a historical inaccuracy. It’s the Civil War re-enactors who will come to the director after a shot and earnestly explain why the shot was wrong. It’s the Civil War re-enactors who write impassioned letters to networks when an extra in a re-enactment is wearing a uniform with the wrong insignia.

Now, this can be heaven or this can be hell. Sometimes in the process of making a television show, historical accuracy can take a back seat to visual storytelling. Walking the thin line between making TV and being 100% accurate is one of the toughest jobs of a documentary producer. And the last thing you need is 23-year-old volunteer who insists that you can’t roll the cameras because the rifle in the corner of the frame is the wrong caliber.

Fortunately, the Civil War re-enactors I just worked with were a crack team that not only knew their history, they knew filmmaking.

I just returned from a week in Maryland, shooting a Civil War battle for a cable network. And the team of re-enactors came from Russ Richards, who runs an outfit called “Historical Entertainment.”

It’s a very interesting business model – one-stop shopping for historical documentaries. Russ was a re-enactor who worked on several movies and documentaries. He realized that film companies were desperately in need of historically-accurate extras, but didn’t know where to find them. Russ became the go-between – delivering squads of perfectly costumed extras for shows that wound up on the History Channel Discovery, National Geographic and numerous feature films.

Russ sent us a team of fit, skinny young re-enactors who looked like they could have stepped out of a Matthew Brady photo. And they each had two uniforms – one blue and one gray – so they could play both sides in big battle scenes (oh, the wonders of CGI). Best of all, they were film-savvy as well. They never argued with the director about accuracy – they simply found a way to make his vision work AND make it accurate. Which wasn’t always easy. I suspect this attention to detail may be lost on most viewers. But it was not lost on me or on the crew. And I suspect (and hope) that when the five million or so Civil War re-enactors in America watch this show, they will have nothing to write to the network about.

I guess the real pleasure in this project for me was working with an entire crew of, yes, Jackleg Historians. Russ and his boys are self-taught, but they know more about the Civil War than many tenured professors. And they are passionate about getting it right, even if the details are going to be lost in the deep background of a shot. But the Jackleg Historians in the audience will notice. And the Jackleg Historians behind the camera and in front of it can be proud.

The Coot and the Kid

On July 14, 1881, Billy the Kid was gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett in a dark room in New Mexico. There are several versions of the tale (some of which involve Billy surviving) but I’d like to talk about the most overlooked version of the story – the Hispanic account.

I got this version from the horse’s mouth – or nearly the horse’s mouth – Chano Silva.

Chano’s grandfather witnessed the shooting of Billy the Kid. Chano’s grandfather helped bury the Kid. And Chano was there when Billy’s headstone was placed. Chano’s oral account of Billy’s shooting is radically different from the traditional account, and it’s kind of surprising that this angle has never been fully researched until recently.

I met Chano in 2003 when I was filming a television documentary. He was 85 years old and the walking definition of an “old coot.” He wore a straw cowboy hat and stained grey coveralls. His toothless face had a couple of days growth of beard. He was gaunt, his head hung at an odd angle, and he had a lateral lisp that made him hard to understand. He was the walking definition of “bad TV.” But Chano was real.

“I knew Deluvina Maxwell, Billy’s girlfriend,” he said to me. “I would ride my horse by her house on the way home from school and she would give me a snack. She told me about the night Billy died. She said Pat Garret was scared to go into the room where Billy died!”

From there his story went on in a rambling way that combined historical facts, childhood recollections and wildly improbable assertions. Usually without pausing, so that steering him back to the point could only be done with the most incredible act of rudeness. Thus does an old coot hold his audience, like an Ancient Mariner in a cowboy hat.

But Chano’s most important assertion is one that has long been ignored by history books.

“Granddaddy said Pat shot Billy with a shotgun. Waited behind a door. When Billy came in, boom! He shot him.”

Of course, Chano said this while slouched forward, almost out of the camera frame, one eye squinted and one eye popped wide. And with his toothless lateral lisp, it came out as “Gwlandaddy thaid Pat thlot Biddy with a thlotgun.” As a producer, I knew it was bad TV. But as a person, I knew it was amazing reality.

Chano went on: “Granddaddy heard the shots and came running over. Pat came out of the house. He said ‘I shot Billy. Go see if he’s still alive.’ And Granddaddy said ‘You son-of-a-bitch, you shot him, YOU go see if he’s alive!’

That should end all the speculation about the death of Billy the Kid. Chano heard an eyewitness account. It’s a radically different account than the one in most history books but it certainly has as much claim to authenticity as Pat Garrett’s self-aggrandizing autobiography. And Chano’s story is backed up by the account of the third member of Garrett’s posse – Tip McKinney, who later told a traveling writer about Garrett’s ambush of Billy with the same details.

Yet this account of Billy’s death was overlooked for more than a century, and is only now being reconsidered by authors and scholars of the Kid’s story. Possibly the story languished simply because it was the Hispanic account, so it was ignored by an Anglo publishing industry.

Or possibly, it was a tale told by old coots… and who listens to them?

Chano had only a brief appearance in the television documentary. The executives were appalled at the way he looked and the way he spoke. And they only let me put in a brief segment because Chano’s story of Billy’s death matched McKinney’s, providing supporting evidence. Chano’s stories, his caved-in face, his raspy lisp, they all hit the cutting room floor. Chano Silva was not good TV. And he may not actually have been good history.

I spoke to one historian who rolled his eyes when I mentioned Chano, and fondly said “Chano’s stories are different each time he tells them.” And once I was out of the Chano’s personal presence, I admit some of his tales were unlikely.

But Chano was real. Never mind that his stories are suspect. He was real. And hearing his tales, for me, was a real experience of the West, the real West, the true West. His stories, even if untrue, were not lies but Myths. Joseph Campbell describes a myth as a lie that conveys the truth. Chano conveyed the truth. The truth has a lazy eye and unshaven cheeks. The truth has no teeth and doesn’t need ‘em. The truth has a lisp and a hacking cough and stained overalls. The truth is an Old Coot.

Billy the Kid's Escape & The Missing Man

On April 28, 1881, Billy the Kid made his last spectacular escape from jail, just two weeks before he was to be hanged. While chained hand and foot, the Kid somehow managed to get a gun, kill one of his guards, grab a shotgun and kill the other guard, then ride out of town on a borrowed horse. He remained a free man until gunned down by Pat Garrett.

It’s an amazing story, and everyone from dime novelists to screenwriters tends to focus on the shotgun story – in which Billy reportedly grabbed a shotgun loaded with silver dimes and blew away Bob Olinger, the sadistic guard who had been tormenting him. (If you want to see what kind of damage is caused by two shotguns barrels of silver dimes, check out our DVD The Guns of Billy The Kid).

But the more mysterious part of the story is the first gun – where did Billy the Kid manage to get a revolver while shackled and under round-the-clock guard? Some have suggested the gun was left for him in the outhouse, others said Billy simply wrestled it away from his guard. No one has adequately explained the crime scene in 126 years.

But there is one intriguing missing link.

Godfrey Gauss.

The entire story of Billy’s famous escape apparently comes from the eyewitness report of one man. And though it’s rarely commented upon, that one man is a highly suspect source, and may have been more involved in the crime than anyone knew.

Godfrey Gauss was a cook and handyman who lived at worked at the Lincoln County Courthouse where Billy the Kid was jailed. He was an old local character, a guy who did odd jobs around Lincoln, New Mexico. If Billy has been played by Val Kilmer or Paul Newman, then Gauss should be played by Gabby Hayes.

Gauss was the only eyewitness to Billy’s escape. He testified to Pat Garrett and later to reporters. But what Gauss did not say in his story was the most important fact of all -- he had been Billy’s friend, supporter, cook and possibly arms supplier for years.

During the bloody Lincoln County War, William Bonney rode with The Regulators, a badge-carrying semi-vigilante force made up of young cowboys from the Tunstall Ranch. The cook for the ranch was Godfrey Gauss. When the Regulators were declared outlaws, Gauss was still giving the boys food, shelter, supplies and alibis. If anyone can be said to be one of the Kid’s greatest champions, it is Godfrey Gauss.

But by 1881, the Lincoln County War was over and all the participants dead or pardoned (with the notable exception of Billy the Kid – the only man convicted of a crime in the bloody six-months-long “war”). Old Gauss found himself employed as a janitor and handyman at the courthouse – working for the very folks who shot up his boys during the war. So how would he feel when the charismatic leader of the Regulators was chained up in the courthouse, waiting to hang?

Did Gauss actually help Billy escape? It’s hard to prove. All anyone really knows is that a gunshot rang out and Deputy Bell burst through out of the courthouse and died… in Godfrey Gauss’s arms. Then Gauss called out to Deputy Olinger…bringing Olinger directly into range of Billy’s shotgun. Then Gauss broke Billy’s shackles and saddled him up a horse. Then Gauss somehow was able to explain away the whole thing to Sheriff Garrett without incriminating himself.

So was Guass not just an eyewitness but a co-conspirator?

The question will probably never be answered, but I personally like the idea of old, gimpy Godfrey Gauss giving Billy the gun that let him shoot his way to freedom. But maybe I've seen too many Gabby Hayes movies.

Lincoln’s Letter and the Kid’s Trunk

The National Archives announced last week that they had discovered a long-lost letter from Abraham Lincoln. It is a true national treasure -- a note from America's greatest president about America's greatest battle – and it had been misfiled for nearly a century.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070608/ap_on_re_us/archives_lincoln

I’m proud to say I had a hand in this discovery, however small. I’m currently producing a documentary about the Civil War, and I’d called the National Archives to see about shooting some of the original telegrams between generals. I was sent to speak to Trevor Plante, the the go-to-guy on old war records and probably one of the world’s greatest experts on Civil War documents (though he’s too humble to admit it).

Apparently one of the telegrams I’d asked for was so obscure, that Trevor couldn’t find it in the normal records. So he began searching in the more unusual places and the forgotten corners of the vast archives. And there, in a battered, water-stained, torn-covered bound collection of the papers of General Henry Halleck… he found a hand-written note from Abraham Lincoln about the most important battle in American history.

It’s like finding George Washington’s wooden teeth in a dentist’s back-office… or like finding a million dollars in cash in the pages of a library book. That last metaphor is literal – another handwritten Lincoln letter was discovered last year in London, and Sotheby’s valued it at over a million dollars.

So I was there when Trevor Plante first revealed he had found a long-lost Lincoln letter. I saw the actual signature, looked at the incredible document in its battered, water-stained home, and would have loved to have held it, but Trevor – in his wisdom – refused to let any grubby video crew handle a national treasure.

This discovery is the latest in a string of similar tales. In London last month, a battered filing cabinet in a basement turned out to contain love letters from Napoleon and a hand-written note from Queen Elizabeth I. Earlier this year, a forgotten trunk in a Virginia bank vault turned out to contain unknown letters and personal mementos of Robert E. Lee.

These are amazing stories, and for those of us with a love of history, it bring visions of each of us finding a similar trove, somewhere in an attic or basement, jammed under grandpa's old bed, or buried in a remote ghost town.

The legend of Billy the Kid is also filled with stories about lost trunks. In several different books and memoirs there are references to this iconic concept -- "the trunk" that contains Billy's revolver, his photos, and his personal reminiscences -- all the missing artifacts and detailed proof that either a) solve all of Billy's mysteries, b) prove his survival after his reported death, or c) reveal his genetic relationship to the discoverer.

This trunk has never been found, of course. Or at least not yet. But the idea crops up again and again in books about Billy the Kid.

I even went so far as to try to track down one of these trunks when I produced BILLY THE KID UNMASKED for the Discovery Channel. John Miller -- the Arizona claimant to Billy's title -- was supposed to have sent a trunk of material from his deathbed to his last surviving relative in the 1920s. (The story is detailed in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BILLY THE KID by Helen Airy). Did this trunk contain Billy the Kid’s guns, his memoirs, and solid proof that Miller really was the Kid? I made several calls, tried to find John Miller's surviving relatives, tried to find the actual post office building where the trunk was last seen... all to no avail.

I eventually decided the trunk simply doesn't exist. Just like similar trunks -- filled with letters from Jesse James, or Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday – simply do not exist. It’s a cool idea… too cool to actually be true.

But now... I'm not so sure.

I've seen a letter from Abraham Lincoln letter -- misfiled for over a century. The letter... the filing cabinet of Napoleon’s love notes... the trunk of Robert E. Lee... they all prove that such discoveries can actually be made.

Maybe that trunk of Billy the Kid’s really IS out there somewhere.

If you find it, drop me a line.

Welcome to the Jackleg Historian

Jackleg (adj): Lacking training, amateur, (Chiefly South Midland and Southern U.S,)
Historian (noun): A writer, student, or scholar of history. A chronicler.

Welcome to the Jackleg Historian blog. This will be a regular posting from the world of a guy who makes his living "doing history" -- chiefly as a television producer. I have produced numerous hours of cable documentaries at venues like The History Channel, Discovery, National Geographic, and their ilk -- on topics and time periods ranging from ancient Egypt through the Crusades, from the Old West to the End of the World.

I first heard the word "jackleg" from my father-in-law, who described his own grandfather as a "jackleg veterinarian." During the mid-1940s, when folks in the Shenandoah Valley were so pooor they really couldn't afford a real large-animal vet, they'd call Old Man Lutz, who could do enough animal doctoring to keep the farm running. Well, "jackleg" seemed like not only a great word, but a great calling. Jacklegs are the Great American Amateurs. Jacklegs are the guys who are called on when the "experts" aren't available, are too expensive, or don't care. Jacklegs are the guys who get things done.

I'm a Jackleg Historian. I produce television documentaries about history. I don't have a degree in history, and never took a single college level course in it. Which may make me seem singularly unfit for the job I'm paid to do. But I'm a jackleg historian -- I read an awful lot (an an awful lot of junk and an awful lot of simply crazy stuff). I'm passionate about history and about the great human stories of the past.

I believe I'm just one of an army of Jackleg Historians -- the guys who read True West magazine and Armchair General. The guys who watch The History Channel and write impassioned emails when there's an inaccuracy in the re-enactments. The men and women who read historical novels, who re-enact the Renaissance and the Civil War, who collect guns and books and coins and memorabilia. These are the folks for whom history is a real, palpable, living thing. They may not have a degee in history, but they are often as well-read and sometimes even better-informed than many a tenured professor. They are Jackleg Historians, and I'm proud to call myself one of them.

Right now I'm in the midst of two history projects. One is THE GUNS OF BILLY THE KID, a documentary on the firearms of the West's most famous desperado (available now at www.gunsofbillythekid.com and www.varmintmedia.com). Though the film itself is finished, the marketing of it is a new and fascinating world. And, as usual, now that the film is finished I'm discovering new details and fascinating facts that I wish I could have included.

I suppose one of the best things about the Web is that I can actually "add" material to an already finished project -- or at least add adjuncts and footnotes on the site. So stay tuned for more weird and interesting discoveries about the Guns of William Bonney.

I'm also in the middle of producing a somewhat-large, somewhat-high-budget (for cable TV standards) Civil War documentary. I won't give you the sordid details about which network, nor will I name names -- mostly because there's a news embargo that must be cleared with the front office first -- but I'll check in regularly with Reports from the Front. Working with a major cable network has its own challenges, but this kind of project also has the scope and the budget to do some really cool stuff -- and uncover some really cool angles on unknown pieces of American History.

I can tell you that there's going to be some amazing gunplay in the show. Now that I'm given the opportunity to line up fifty 1861 Springfield Rifles and fire 'em off, I'm not going to let the opportunity slip by. There's going to be lots of shooting and lots of weird guns and a couple of dozen cannons, and our firearms experts are planning to out-do themselves in the amount of black powder burnt off in a single re-enactment. Good times.

So, fellow Jackleg Historians, welcome to my world and my blog. Enjoy the show.