Here's a couple of pictures that I recently came accross of myself at Ft. Laramie at the General Miles Marching and Chowder Society (GMMCS) annual event in 1997. The GMMCS is a living history group devoted to portraying the history of the Indian Wars era infantry soldier during the era 1867-1891 and it's composed of mostly National Parks employees. It's a pretty hard-core group with strict authenticty standards and this was the first event of theirs that I attended.
Your uniforms and equipment are inspected and if everything is up to snuff, you are made a full member. I managed to make the cut at my first event- there were some others who had varous deficiencies that had to be made up at the next event. For my first impression, I chose to do Co. K, 18th US Infantry circa 1867/68. I was able to use all my Civil War stuff, for the most part, and the only major item I needed to get was an 1866 Springfield Rifle (aka the "Second Allin Conversion"). Of course, since then the prices have gone up signficantly on the M1866 so this would most likely be a much more difficult impression to do today.
The GMMCS holds one event a year, usually the fourth week in September at some significant site and they rotate field and garrison events. In 1997, it was a garrison event at Ft. Laramie, Wyoming. It was pretty awesome and we actually got to live in the barracks and sleep on the oh-so-comfortable bunks (painted in a puke lime-green color- no wonder why so many men deserted!).
I'll have more later- here's the pictures:
Your uniforms and equipment are inspected and if everything is up to snuff, you are made a full member. I managed to make the cut at my first event- there were some others who had varous deficiencies that had to be made up at the next event. For my first impression, I chose to do Co. K, 18th US Infantry circa 1867/68. I was able to use all my Civil War stuff, for the most part, and the only major item I needed to get was an 1866 Springfield Rifle (aka the "Second Allin Conversion"). Of course, since then the prices have gone up signficantly on the M1866 so this would most likely be a much more difficult impression to do today.
The GMMCS holds one event a year, usually the fourth week in September at some significant site and they rotate field and garrison events. In 1997, it was a garrison event at Ft. Laramie, Wyoming. It was pretty awesome and we actually got to live in the barracks and sleep on the oh-so-comfortable bunks (painted in a puke lime-green color- no wonder why so many men deserted!).
I'll have more later- here's the pictures:
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