Corinth

[PaperPusher]

I have seen some conversations on other forums about Corinth and was wondering if someone had this one in the works for the next year or two....anyone have any info?

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Good question, but it may bear noting that the N-SA hosted a major Corinth-scenario event just a year or two ago.

[Spinster]

Mark,

You'd be best served by contacting the local Chamber of Commerce/Tourism board--they were the liason the last time, and did express some ambition of doing another event at a later date.

Realize though that much of the event infrastructure that went into the ground, like water piping from the spectator entrance road back to military camps is likely gone--my memory of the discussions as a few folks worked to put that in, was that all that plumbing had to be pulled out after the event.

Only the fried chicken, apple pie, and sweet tea carrier, but was there....

[Dkjarnagin]

With loss of officials at both the Alliance (Chamber) and Tourism, I would doubt that any events will be held here any time soon. The property used in the last event will not be used again. The owners are still quite mad about several things that went on between them and the event organizers that is according to the son in-law.

I just thought you might like to know.

David Jarnagin

[Parault]

With loss of officials at both the Alliance (Chamber) and Tourism, I would doubt that any events will be held here any time soon. The property used in the last event will not be used again. The owners are still quite mad about several things that went on between them and the event organizers that is according to the son in-law.

I just thought you might like to know.

David Jarnagin

I imagine one of the many items is the enormous pyramid of firewood still there long after the battle,that could be one minuscule sticking point. just my.02 worth

[captdougofky]

Mad is being nice, from what I heard. Never again! Someone or somebody drop the ball.

Always
Doug Thomas
Lyons Battery
Kentucky

[flattop32355]

With loss of officials at both the Alliance (Chamber) and Tourism, I would doubt that any events will be held here any time soon. The property used in the last event will not be used again. The owners are still quite mad about several things that went on between them and the event organizers that is according to the son in-law.

Could you elaborate a bit?

[Silas]

The inability of nco's to complete and submit requisition forms caused much hypothermia during that 90+ degree weekend. Also, there was much suffering when the provost had the audacity to demand that the people who created the impromptu parking lot adjacent to the CS camp on Saturday night move their bloody vehicles. Then there was the blue pants issue.

Bad, bad, bad FCD for thinking it was a CW reenactment and not a boy scout jamboree.

[tompritchett]

Could you elaborate a bit?

I would agree with Bernard on this but I think that such an explanation should be as factual as possible without pointing fingers and hopefully with suggestions how future such instances can be prevented. From the various posts here over the years, it appears that getting access to private land can be a problem sometimes for larger events, especially here in the East, and any lessons on what not to do that can be learned from this experience could be beneficial.

[WestTN_reb]

I seem to recall our NCO's submitting the request forms for firewood, and a certain "General" (whose name shall be BR) putting guards on the wood and not letting us pick it up. Also, the fact that our battalion ran out of water (in the Division-provided barrels)on Saturday afternoon, and never saw another refill. Good thing General Huckabee was kind enough to let us use his. I've been to two FCD events and been woefully unimpressed at both. Just my 2 cents.

[indguard]

The troubles at Corinth had absolutely NOTHING whatever to do with anything as far down the chain as "firewood." There were major problems between the organizers and the locals during and after that event. Many were unhappy.

But, is there any real value to rehashing it years later? Is there value in making a big deal of it now? Can we learn from those mistakes? I doubt it because similar mistakes seem to occur with nearly every event we do north to south, east to west!

It seems to me that the cause of this plight is two fold. 1). Unfamiliarity with running anything in a professional (meaning like a business) way, 2). perpetual ego expansion.

Once in a while an event is run well, planned well, and lacks the tell-tale mistakes we are all so familiar with. But those seem farther and fewer between than the average situation. And, unless we get a group that runs every event and does it like a business venture instead of an amateur show, we must expect these troubles to continue I'd expect.

Some of the EBUFU events, for instance, have gone great. But, then, those are often run by a group that are all pulling in the same direction, from the highest position down to every last private that attends. It seems that they can ditch the ego problems at times, where the other mega events simply cannot do so. ...then again, the EBUFU events have far less rigamarol to put up with to plan for, as well. Less infrastructure is needed, less land, less... well, less of about everything.

They ALSO don't have to worry about the public quite often. So, comparing the EBUFU events to a regular reenactment is apples to oranges and serves no purpose when all is said and done.

Anyway, the chief question I am asking is: does rehashing the many, many troubles, failures, missteps, and near illegalities from Corinth in 2005 serve any purpose?

What say you, folks? Does it serve a purpose?

Warner Todd Huston

[Memphis]

You really have to hand it to Warner. He rarely misses an opportunity.

[tompritchett]

Anyway, the chief question I am asking is: does rehashing the many, many troubles, failures, missteps, and near illegalities from Corinth in 2005 serve any purpose?

What say you, folks? Does it serve a purpose?

I would suggest that it does, but only if egos are left at the door and the troubles are presented in an objective manner as possible. Just this past month, we have had a thread started by someone asking for help/suggestions in getting a new event started. I know that I am working on a committee that is trying to rebuild a local event that has almost died. I know of two 145ths being planned next year by groups that normally do not run events of this size. And for all we know, there may be people out there already in the process of planning some of the early 150'ths.

[OVI]

Im in agreement with Tom. I d be interested to learn what happened at Corinth...I just dont wish to get some ax grinding version. I attended Corinth with the AOP and I did hear a few things but beyond that any deeper issues I was not aware of.
It might be of value to many reenactors to learn some of what has to go on to put on an event and what a thankless effort it can be. We reenactors treat our events like going to a ball game and when it comes off, we have been rewarded with an experience which we file away and then we blissfully schedule another with little or no regard for all the hard done in our behalf. Its little wonder the market for these larger events is about finished.

Kent Dorr
"Devils Own Mess"

[flattop32355]

Anyway, the chief question I am asking is: does rehashing the many, many troubles, failures, missteps, and near illegalities from Corinth in 2005 serve any purpose?

What say you, folks? Does it serve a purpose?

Yes, it does.

[WestTN_reb]

This much I know, based on my experiences at Corinth. If you are going to have a successful event, make sure there is more than enough water and be sure that firewood is readily available and in sufficient quantities. If it's an EBUFU type event, the firewood is whatever you can find, but water still needs to be made available. I'm not trying to grind any axes, just stating facts.

[tompritchett]

This much I know, based on my experiences at Corinth. If you are going to have a successful event, make sure there is more than enough water and be sure that firewood is readily available and in sufficient quantities. If it's an EBUFU type event, the firewood is whatever you can find, but water still needs to be made available. I'm not trying to grind any axes, just stating facts.

That is a given. I think though most of us we are more interested in what were the problems between the event and the land owners/locals.

[RJSamp]

Anyway, the chief question I am asking is: does rehashing the many, many troubles, failures, missteps, and near illegalities from Corinth in 2005 serve any purpose?

What say you, folks? Does it serve a purpose?

Warner Todd Huston

Absolutely. Discussing past foibles and coming up with ways to avoid the mistakes and errors of our 'former' ways is paramount to running a successful event in the future. If you think that there is nothing to be learned from figuring out ways to avoid problems in the future by rehashing the past then maybe not.....but most times you can figure out ways to avoid going low water at Raymond 2001.....Corinth 2005...... I'd sure as heck like to figure a way to keep cars and families out of a military camp like at A140.....

[Michael Pierpoint]

I was there early in planning of Corinth event. I will this to try to keep a war from starting and keep from stating some names here. But the co- sponsers were not cooperating with the N/SA as I saw it. Before anybody say it yes I was not there for the event itself due to a big "D" (there is a god). This is best left under the rug were it was.

Regards
Michael Pierpoint
Big Muddy Mess

[flattop32355]

So, we now have landowners, NSA and co-sponsors involved.

There's probably a great deal we great unwashed have no business knowing about. However, some of us are component members of the NSA, and if part of the fault lay with them who are "above" us in that organization, it would be good to know in what ways and to what degree.

Yeah, it's in the past, but I'd like to make sure it doesn't happen again, if possible, in the future.

[Rob Murray]

Yeah, it's in the past, but I'd like to make sure it doesn't happen again, if possible, in the future.
Bernie, I don't think any of us in the unwashed masses can make sure it does not happen again.

While the event sucked, I made my own fun which is what I try to do at every event I go to.

Rob Murray

[Michael Pierpoint]

When the N/SA is approched about an event there are better policey in place now so thing that happen at Corinth do not happen again. Yes there were problem with land owner and problem sponsers. It was also my understanding there was reenactment before the N/SA 2005 that local land owner were not happy with either. Books can be written about Corinth and problems it had. There was good there too. We must not dwell on the past.

Regards
Michael Pierpoint
Big Muddy Mess

[OVI]

"We must not dwell on the past."

Regards
Michael Pierpoint


Sort of defeats the purpose of being a reenactor.

Kent Dorr - Ohio
"Devils Own Mess"

[Memphis]

Is there enough left of the N/SA to have another Corinth or Mill Springs?

Serious question.

[Michael Pierpoint]

Mr. Dorr

We are talking about Corinth not Reenacting in general.
If your trying to be cute your not.

Memphis
The answers to your question is Yes. And yes numbers are down from the past but the blue side of the gray has a new General in place. There are some new face and some old that stayed on staff. I believe some good things are about to happen for the 1st Federal Division. In closing N/SA meeting in January is open. However there will be a few closed Executive sessions. www.nsalliance.org will be updated soon

Regards
Michael Pierpoint
Big Muddy Mess

[OVI]

Mr. Dorr

We are talking about Corinth not Reenacting in general.
If your trying to be cute your not.

Regards
Michael Pierpoint
Big Muddy Mess


My apologies Mr Pierpoint if I gave offense. I have long been a supporter of the NSA and I am well aware of its efforts to host good events to give its members memorable experiences in the field.

No one is asking to point fingers, but it seems to some of us, especially those who serve in the ranks of the NSA, that this has the air of something swept under the rug and we are curious as to what went wrong and why. No agendas here, just curiosity about what goes on behind the scenes.

Kent Dorr - Ohio
"Devils Own Mess"

[Michael Pierpoint]

To tell the story of Corinth one would have to bring up names. I will be going to stand of colors in KC in May stop by the Provost tent and we can sit down and have some coffee.

Michael Pierpoint
Jackson Ohio
Class of "84"

[Hoosiertrooper]

As one of the 4 or 5 people who were immersed in the Corinth event in 2005 (as was Michael Pierpoint, who has posted above), I am amazed (as I often am) at the mis-information that gets posted on this and other forums. Fiction can become fact overnight!

When someone who has first hand knowledge of a situation responds - in this case Terre Lawson and Michael Pierpoint - some would rather disregard this information and continue to look for boogeymen.

I am not going to rehash the whole Corinth situation. It was beat to death a little more than 2 years ago on this and other forums. Those who would assert that something was or is being swept under the table either have very short memories or were not involved in the hobby at that time.

Suffice to say that the Corinth event was staged by the NSA but the site and local logistics were the responsibility of the local Corinth organizing group which was headed by the director of the local tourism board.

An 11 page Letter of Agreement was initiated by the NSA and signed by both parties (NSA and Corinth Tourism) that detailed the specific responsibilities of each organization in the development and production of the event. The NSA and its leadership lived up to every responsibility that it signed off on. The NSA leadership had several meetings with the local Corinth organizers in which we gave them detailed (virtually line-by-line) instructions and advice on what they needed to do in order to accomplish their tasks. To say that they dropped the ball in almost every instance would be an understatement.

I will provide a few examples: Michael Pierpoint and I spent three days walking the site and driving every possible route into and out of Corinth to develop a "Signage Plan." This included signage for every element on site from "Bus Parking" on school day to traffic flow signs in the parking lots. These were to be placed in specific locations the weekend prior to the event by the local organizers. Arriving at the site the Wednesday prior to the start of the event on Friday, I found all 253 signs stacked in the rear of the tourism office - 4 days AFTER they were to have been installed. Doug Cooper and I spent the next 17 hours driving around sticking signs in the ground. We were later assisted by Mark Dolive and Don Kessler of the FFD senior staff.

An agreement was made between the local organizers and a land owner to provide an area for Confederate reenactor parking. Arriving on site two days before the event was to commence, we found that the corn crop in the field had not been harvested. The management of this was the responsibility of the local organizers who assured us that the field would be cleared in time. It never was and on Friday morning we had to reorganize the entire parking plan (and move signs) because the local organizers failed to follow through.

The local organizers failed to provide people-power (as was their responsibility in the Letter of Agreement) to man the re-enactor check in area. We discovered this about 2 weeks prior to the event. At the last moment, Mike Moore arranged for the members of his gun club in Memphis to come to Corinth and run the reenactor check in.

These were a few of the more minor failures of the local organizers in the staging of the Corinth event.

If there was a problem with the land owner(s) after the event was over, that was the responsibility of the local Corinth organizers. All agreements for land usage were initiated by the Corinth organizers and written agreements as to what would be done before and after the event were between the Corinth organizers and land owners. None of this was the responsibilty of the NSA.

As Michael Pierpoint has stated, the NSA leadership learned a valuable lesson at Corinth. That was that those local civic organizations who want to "talk the talk" about staging events had better be able to prove that they can "walk the walk."

We (NSA) now have a very detailed outline of all the elements necessary to the staging of an event of this size.

This year's Battle of Mill Springs has been hailed by those involved in the planning and management of the NSA as perhaps the best managed and staged event by a local group (the Mill Springs Battlefield Assn. under the very capable leadership of Bill Neikirk) in the NSA's history. The NSA used the outline and lessons learned at Corinth as our guide in working with the Mill Springs folks. However, the Mill Springs organizers were proactively "on it" before we brought it up. Those who wish to disparage NSA events were obviously not at Mill Springs this year.

There's no issue or smoking gun here, folks. The take-away is to know what needs to be done in staging an event and get an agreement in writing as to who does what.

Mike Ventura
Chief of Staff
Army of Tennessee
NSA

[Spinster]

I'm glad Mike V has arrived in this thread and can speak more definitively--while aware of a lot of the excruciating details of Corinth, I was just the fried chicken, iced tea, and apple pie carrier for folks doing the manual labor---and made enough trips to this site that the ladies at the Holiday Inn Express check in desk knew my travel schedule well enough that they called my Dear Husband when I was late arriving at the hotel one Friday night.

Fellers, there is simply nothing to see here........and no rugs to lift, beat, sweep under, mend, set on fire, or search for greybacks.

Folks often regard mishaps in water or wood or parking spaces or funnel cake rations as some vast conspiracy laid against them or their unit personally. A clear look at the situation will often find folks doing their dead level best within the financial and resource parameters available.

Like our childhood story of "The Little Red Hen"---well, everyone is around to help eat the bread the hen made, but nobody helped make it. And a lot of folks complained about water, but I fed only 6 guys manhandling the smallest Ditchwitch I've ever seen (sponsor provided) who laid those water lines. Much the same could be said about many of the other details folks complained about--yet work crew announcements were posted here, and elsewhere.

Its time for y'all to untangle the Christmas lights or something.

[OVI]

Mr Ventura...thank you for a very well crafted response. Your analysis of the breakdown was precisely what I was looking for. I have a much clearer understanding of what transpired and what I took for a "lets not go there" attitude is obviously a result of not wishing to pick at the scab. I can understand that and I appreciate your taking the time and effort to diplomatically fill in some of the blanks.
If all this was hashed and rehashed here, then I was not paying attention.
I continue to feel that we as reenactors must better our efforts to control our own events and be more than just consumers. Knowing the mistakes of a past event can give us all guidance and lessons to help improve. That was my sole reason in pushing for more information.
Once again let me publically thank the many folks of the NSA who have worked their backsides off for many years to bring quality experiences to the ranks. Many do not know of your efforts and more should.

Kent Dorr - Ohio
Devils Own Mess"

[tompritchett]

I would like to echo Kent's thanks to Mr. Ventura for his explanation as Mr. Ventura answered my questions also. I guess if there is a lesson to be learned for all of us in planning such an event, it would be to make sure that the local organizers of your event have their act together before making a firm commitment to become involved.

[Doug Cooper]

Yes, we were all let down badly by the locals, but at the time, a signed contract seemed like a pretty good bet, especially considering all profits were pledged to their priority historical preservation projects. The Wed prior I drove around looking for publicity signs at everything from downtown Iuka to the Corinth Interpretive Center. Signs were sparse. Mike and I spent many hours putting up direction signs instead of doing our staff jobs and that became the routine at the event - trying to do both FCD staff jobs and filling in for the missing locals. It was awful, and I will never do that again. Next time I will either be military, or put on a tee shirt and run parking and traffic.

After the event I cruised around town for several hours asking folks on the street or in their businesses if they had heard of the event and had they attended? At the time I did not know the gate had been so low. 50% or more said the first time they knew of it was the Sunday paper discussing Saturday (or my mentioning it) and the other half said "no we did not go, but we heard something about a reenactment." And these people were all less than 10 miles from the event site. Despite failing to help us as agreed, there was one thing the local tourism office needed to get right - and that was getting folks to the event. They failed miserably...and cost the town much needed preservation money, that was the whole goal to begin with.

On the field, those who cared about the real history and knew what really happened had a great time, because the scenarios ran true. Those who came to burn powder and did not understand the history, even after their role was carefully explained to them, had an uneven time. We had one battalion run out of water on the field because their brigade water wagon driver took off and did not tell anyone. That brigade assumed the wagon was in line, but it wasn't...so we had to improvise. THAT WAS THE ONLY WATER PROBLEM. We had some folks go down due to heat on the field, ending one scenario a bit early. The low number of federals made things tougher, but they did an outstanding job shuffling troops from one side of the SUPERB battery (full scale) and breastworks to the other to fulfill the scenarios.

The wood "problem" was our QM asking that units draw wood using proper paperwork, so that everyone would get their fair share. Imagine the horror this standard army procedure caused.

We had a 24 hour picket line that was marred by cowboy cavalry on both sides, including some who were drunk when nabbed by the picketts. To be fair the cav was a bit miffed because we had to cancel the big melee' when the field we were going to use was not in the condition promised to us by the local landowner. We had an active provost that stayed in first person and we had a fantastic group of civilians. We only invited sulters from the more authentic side of the hobby, thinking that this would benefit the troops. It did not work, and just made some sutlers mad that they were not invited - lesson learned there. There were too many gators being driven around but the heat casualties meant compromising there.

We had over 1000 CS participants without tents nor federal issue trousers, a big change. We caught only one woman in the ranks, but she was so good we let her carry on (a bad hat gave her away). Of course even those low standards (no tents, no fed trousers) probably kept 100's away on the CS side.

Oh, and the event was hamstrung by some folks with rank in the hobby (in the NSA!) who actively attempted to keep troops from coming through rumor, innuendo and in the process displayed a surprising lapse in professionalism (or maybe not so surprising). To them the hobby is a zero sum game I guess. Decorum prevents any more discussion here.

All lessons were learned and applied for future events. The NSA is all about incremental improvement - and Corinth was an improvement in many areas (accurate scenarios, accurate flags, improved standards and 10 wagons on the CS side and a few more US).

Lastly, for those on this thread who were conspicous in your absence from Corinth, I would respectfully request that you keep silent on things you did not witness.

As per Terre and Mike, there is nothing to see and no reason to continue this thread.

[tompritchett]

As per Terre and Mike, there is nothing to see and no reason to continue this thread.

I agree. It seems that all the pertinent and requested information has come out about the past event. In addition, because of the issues identified it is also apparent that there will be no new event at this site in the next few years at least, as was the original question that launched this thread. Therefore I am now closing this thread.