After Action Report
Brooksville Raid Brooksville, FL.
January 16th - 18th, 2004

Compiled by Pvt. Steven Fowler

Observations:

• First part of detachment arrived in Brooksville around 9:30 am Thursday and started camp setup. We had the largest fire pit in history. Several layers. Thanks Jon and Mike.  Throw a tarp in it and add water and we could of had a pool.  :O)
  
  
• Setup included 3 NCO Tents, 2 Officer Tents, 5 Large A Frames and 5 medium A Frame and some really tiny tents. The sibley was a great addition to our unit and it looks great. Thanks Jamey.
  
  
• Food was excellent as usual. Setup crew fended for themselves Thursday evening.  Hamburgers and chips were the fare.  Excellent job Mike Styers!!
  
  
• Friday was school day.  All I can say is Holy Cripes!!  Wow, I had the honor and privilege of providing guard duty for General Lee until the number of groups got overwhelming.  Frank, Roger, Jim, Judy and Deb provided information for the Marines station for the tour.  Jon, Mike and Ronnie provided their skills as group guides.  Everyone chipped in.  An estimated 1800 kids came to take in the tour. 
  
  
• Friday evening Judy made beef stew.  Very good.
  
  
• Michelle and Krystyne did a great job in getting food ready for us all.  Michelle was the onsite support and Krystyne brought in items hot as they were needed.  The cook was $70.00 short on the food bill but some of the food will
  be frozen and taken to Townsend. She will let us know what needs to be done so she does not lose any money.
  
  
• Krystyne also did a clean shirt run on Saturday night.  Good thing nothing happened to her on the way back.  We would look right silly in t-shirts on the field.  :O)
  
  
• Food included eggs & bacon Friday morning, eggs, sausage, and apple French toast Saturday Morning.  Hot dogs for lunch on Saturday.  Lunch was provided by the Raid committee for doing school day.  Dinner Saturday night was pork with potatoes and carrots.  It was so good, we had Yankees in the camp site trying get some.
  
  
• Saturday night Milton's Artillery unit was dishing out discipline to various member of both unit.  Very humorous watching that.
  
  
• The mortar was a great success. Although we could not get it to fire, it did get us on the line with the other cannons and that was cool. It looks like the mortar will not have any misfires at the next event. The problem has been fixed.
  
  
• Hey big note, we finally got Ira (or Morris to others) on the field!!
  
  
• After the marines were killed next to the sink hole, some of us were concerned about the weight of certain members being so close to the sink hole.  There was a lone Buzzard prospecting us for further attention. It was really looking at several of us for his entire family and friends and friends friends and distant friends and well you know. :O)
  
  
• We had several people in new positions this weekend. From Acting 2nd LT. to Acting 1st & 2nd Sgt.'s Great Job! We will be moving other people into the positions in the next few events.
  
  
• We had a new group of folks join us on Sunday.  Dale and his family.  Didn't catch his last name or the names of the rest of his family.  His son joined Will as a runner.  Dale and Roger's son joined us as fresh fish on Sunday.
  
  
• Mortar, mortar, mortar.  We kept hearing that word and now we had it on the field for the first time.  But, wait, there were problems.  The mortar crew was very patient and had to go thru 3 miss fire drills.  They did find that they had to drill out the prime hole a bit and the rounds were to too short.  They were pricking flour and not the black powder.  They brought it back to came and rolled one round and it fired on the first try.  I think they have it straightened out.
  
  
• Frolicking, boy was that going on a lot.  It started with Capt. Wells running around on the field in the wind with an A frame on his head.  We paid him back by frolicking on the field before marching off to battle.  "We're off, we're off, we're off to fight the war!!"  Good times, good times!!!
  
  
• Another observation by this Pvt.  If there are things going on in the camp and you are not doing anything, please pitch in.  Poor Michelle, a couple of times, was strapped trying to get the food ready.  My hat off to Michelle & Krystyne, they were great troopers this weekend keeping things going at the site.  Sandy helped with Lunch on Saturday. Krystyne was a big help keeping things going in and out of the camp. 

Actions:

• Action Saturday: We had the mortar on the fields and the Marines were stationed to at a time between the cannons.  Battle started off as usual, skirmish lines and Calvary.  The mortar failed and the unit worked to determine the problem. They did find it.  Too thin a package and they were pricking the flour and not the powder. We waited for a bit and then the fun began.  Cannons let loose and we opened fire in support.  After a while the main body of the union army cam out of the woods.  Yee haa. We got on the left flank of Hardy's brigade and the two brigades went toe to toe and musket to musket.  The dismounted Calvary sounded like they were using miniature cannons.  Ouch.  then we were moved to the West side of the field to assist 15th Alabama. The 15th cheered when we arrived and then fled leaving us to fight 300 union solders. We almost defeated them, but they tricked us by acting friendly and waving. They caught us with our guard down.
  
  
• Action Sunday: The marines joined with the dismounted Calvary again and started the party off with a skirmish line across the entire field.  Finally Milton's, with 4 guns, moved in behind us and we opened up like a curtain and bang, they let the Yankees have it.  We did this a couple of more times as we moved up the field.  Finally we were informed that a Yankee company was trying to cross the field into the woods to flank the brigade. The unit was split into squads and the rear squad hit the woods.  We spotted scouts scoping out the woods for resistance and they got it from us.  We moved forward and held the company off from crossing the field.  They finally moved off to support the other companies engaging the main body of the confederates.  Very cool.  We literally ran out of ammo.  We saved enough to do the salute round. 
  
  
• After Saturdays action, General Goodrich told Capt.. Wells to keep the unit together, he needs to talk to us.  Sean was thinking, "Oh great, what did we do now."  Goodrich came into camp with Milton's unit in tow.   He brought unit to formation and then called the officers out behind him.  He then faced Will and charged him with impersonating an officer on the field (mini-me outfit).  He had his two biggest guys pick Will up and start to escort him to the brig.  He then called them back and asked how old he was.  Goodrich determined that he not court martial a minor and instead decided to court martial the Capt. for allowing this to happen.  Mike Styers defended and Pvt. Fowler prosecuted. The stage was set and the trial began.  Goodrich did not accept the Capt.'s plea of guilty and held the hearing anyway.  I said simply he was guilty.  The defense tried to defend and I objected to everything and the General sustained everything.  The no win scenario. The General found Capt. Wells guilty and sentenced him to be executed by firing squad.  He asked for a blind fold, our unit had one, he asked for a rope and another member of our unit had one. The Capt. was blind folded and lead and then tied to a tree.  The General gave the command to Ready, Aim, and at the last second the blind was removed and 8 guys had cans of silly string with which they proceeded to bury the Capt. with.
  
  musket: $400
  black powder: $30
  uniform:  $200
  entrance fee: $5
  the chance to see the look on Sean's face before being buried by silly string:  Priceless!!
  
  
• This was one of the best weekends this Private has seen yet and I know there will more to come.

Members (no particular order, *Fresh Fish):

• Sean Wells
• John & Krystyne Bateman
• Will Bateman
• Mike & Deb Styers
• Joe Stimac
• Ronnie Strott w/ Maddie & Sarah
• Jim & Annette Burke
• Roger & Patsy Scott & Rogers family.
• Steve & Sandy Fowler
• *Shelly Fowler
• *Richard & *Katie Riston
• Ira Fogg & Zack
• Michelle Crook
• Denice Weigand
• Jeffery Frazier
• Jamey Creel & Chris Hatcher (nephew)
• Frank & Judy Strott
• Mark, *Rob, *Tony
• Neil Stimac
• Sean Yeager
• Denice Weigand
• *Dale & Family

42 folks total: 25 troops, 2 runners, 15 in camp folks.

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