Our company has had a year of firsts, a year of growth, and a year of learning as we have adjusted to our new home in the Hardee Guard Battalion, which has been a most accommodating, welcoming, and great host.
In reflection upon the year, I believe the company has very much continued upon a course of improved impressions and great development as we strive to better inform our knowledge of the period and as we work to deliver educationally beneficial programming to the public.
We are grateful for the partnerships that we have developed along the way, with both the Hardee Guard Battalion as a new member company, the Confederate Memorial Park at Marbury, Alabama, which has hosted some wonderful events and given the company a place to gather, drill, and improve our impression of the period. Additionally, we are grateful for Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park of whom we hope to continue developing our working relationship through more programs in the coming year.
Saturday, December 14th marked the official close of the 2024 year for the company. Our 2nd Sergeant, Levi Jennings, planned a Christmas Gathering for the company at Marbury, in which we occupied one of the barracks for our planned festivities. The weather was quite kind to us as we had mild temperatures. Additionally, there was a great deal of firewood in the barracks to keep the wood stoves stocked and the heat plentiful which kept the company comfortable.
The festivities included fellowship, lively conversation, gift exchanges, and food, all the typical elements of any social gathering. However, the time reaffirmed our commitment to each other and the company, as we very much are a family. I could not be more proud to serve as the captain of the company and as a part of the organization and the hobby.
So often we talk about why we do what we do and it always comes down to the educational aspect of the hobby and the importance of creating historically accurate impressions and scenarios, which give factual information and presentations to onlookers informing a valid example of the period and the lives of those who lived it.
This year, I’ve learned alot about presenting this information to the public and I’ve faced criticism personally given the sharing of what I do on Facebook. The hardship caused to me by the reality that there are many that are not receptive or supportive to what we do was quite challenging for me to accept. I have had to dig deep so to speak, and to adapt in order to move forward. This has been inclusive of removing any mention of our company and efforts from my personal social media accounts in order to remain competitive in my efforts to obtain career opportunities. However, despite this hardship, I remain steadfast in my dedication to the hobby and doing our work correctly and in adherence to the educational value that can be obtained from experiences rather than traditional lecture.
History is important, as the ability of future generations to synthesize and inference information from primary source documentation from the past, helps to inform understanding and to give context to the issues of the present. Our work helps to make sense of a very painful and disturbing period of our nation’s past. It is not undertaken for the celebration of any institution as has been advocated by some, instead it is intended wholly to create an experience of the past, honoring specifically the men, north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line, who gave the last full measure of their lives for their prospective causes.
It is not a question of who was on the right or wrong side of history; but rather, an explanation of how these men made sense of the time in which they lived. We work to recreate, experience, and interpret these hardships, so that others may better understand the true complexity of this time in our nation’s past. The conflict was so very complicated and has much pain attributed to it, from its purpose, cause, result, and the manner in which events occurred. There is a reason why the American Civil War is one of, if not, the most written upon topic on earth.
Therefore, with this said, and as I reflect, I consider this cause as an educator, to be of great importance in ensuring that future generations will have an opportunity to truly understand how this time in our nation’s past contributed to how we arrived at our present. I am hopeful that the memories created at our events in which history can be interacted with and experienced so to speak, serve to continue to be a better format for educating as opposed to only traditional classroom learning for those who visit with us in the field.
I would like to wish all of you following our page and company, a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and many blessings. We will resume our operations in January, 2025 and will continue to do our part to improve and develop accuracy in our impressions and to provide educational programs to the benefit of all who attend our events.
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