This past Saturday, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park had their annual Kennesaw Battle exhibition. It was put on by the Kennesaw Mtn NBP Cannon crew, the 21st and 125th Ohio Infantry and Co G 2nd Georgia Calvary. Thanks to our tax dollars at work, the whole event was free.
It started at 11 with the infantry demonstration. Some of the soldiers talked about why they joined the war. Then they marched around the field while some boys in the rear played the fife and drums.
One thing amazing was their uniform. They all wore long sleeve jackets and pants made of wool. And underneath they wore full length cotton underwear to lesson the abrasion from the wool. The officers wore thick coats made of wool. It seemed like they were ready for winter weather, but it was quite hot that day. They also had to keep everything buttoned. I can’t imagine marching for miles in that. But, that was the military fashion back then.
The guns that the infantry used was a single shot rifle. It took 20 seconds to load the rifle. The ammo was a 58 calibre bullet. The effective range was 300 yards. The damage typically done was shattering of bones.
The field doctor said that out of the 600,000 that died in the Civil War, only 200,000 died of battle related deaths (artillary fire, slashings). The rest died of disease. That’s cause most of the soldiers were from the country and they were not immune to diseases common in the cities.
Next, we went to look at the horses. The Calvary were used mostly for scouting, flanking, and attacking cannons.
At 11:45, they had the cannon demonstration. The effective range of the cannons were 3 miles. They used two types of cannonballs: solid and shrapnel.
Kennesaw Mountain was important to the confederates because the railroad went next the the mountain. Whoever controlled the railroad controlled a major aspect of the battle. It took 100 box cars per day just to supply the Union army. It was also the last major blockade (besides the Chatahoochee river) to Atlanta.
Other links:
Kennesaw Mountain Historical Association