How many Yankees does it take to have a battle? (Or Tarboro's Battle of the Town Commons)

All in all, Saturday was a good day at Tarboro. For the third year, my shipmates and I from the Ship's Company of the Roanoke set up living history displays describing and demostrating things such as small arms, ropework, torpedoes and navigation. Our shipmate, Gary Riggs, set up a Confederate army hospital complete with amputations and the like (another shipmate likes to call him "Granny Grossout"). Our justification for potraying CSN sailors here was that an "Albemarle" class ironclad was being built here and was burned in the stocks before she was afloat. In terms of specators, we feel that we probably engaged well over 1500 people which kept us very busy throughout the day. For the most part, the event was ok even when taking into account an 18th century to early 19th century vessel being berthed beside us and 1870's Buffalo Soldiers camped across the green from our displays, both being the only non-civil war setups at our location (the latter done to placate the local town council who were afraid of a racial backlash). The only thing that disturbed me was a skirmish (and I use this word loosely) at our location that involved too much Confederate artillery (Note: I know all the units and consider them all friends. This should not be taken as an affront to them!) and too little Union calvary. If you don't have the proper mix of troops and the proper numbers to make it look at least somewhat realistic, just don't do it. Call it a demonstration not a "skirmish". Another issue involved too little preparation in terms of safety (no barriers whatsoever). My compatriot, Andrew, and I were trying our best to keep people out of harms way from our side of the commons but sometimes folks just don't understand that horses will hurt you and cannons are loud and will deafen you! I think that this year grew so much from the previous years that they were not prepared for the logistics. Hopefully, next year will be better.