On May 5th, Matt Davidson, Scott Savory, and I traveled to the 24th Annual Civil War Show held in Mansfield at the Richland County Fairgrounds. It was the first time there for Matt and myself, Scott being an old pro. Anyway, I have to say that if you have any interest in the Civil War, this is the place to go!

Four buildings were filled with dealers, hawking their wares, which included books, guns, medals, music CDs, reenactor supplies, prints -- well, you get the idea. Anything related to the war could be found here. Each building probably had 50- 100 tables, so you can imagine the items we drooled over. A fifth building had artillery displays, including a 5" siege howitzer from the Spanish-American War.

Notables such as Dale Gallon, Terry Lowry, Rich Baumgartner, and William McGrath (who makes some excellent naval models) were present, I picked up Kennesaw Mountain from Blue Acorn, and Mr. Baumgartner signed it for me without me asking.

The show was highlighted by an artillery demonstration. I have only seen one or two pieces being fired at previous shows I have been to, but this show featured a battery of seven guns, two of which were brought into the demonstration area by full horse teams. Neat stuff! The battery went through several drills, firing by the piece in different intervals, by sections, and by full battery. I can't imagine how they accomplished this 135 years ago with all the noise and confusion of battle.

We met briefly with Scott Mingus and his father Bob to discuss having a gaming demonstration present for next year's show. This is the perfect venue to present our hobby. There were several hundred attendees, all of whom were interested in the Civil War. The members of the Wayne's Legion Historical Gamers will be working with the North Coast Garners to have a miniatures presence next year (May 4-5). We plan to run events, invite folks to participate, and have materials available to give them about the hobby. We will have more details later.

We hope that by doing demonstrations such as these, we will gather Unew blood" into the hobby, and encourage other gamers to run events at places besides the local shop or convention. See you at next year's Civil War show!