Thanksgiving & 'Nature Red in Tooth and claw'

This little reflection on American history came from a reenacting friend, Terre Hood Beiderman. She does 1860’s civilian reenacting, often as an adjunct to our Civil War military events. Terre is a favorite of mine because she writes well, is quick and laughs at things, and even more because she made a soup-stew of unknown ingredients that saved my hungry buns ten years ago. That stew came unexpectedly on the third day of a four-day campaign reenactment in the ‘Howling Wilderness’ of the Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana. Here she is at the civilian camp back then feeding a friendly Reb nicknamed ‘Ox,’ while she hides under a period sunbonnet that definitely is not just for show.

The other image is me as a damned tired Yankee private after four nights of sort-of-sleeping on the ground, and four days of marching, doing sham fighting over twenty miles of trails in the Howling Wilderness. My little Honda Civic and the Payday candy bar I’d stashed therein never looked so good or tasted so sweet.

So with that introduction, here is Terre’s Thanksgiving Reflection:

“The feral cats who live in these woods hiss and howl if I look at them, and dodge away. Good. That's part of their job, to not be too friendly. They keep the squirrels under control in the pecan orchard and shoo the birds out of the muscadines and scuppernongs. Occasionally I put some food out if they look too lean, but I do not want them dependent.


This morning, I separated out from this great bird, the liver and lights, heart and neck. I put them on to simmer in a little pot until it all fell to pieces with the poke of a fork, and poured it over some of the dry food. I let the whole thing cool before carrying it out to where I always put out water for the feral cats.


I can see their tails lashing and curling over the unique bounty. Their matriarch stands aside, disdainful of the handout. I saw her with a bunny early this morning, and watched the whole pack knocking squirrels out of trees in yesterday's rain. They do not need this feast, because they work and provide for themselves quite well. The half-grown ones climb higher in the trees than the adults can, knocking squirrels to ground into waiting jaws, then coming down for their share.


Nature red in tooth and claw.


As we celebrate plenty, in a culture that has tipped over into greed and competitive consumption, think also of those who came to this land unprepared, who recorded one winter as The Starving Time, and survived on the humanity of natives, and on hard work.


Like the feral cat outside my window, with the bunny in her jaws, our history is not always pretty. But it's ours. And has something to teach us.”


I asked Terre if I could borrow that short essay for my blog because the feral cats remind me of the early Texas Rangers I wrote about in A Different Country Entirely. Needed and appreciated by grateful civilians, but sometimes you had to ignore the bunny in their jaws.


As for my own after-Thanksgiving post, take a gander at my two grandsons together on our backporch last week. Little Rory is into rolling balls and crawling right now, and his cousin Jackson is all over Thomas the Train these days. But there shall come a time when Grandpa will get them both into Civil War duds with drum sticks in their hands and drums on their hips, beating a marching cadence for me and their dads and Marvin (Rory’s Mama Meredith passing as a male soldier). Hopefully, that'll happen one day while I'm still on the green side of the grass.

Finally, on top of all the other family thanks I had this Thanksgiving, I’m tossing out one more, without an illustration, an omission for which you'll be glad.


I was at a reenactment near Houston the weekend before Thanksgiving, camping, soldiering, and peddling my books. The first cold night I made my old man stumbling trip to the plastic port-a-can at 4:00 am in the darkest dark. Boy, was I surprised and oh-so-grateful that when I pulled the door open to start the ritual of doffing coat, vest and suspenders, and worrying over the chance of my car keys leaving my trouser pocket to fall into you-know-where, a LED light in the ceiling turned on automatically. Unexpected light in time of need is joy, and I was thankful.


This post also marks my blog site passing the 20,000 views mark. Thanks to each of you for that.

 

 

 

A Holiday Cavalry Battle

Happy Thanksgiving Holiday!

Since 1999, I’ve spent the weekend before Thanksgiving at a Civil War reenactment just north of Houston at a place called Plantation Liendo. It really was a 2,000 acre plantation during the 1800's, The stately big house was built in 1853 and still stands, shaded by giant pecan trees. During the early days of the Civil War, a Confederate training camp was located on the property. Later, a prisoner of war camp for Union soldiers captured along the Texas coast and in Louisiana was close-by. All to say, Plantation Liendo is a great Texas location for a Civil War reenactment.

The photo is from last weekend’s cavalry skirmish that is a standard part of our sham battles. I’m including it here because with a little ‘willing suspension of disbelief’, it reminds me of the historical fight between Captain Callahan’s mounted Texas Rangers and the Mexican army cavalry they encountered and fought on Mexican soil in 1855. That wild melee fought on horseback is part of the climax of my new novel, A Different Country Entirely.

The reenactor on the far right is a friend, Edward Teniente, whose wife took the photo. The image has riders waving short muskets and shotguns and Colt pistols. Too bad there’s not any lances or swords, but you can still get a feel for how chaotic it must have been when several hundred charging horses met and mingled with the riders shooting at close range and hacking at each other.

In contrast to the bellicose action poses Edward and the two Rebs to his left are displaying, note that the very young Reb facing Edward on the pinto horse in the middle is more tentative, not quite ready to mix it up with all those crazy older guys. That rider probably reflects most soldiers' first battle experience.

Since horses are large dangerous beasts which scare me, I took part in the same battle as a Union infantryman. Here is a photo, also from Mrs. Teniente’s camera, of our company firing a front-rank volley towards our brothers in gray.

One last image of our company before the battle. I like this photo, not because of my snow white beard or dandy red fez, but because I’m next to a young man enjoying his first afternoon as a rifleman in the front rank, instead of being a drummer behind the action. Since my two grandsons are too young to play in our sham battles, I thought of Koal as my surrogate grandson for the hour we were elbow-to-elbow comrades in arms. And he did just fine. He is a spunky kid.

To close with a self-serving comment: With Christmas coming on, please consider buying a McBride novel as a gift for someone. And if, perchance, you have already bought and read any of my novels, a rating and short review left on my Amazon page would make a greatly appreciated gift to me.

Now, eat lots of turkey this Thursday, and when you are out shopping on Black Friday, slip a few dollar bills into the Salvation Army Red Kettle when you pass one.