An Eventful Event!
At the reenactment event held in Arlington, Washington (state), three miracles occurred that just have to be told. All of them happened on Sunday, July 21st, 1996.
One member of the CSA camp took the initiative to set up his "home" as a winter quarters-style tent. (The first time he had ever done something like this.) He took logs to make the walls and he and his pard's shelter tent became the roof, as is often seen in photographs from the era. No one else in the entire camp area had a tent set up like this.
At 5:15 Sunday morning, I heard a deep CRACK, GRUMBLE and then a bunch of what sounded like pistol shots that woke me, thinking that the Union was attacking the main camp. The unmistakable final thunder of a falling tree soon relieved my worries as to the camp attack but where did the tree fall? Right on top of the winter quarters tent!
The two men crawled out with eyes as big as saucers, saved by the log walls, now holding up the tree. What would most definitely have been a disaster was turned into a very memorable circumstance as the log walls held the tree off the ground and kept the men from getting hurt.
At 10 am, this same day, a team of mules driving by the Sunday church service suddenly became unmanagable and turned into the crowd seated on the ground. Two reenactors immediately threw themselves over two children and a woman in the path of the mules and wagon while a third man got between the team and turned them from their path of destruction. Just some scrapes rather than serious injuries were the result. The man who controlled the team of mules was also the man who had the tree come down on his tent!
The last incident occurred as several children were wading in the river. A reenactor saw a three year old child swept off his feet and travel downstream to be wedged under a log. The soldier jumped into the river and rescued the child from drowning!
All of these men were given special introductions in front of the afternoon crowd.
Lin Ahearn
9th Virginia Cavalry
