A twofer this week…actually I could probably have filled the post with Kamen America bikini pics, but I decided to Show Some Restraint. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.
I guess I’m not the only GM for whom July is a bad month in which to draft. Co-commish Lance has decided to push the draft back to August, and since this apparently will cost us an impatient manager, we have an opening if you’re interested. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.
We bought wholesale by the case this year, shopping the “Early Bird” special in April, but we did not stop there. Every time I thought, “OK, we have enough fireworks now,” the universe answered: “More.”
So we kept buying and buying. As late as Friday, July 3, I added a dozen more big booms for the Grand Finale, because that’s what matters most — end big, so that the audience is left in a condition of astonishment.
Last night we finished fusing up the last mortar racks. If you look at the photo closely, see on the right side those four black boxed with silver swords? Those are Excaliber canister shells (“Excals”) and we’ve got 96 of them in the show, along with 96 Neon Skies canister shells (in the cardboard case next to the Excals) as well as 66 Whistling Blasters, 12 King Arthur canister shells, 42 Nishiki Blast canister shells (willow effect) and six other canister shells — 318 total. That’s in addition to the dozens of cakes (repeaters) that will be fused together on barrage boards.
As I’ve explained before, the reason that consumer fireworks (1.4G) are so much fun is that you don’t need safety “setbacks” as long as those required for professional (1.3G) shows. Instead of seeing the shells break way off in the distance, the greater proximity of consumer fireworks makes it feel like the breaks are “in your face” — as if you are inside the barrage, an almost hallucinogenic feeling. Just to give you a small understanding of what we have planned, we have three boards in the finale composed entirely of smaller 200-gram cakes, which will break lower than the artillery shells. Those three boards comprise a total of 540 shots that will be fired in about 20 seconds (i.e., 27 shots per second), and that’s just one element of the grand finale. Intensity.
Beyond the intensity fact, the other thing is to “fill the sky” — from top to bottom and side to side. We’ll use many angled effects, and there will be color comets and mine effects shooting up from the ground, so that the barrage is panoscopic. I’d like to continue this pyrotechnic lecture, but now I’ve got to go supervise the show-day preparations, and there’s no more time. Sunset is at 8:42 and showtime is an hour after that. We must go do our patriotic duty on this, our nation’s 250th birthday.
Like much else in the “official” history of the Civil War, that map of the opening engagement at Gettysburg — east of Willoughby Run, on the slope of McPherson Ridge — may not be completely accurate.
One of my pet peeves about how Gettysburg has been depicted is the portrayal of Buford’s Union cavalry as having fought some kind of desperate battle in delaying Maj. Gen Harry Heth‘s Confederate division in its advance from Cashtown that morning. Having spent quite a deal of time researching this subject, including personal observation of the terrain, I assert without qualification that the Union cavalry did little or no damage to the advancing Confederates. Once the first shots were fired by Buford’s advance vedettes (an honor claimed by Lt. Marcellus Jones, 8th Illinois Cavalry), east of Marsh Creek, what happened was this: Confederate Brig. Gen. J.J. Archer, commanding the lead brigade of Heth’s division, deployed the 5th Alabama Infantry Battalion as skirmishers, to protect the column marching behind them from any further harassment by the Yankee cavalry. The eastward march on the Chambersburg Pike then continued for more than a mile until reaching the crest of Herr Ridge. At that point, the advance halted, having come under fire by Buford’s troopers deployed on the other side of Willoughby Run, about 400 yards to the east of the ridge. Buford was supported by a battery of artillery (commanded by 21-year-old Lt. J.H. Calef), which opened fire as Heth and his officers were reconnoitering the position.
Heth deployed Archer’s brigade to the south of the road (which is now U.S. Highway 30) and deployed the brigade of Brig. Gen. Joseph R. Davis to the north side, with the artillery battery of Maj. William J. Pegram in the center. Meanwhile, on the Union side, Maj. General John F. Reynolds arrived on the field, riding in advance of the army’s First Corps. Reynolds consulted briefly with Buford, and quickly sent a note to the army commander, Maj. Gen. George Meade, promising to fight the Rebels “inch by inch.” As Reynolds’ infantry approached, they heard the firing and marched faster, the head of the column being what was to become known as the Iron Brigade. Reynolds directed them toward Willoughby Run, south of the Chambersburg Pike, while sending the next brigade, under Brig. Gen. Lysander Cutler, to the north side of the road.
Before these Union troops could reach their assigned position, however, Heth had finished his reconnaissance and, his two lead brigades now formed into line of battle near the crest of Herr Ridge, ordered them to advance eastward. This detailed narrative I relate as contradiction of the way these events have been depicted by “official” accounts of the first day’s battle at Gettysburg, with Buford’s cavalry heroically holding off the Confederates. All that the Union cavalry had done was to (a) force Archer to halt long enough to deploy a battalion of skirmishers and (b) to put up a sufficient show of force at Willoughby Run to compel Heth to deploy a full infantry battle line. If the Confederates had been completely unopposed in their march toward Gettysburg, they would have crossed Willoughby Run before 9 a.m. As it was, by the time Heth ordered his battle line to advance, it was around 10 a.m. No doubt, the Yankee troopers on the other side of the stream were firing their carbines at any target they could see, but so far as is known, during the whole of this engagement they neither suffered any casualties themselves nor inflicted any on the Rebels. Packed away in my garage is a notebook in which I have a copy of Col. Birkett Davenport Fry‘s account of Gettysburg. Fry commanded the 13th Alabama in Archer’s brigade, and nowhere in his account of the fight on July 1 does he suggest that their advance from Cashtown was seriously impeded by Buford’s cavalry.
Having vented about my pet peeve, then, I then recount what happened to my great-grandfather, Winston Wood Bolt, who was a private in Company K of Fry’s 13th Alabama. Most historians have the 13th Alabama as the right flank regiment of Archer’s brigade as they advanced from Herr Ridge, down a slight slope to Willoughby Run, and then up into the woods toward McPherson Ridge on the other side. About this time, on the Union side, the first elements of the Iron Brigade were reaching the field. Near the Chambersburg Pike, Reynolds was supervising the deployment of two regiments (the 2nd and 7th Wisconsin) from the Iron Brigade when he was shot dead. Some historians have attributed Reynolds’ death to a Confederate “sharpshooter,” but it was most likely just regular volley fire from the nearest troops of Archer’s brigade, probably the 7th Tennessee Regiment.
The Iron Brigade in action at Gettysburg
Any visitor to Gettysburg who takes time to walk over this part of the battlefield (as I have) will perceive that Willoughby Run crosses the road almost diagonally, so that the left side of Archer’s brigade probably crossed ahead of the right flank and, most likely, the alignment got disrupted. The first Union forces to reach the field were up by the road, and the 13th Alabama curled around facing toward the northeast — and then disaster struck. The last regiment of the Iron Brigade to arrive (the 24th Michigan, which had been bringing up the rear of the column) came over McPherson Ridge to the southeast, completely outflanking the 13th Alabama. The Confederate line was then rolled up from right to left, resulting in the capture of Archer and about 100 of his men, including my ancestor, Pvt. Bolt, who spent the next two years as a prisoner of war.
After being captured at Gettysburg, Pvt. Winston Wood Bolt survived two years at Fort Delaware as a prisoner of war. Here he is (seated, center) with his family circa 1900. My grandmother, then about 16, is at far right. pic.twitter.com/2MPcvrnL2f
— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) July 1, 2026
Having a personal connection to historic events inspires a deep concern for the preservation of our national heritage, which it seems some of my fellow citizens do not share. But why drag John Roberts into this, huh?
