He might have hit him in the Parrot Head!
Posted on 10/01/2008 4:44:57 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
WINDSOR, Va. (WAVY.com)-- A man participating in a Civil War reenactment was shot Saturday afternoon, according to the Isle of Wight County Sheriff's Department.
The incident happened around 12:30 p.m. at the fairgrounds, about three miles outside of Windsor on Route 258.
This wasn't your typical re-enactment. Tom Lord was one of many men acting out a scene for a film being made about the Civil War. During that filming, Lord was shot...for real.
Speaking only to WAVY.com, Tom says he isn't as worried about the damage done to his body. He's more concerned with the damage this could do to the reputation of reenactment.
Tom reenacts history as a Union Cavalryman, but he never thought acting would become so real.
"At the time we were in a ditch that acts as a trench and we had just driven the Confederates out of the trench, and we were all enthused about it," says Tom, " and under direction we raised our hats and hurrah, hurrah, hurrah."
During that last hurrah, the unthinkable happened. Julian Ison, acting as a Confederate Soldier, was there.
"We were shooting at the Union Soldiers and suddenly the guy told us to stop after we were firing because one of the Union guys actually got shot."
"I got hit in the shoulder and I thought somebody had hit me with a shovel," says Tom.
What the 73-year-old was actually hit with was a round from an 1860 Colt Army Revolver. Tom says the moment he was shot, every thought ran through his mind at once.
"How can I be shot? I've been doing this reenacting, who shot me? Why?"
Tom says the cameras were rolling on him, and were directly in front of him, when he was shot.
"Everybody was wondering what was wrong with me and then they saw the blood on my uniform...They immediately took my uniform jacket off and my shirt was all bloody. They applied pressure bandages on it because it was bleeding," says Tom.
Tom doesn't believe an "experienced" reenactor could be behind this.
"The muzzle of our weapons or pistol or rifle is always elevated at least 40, 45 degrees and we're shooting into the air. The battle lines never get close enough that people would be hit by the expended paper that comes out of these muskets."
Tom also says before and after every reenactment, the actors go through an important routine called "capping off."
"We take our weapons and we fire three caps in an empty weapon. If we have pistols, we discharge our pistols, put caps on that and discharge them again and all it is is like a child's cap going off," says Tom.
There are concerns about how this could have happened in the first place.
"It was an accident, but somebody was negligent in not inspecting the weapons. I don't know who you could blame - the people who did the filming or the person who did the firing," says Tom.
Now Tom, along with his friends and family hope investigators find the clues they need to piece this painful puzzle together.
"I would like to see them catch, get a hold of this person that did this and bar him for life from doing this because we don't need people like him reenacting."
Lord is also worried this accident could shine negativity on his main passion.
"It's hurting reenacting when they hear something, a reenactor was shot at a reenactment."
Tom says reenacting creates a way for children and adults to actively become involved in history, something he never thought he'd be so much a part of.
"I'm the first one in reenacting that's ever earned a purple heart," says Tom with a laugh. "The good Lord was looking over me. That's all I can say. The good Lord was looking over me."
Isle of Wight Sheriff Paul Phelps says they are investigating to find out who shot Lord. In the meantime, Tom says he may be done with the "physical" part of reenacting. Instead, he may become a narrator at the reenactment scenes.
Stay with WAVY.com and WAVY News 10 for new details in this developing story.
I’m thankful it wasn’t a Parrot rifle.
Chuck Norris doesn't wing 'em.....;-)
Over my 15 years in re-enacting, I have seen thankfully few injuries. Most of these seemed to have been caused by carelessness or excitement, but a couple by alcohol or other mind-altering substances.
My battery will not hesitate to pull our guns off the field if we think an event is not safe. I scouted one event near me this season to see if it would be worth adding to our schedule next year, but I am vetoing it because of the carelessness and drunkenness I saw.
When we do soldiers’ grave marker dedication services, I’m always impressed with the Parrot rifle firing its three volleys accompanying the seven riflemen. The black powder smoke really drives home the experience those men (of both sides) experienced, especially realizing most of those men walked upright right into the ranges of those weapons.
Gotta love my bubbas. This must have been on a Friday pay day after work and the liquor store!!!!
American by birth, Southern by the Grace of God...
I swear to Dixie, I was nowhere near Windsor, Va.
I'm with the Army of Tennessee, and besides, I most generally carry a LeMat and shot-gun.
Guns are not meant to be looked at and held up for envy. What you did was exactly what was meant to happen. You used it and learned how to defend yourself and your family’s home. Enjoy those memories nost of all.
I was just awondering if you was up there defending the Dear South from them Ugly Yankees.
I am doin what can be done. Though I would note that in several counties of southern Indiana and Illinois, there were towns where formations of young men left their communities heading south as a unit to avoid Yankee conscription and jine up with their Southron cousins.
There was also at least one wreck of a Yankee troop train near Washington, IN, near Tunnelton. Whether poor maintenance and increased wartime rail traffic caused a genuine accident or the event was the result of actions by Dixie agents, Copperhead sympathizers or both is not certain, though still suspected.
Not all the hens in the coop will have the West Nile virus, we know there is some good Yankees. Even the odd ones in heavily infected states such as Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey.
A few more of these incidents, and the Civil War might start over it.
He might have hit him in the Parrot Head!
As the song The Devil's Right Hand says:
My first pistol was a cap and ball Colt,
shoot as fast as lightening, but she loads a mite slow..
There was also at least one wreck of a Yankee troop train near Washington, IN, near Tunnelton. Whether poor maintenance and increased wartime rail traffic caused a genuine accident or the event was the result of actions by Dixie agents, Copperhead sympathizers or both is not certain, though still suspected.
A mirror image of what happened in the mountain regions of the South. I had relatives take to the hills to avoid Confederate conscription and then joined up with the Union army when the liberators from the North came. Others didn't wait and crossed the mountains and rivers to join the US Army early in the war.
There even was a mirror image suspicious troop train accident in our old home county of Bradley in Tennessee when a reb troop train had a deadly derailment near the small hamlet of McDonald.
The presence of Confederate sympathizers in the North and Union sympathizers in the South would suggest that the conflict was more a civil war and less a war between the states.
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