It Begins...

I've been here at Harpers Ferry (or HaFe, as the NPS shorthand goes) for a few days now, so I'm all settled in. I just unpacked my last box this afternoon! I'm living upstairs in the Master Armorer's house, which is right down by where the rivers converge. My room is situated quite scenically... I can see Maryland out two windows, and Virginia out the other! The house itself has quite the history, as it was the Union headquarters during the Federal occupation of the town. Both Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee stayed here (not at the same time). I agree with the choice in lodgings... it's quite the nice house.

There she is! The downstairs is also the Visitor Information Center.
(Disclaimer: Not my picture. I am too lazy to go outside and take one right
now, besides which it's getting dark. Maybe tomorrow. The original is here.)

Did I mention the view from my second story porch? (Basically the same view as the east-facing window)

This doesn't quite do it justice... you miss the other half of the scene. Here you
can see the edge of town with Maryland Heights across the Potomac, as well
as John Brown's fort and the foundations of armory buildings that were blown
up to prevent them from falling into enemy hands early in the Civil War.

After three days of orientation, I finally got to start with the Living History (LH) branch earlier. We did artillery drills for almost the whole day, right by the banks of the Shenandoah. I've never been on a gun crew before, so it was very exciting! We were working with a rifled 3-inch ordnance piece. I really enjoyed learning the responsibilities of all the different positions, and am looking forward to doing it again.

This is basically what I looked like. Minus the beards.

At the request of my mom (who finds this hilarious), here is a story from my artillery training:
I was stationed at the #3 post, which is at the right rear of the cannon. Because we were doing a simulation of a gun under enemy fire, the procedure was quite rushed. As I stepped in with the intention of sticking the brass pick into the vent to open the cartridge, my implement caught on the wheel. Turns out haste does make waste. It flew out of my hand, spiraled through the air, and almost impaled my comrade at #4, who was holding the lanyard and primer and staring in shock. I braced myself to get reprimanded. Instead, I heard my supervisor/commander say completely seriously, "Shot right out of her hands by small arms fire. Proceed!" That was good enough explanation for me. And there's no laughing allowed on the gun crew, so that was that!

Here's other guys demonstrating the loading procedure

at a slower speed. Around 0:42 is where the incident

would have occurred, to the guy in the back right.

In other news, I've all but lost my voice. Hopefully it comes back before Wednesday, when I have to start giving demonstrations. Not being able to talk would dramatically complicate my job...