Do You Galvanize?

[IrishRifles]

Do you galvanize, why -or- why not?

[Ross L. Lamoreaux]

Yes. Both sides have a fascinating history to be interpreted and nothing screams assinine to people more than a 4-1 ratio (either way) at an event where it wasn't that way historically. To answer those that say "my great-great-great grandaddy would roll over in his grave if I wore the (insert color here)" , would they be more upset that you're portraying the other side or that their real experiences are being mocked by a less than accurate portrayal?

[DamYankee25]

Yes. Both sides have a fascinating history to be interpreted and nothing screams assinine to people more than a 4-1 ratio (either way) at an event where it wasn't that way historically. To answer those that say "my great-great-great grandaddy would roll over in his grave if I wore the (insert color here)" , would they be more upset that you're portraying the other side or that their real experiences are being mocked by a less than accurate portrayal?

What Ross said. Yes. If you truly feel you'll catch on fire for wearing a certain color or pretending under a certain flag then that's your choice. I prefer to err on the side of history and go with what is needed for a scenerio. There is nothing worse than 8 Federals and 1,500 confederates because of the "Great Grand Daddy" excuse as Ross Mentioned...build a bridge and get over it.

I think men on both sides did what they did for their own reasons and the more I can experience those reasons from both sides of the coin, the better.

[Pennvolunteer]

I personally don't because here in the southern part of the Trans-Mississippi, too many Federals is never a problem we have, but we have lots of our Confederate brothers who do galvinze for just that reason, and many have a great impression. One of the commanders of those units asked my company commander what he thought he could do to improve the hobby in our region. My commander told him, "go full time Federal, you have the impression and you galvinize regularly anyway." His response was, "oh no, half of my group would quit!" But, that is a regular problem out here, lots of gray, not enough blue. The funny thing is to point out to folks who talk about Grand-daddy in Mo and Northern Arkansas is that Mo fielded a lot more Federal soldiers than Confederate and lots of Northern Ark was pro-Union territory.
To digress on this briefly, many folks who don't have an SUV or SCV researched background may not have it right. I read a great article by a woman who was proud of her Southern roots, who said be careful doing family research, you may not like what you find. Turns out Grand-daddy had indeed been a Confederate soldier, but had been an unwilling participant due to his pro-Union sentiment and changed sides when he had the chance. She had all of her family history crushed by a little research! I myself had a similar experience, deciding in Grad school to research some family Civil War lore only to find out it was all wrong about a supposed CSA unit from Illinois. Beware of family lore!!

[Bear Flagger]

I have done Union, Confederate, and Civilian. I do not galvanize. To me galvanize means changing sides at the event. That means bringing 2 or more different impressions to the event. Taking a jacket off to go from one side to the other is not correct, neither is just turning a buckle over.

[lincolnsguard]

I don't galvanize as I do not ever attend events where the event organizers do not monitor the force ratio, during registration, before the event. Thus, galvanizing is never an issue at those events. EVER.

[RJSamp]

I went Gray for the 5 days Morgan's Raid 1....we galvanized to Federal by going to the cars and changing on Saturday.

Galvanized for Pickett's Charge at G135 with the 26th NCT.....wore a brownish plaid civilian shirt and a black hat picked off of a wound Iron Brigade private from the fightin' on the first day.

Too much demand for Blue.....so always go Federal....born and raised in Madison WI, studied the Iron Brigade during the Centennial (coached on by my New Jersey Grandmother and Floridian mother). So True Blue.

[reddcorp]

My unit, a Confederate unit, frequently dons the Blue when the proper ratios demand. Several years we've gone Blue more than Gray. I have checked ggGranddaddy's (a CS officer) grave and found no activity, so I think he's ok with galvanizing as well.

A.Redd

[Calum]

I definitely galvanize, as well as crossing branches of service (where possible).

To my mind, both sides fought for what they believed in, and what they thought was right. That alone deserves to be honored, because part of what they fought for enables me to do what I am today. Whether they won or lost really has very little direct impact on me now (the intervening 100+ years have shaped the way I was raised, my beliefs, etc, not the immediate cessation of hostilities).

That’s not to say that I don’t have a favored impression, that is my primary, and also what I know the most about. But I try to at least have base knowledge regarding the other potential impressions that I am willing to do.

And on a practical side, it allows me to fall in where needed, and I think, adds to my overall impression as I can easily switch my mental view. I’ve known folks who absolutely refuse to wear the blue/gray, and generally speaking, those are the stereotypical “think the war’s still going on”.

Respectfully,
Calum

[Brett Bondurant]

My unit does not galvanize, we have a duel impression: 18th NC, 9th NJ. As Ross mentioned before, we do this because both sides have a story to be told and for more equal numbers as events. We portray Federals at living history events as well as battle reenactments. At some battles in North Carolina, virtually all the attending Federals are from duel impression units.

Brett Bondurant
Cape Fear