Dispelling Colonial Myths: a reenactor myth started it all

Beautiful Drayton Hall ... occupied by the British

Living in the Charleston area for more than two decades can give one an interesting perspective on history. Not only have I gained a different slant on the Civil War than my Midwest school education gave me, but the richness of colonial history rooted here took me quite by surprise.

I’d been bitten by the reenacting bug a year before when attending a Civil War reenactment, but in May 2005 a new and intriguing historical event came on the scene, the 225^th  anniversary commemoration of the Siege of Charleston. This grand reenactment spanned all three major Ashley River plantations: Middleton Place, Magnolia Gardens, and Drayton Hall. Each plantation had its own encampment, and each had its own admission price, and after deciding we didn’t have the time (or energy!) to hit all three of them, my family picked Drayton Hall, simply because it was the one of the three we hadn’t seen before.

Love the expressions! And the uniforms ... :-)

Thus my introduction to the British Legion, since none of the American (patriot) camps were at this location. During our exploration of the British camps, one friendly young reenactor cheerfully bestowed all sorts of useful and interesting information upon us.

A neat cluster of muskets

One nugget in particular caught my interest. The British soldiers, he said, often brought their wives along to help with the work of caring for the army—laundry and nursing and suchlike—and they were the ones the term “campfollower” originally applied to. Only later, especially during the Civil War, did it become synonymous with prostitutes who followed the army for their livelihood, although some of that happened during the Revolution as well.

The overlap of historical and modern

The young man proceeded to tell us that if a woman was unlucky enough to be widowed, the British army gave her a mere three days to attach herself to another man before abandoning her to whatever fate might dish out.

Three days.

My imagination fired at that, and the story premise behind Loyalty’s Cadence was born.

Later, I would join an 18^th century research email list, frequented by historians and reenactors of the period, and I discovered this was not the case at all. The British army had very detailed regulations for the care of campfollowing wives, and the standard policy was, in the case of widowhood, to provide for her return to England, if she so wished. (I’m sure in the field, there was much room for difference of interpretation, but that’s another discussion.) I was indignant to find I’d been handed a common “reenactor myth,” told for the sake of sensationalizing history.

Standing guard at the house

As if history needs sensationalizing.

Thus also began my quest to find the truth in research, or at least as close to it as is possible through the reports of people who see events through the lenses of very different experiences and opinions.

And if I write with too much sympathy of the British and loyalist cause, I suppose it can be blamed on the fact that we chose Drayton Hall that muggy May day in Charleston. :-)

 

(Another highlight of the 225^th Anniversary of the Siege of Charleston: a lecture, complete with visual aids, on colonial battlefield medicine. Useful stuff, for a writer, though his description of amputation left me very queasy. That, too, was inspiring in its own way!)

All photos are my own.