History Lovers, Join the Ranks of “Reenactor Central”

With other online reenactor groups coming and going on the social network scene, I was asked to create a group myself, for reenactors and historians to network. While I am not currently a hardcore reenactor, nor do I pretend to be, I agreed to administrate a group only if someone else would create it. Last week, Jake Kessel, Ryan Townsend, and myself launched Reenactor Central on Facebook, which is a spinoff of other groups that had issues and kinks of their own. Jake and Ryan are both younger than me, and we have members who are veterans and many years older, showing how people of all ages can embrace American history. Make no mistake, though our focus is primarily for those in the field, you do not have to be a historian or reenactor to join—anyone with a love of history is welcome!

Because we have many different people, spanning both north and south, east and west, the news feed is loaded with upcoming events and the best places to buy and sell equipment and souvenirs. Have a question about history that you cannot find online? Ask it here, and you will immediately receive an answer from an expert. Many of our members have been practicing their trade for decades, and some have even written books and appeared in movies (one was even in Gettysburg and Gods and Generals…take a guess at who that is!). We have people representing the American Civil War and Revolution, and even more obscure events such as the Texas Revolution and French and Indian War. Pretty soon, we will encompass all aspects of history, which is our main goal.

We have only one simple rule, and that is for people to engage in discussions and debates in a civilized and respectful manner. If you can abide by that, you will see that we have a nice community here, that is only going to get better and larger. Our mission statement is also rather simple: “Remembering the past, preparing for the future.” Without past events, there would be no reason for reenactors, so we acknowledge that those who came before us and gave their lives for what they believed in, regardless of whether or not we believe in their cause, should be remembered and respected. We must also prepare for the future, so that other generations will fall in love with history the way we have, and pass the torch onto others. That is the only way our history will survive, and we are here to do our best to help out.

Please click here to join, and also, spread the word to those who you think may be interested!

Interview with Historian, Author, and Painter Gary Zaboly

Gary Zaboly’s masterwork on Rogers’ Rangers.

I first came into contact with Gary Zaboly through others in the tightly knit Alamo history community, that includes another interviewee, Al Bouler, who in this highly talked about interview, discussed what it was like being a historian and impersonator of David Crockett. Zaboly, on the other hand, has focused his energies differently, which includes writing a book on a much-forgotten, and unfortunately so, chapter of early America history, and that is Major Robert Rogers and his unit of Rangers that fought in the French and Indian War and helped to tame life on the wild and rugged 18th century frontier.

There are few historians who can match the expertise on this subject than Zaboly can, who has written a massive coffee-table size book titled, “A True Ranger: The Life and Many Wars of Major Robert Rogers”. Zaboly is also a painter, who has illustrated scenes of Rogers and also Texas history, for other magazines and books as he is an avid Alamo buff as well. He also tends to comment on my Facebook when I post something about movies, and I guess you can say he is an expert of sorts on classic films. I asked him about his historical passions and much more in our interview below:

GC: Osprey Publishing has referred to you as a “highly regarded expert on 18th century Rangers”. Where did this interest develop from, and how long have you been studying history?

GZ: My interest in early American frontier history developed in my pre-school days, primarily from all the B Westerns on TV at the time, and then of course from Disney’s Davy Crockett series in 1954-55. From that point on I was hooked, and almost everything dealing with the subject—from illustrated books to motion pictures—captured my attention and stoked my curiosity. Over the years I began to study the subject more deeply, my emphasis focusing on such particular areas as the Alamo, Rogers’ Rangers, the French and Indian War, the Revolution, and Custer’s Last Stand. But when it came to dealing with colonial frontier history in the 1750s-60s, most of the available publications seemed to be largely bereft of the nitty-gritty details I hungered for, and so over the succeeding decades I personally rummaged through libraries and archives to find answers to the many questions I had. Being an illustrator, this was a doubly important task to fulfill. Transferring my eventual piles of research notes and images to organized binders and reference files proved to be a boon to both my writing and my artwork. I’ve written scores of articles related to the above mentioned subjects, and a few books, and illustrated many more; hence my reputation, such as it is, as an “expert.” But I can only claim expertise as far as my research—and my interpretation of same—has taken me. Sometimes what we think we know to be true is true only as far as research has taken us. It’s unfortunate that a single life is really too short in which to do all the research that’s necessary to arrive at the answers to so many nagging questions.

GC: Having seen the 1940 film “Northwest Passage”, with Spencer Tracy, which is a story of Major Robert Rogers, the foremost Ranger, what is your opinion on the film, and how accurate is it?

GZ: Northwest Passage essentially got me started on the subject of Rogers’ Rangers. I’d first seen the Northwest Passage TV series of 1958, but it only had a minimal impact on my boy’s mind at the time. About five years later the MGM movie version was shown on local TV, and it proved a watershed viewing for me: it was an entirely new, entirely different type of frontier history. I soon sought out the novel by Kenneth Roberts, and fortunately it appeared that year (1963) in paperback for the first time, published by Crest Books. It proved even more thrilling and inspiring than the film, and I’ve probably read it seven times again since then. As history, the film, like all Hollywood films, is inaccurate from many standpoints: in terms of the uniforms, the layout of the village of St. Francis, and much of the history itself. But when it comes to conveying an idea of the raw wilderness conditions Rogers’ men had to endure on that expedition, it succeeds very well. Even though filmed in Payette National Forest in Idaho, Northwest Passage did manage to credibly depict the rangers’ march through the swamps and rugged hills of southern Quebec, northern Vermont and northern New Hampshire, not to mention their voyage by whaleboat up Lake Champlain in northern New York. In 1759 those regions were just as barren and devoid of human habitation as shown in the film: a virtual no-man’s wilderness land. One of the ironies of 1940′s Northwest Passage is that it paints Major Robert Rogers as something of a racist. Nothing could be further from the truth. The real Rogers learned much of his craft from early, friendly contact with the Indians of New Hampshire, and he dealt fairly with the Mahicans and Mohawks and other English-allied Native Americans during the French and Indian War. When he became the British commandant of the integral British frontier trading post of Fort Michilimackinac in 1766, he was dubbed “the Good Father” by the local tribes because unlike his predecessors, he knew how to treat them with kindness and fairness.

GC: You are also an accomplished painter, and have illustrated scenes not only of the Rangers, but the Alamo and Texas Revolution as well. How long have you been painting and what is your favorite aspect of the Texas Revolution?

GZ: I’ve been illustrating books and articles relating to American history since the early 1970s. The Alamo continues as my major subject area of the Texas Revolution not only because it’s a hugely dramatic event, but also because so much about it remains a mystery, and much research and dissection remains to be done. The amount of progress, knowledge-wise, that’s been done on this subject over the past 50 years has been considerable, yet so much is still unknown, or blighted by long-held misconceptions.

Zaboly’s painting of Colonel Travis and Alamo lore, a piece purchased by congressman Charlie Wilson in 1989.

GC: Tell us about your book, “A True Ranger: The Life and Many Wars of Major Robert Rogers”.

GZ: It’s the comprehensive biography of Robert Rogers that I always wanted to read but could never find. It’s very long, and fully footnoted and sourced, and it contains tons of information about Rogers that I had collected over the years, virtually all of it highly fascinating (to me anyway), and much of it new in terms of the scholarship. I think I wrote it mainly for other historians, not necessarily for the public at large, although I consider it readable for anyone. The book begins with Rogers being sprung from a New York City debtor’s jail cell by Highland troops and soldiers of the Royal American Regiment, which exemplifies how popular he was among even the British regular rank and file. But he had enemies in certain high places, and much of the book deals with the machinations they contrived in order to destroy him. Of course the book’s main concern is how Rogers transformed a motley collection of independent colonial ranger companies into a full-fledged, effective corps of rangers, and the skirmishes and battles they won, or lost. It also underscores his Ranger legacy, and how so much of his famous Special Forces “Rules” remain as viable and important today as they did in the 1750s.

GC: Whenever I post a link or picture of a classic movie on Facebook, you always seem to have your two cents about it. What is your favorite movie, and who are your favorite directors/actors/actresses?

GZ: Oh, I’m a big movie lover. I have my personal favorites, most of them historical in nature (1952′s The Big Sky, 1955′s The Last Command, the aforementioned Northwest Passage, 1960′s The Alamo, 1939′s Drums Along the Mohawk, and so on), but also high on my list are Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Citizen Kane, and such odd numbers as Inside Movies. I’ve long been a student of film history, and since teenage days have collected many classic films, of both the silent and sound eras. Director-wise, I’ve always especially loved [D.W] Griffith and [John] Ford. Actor-wise it’s a tough call, but high on my list are John Wayne, Steve McQueen and Charlton Heston. Actress-wise, there’s a wide range of names that come to mind: from Jean Arthur to Loretta Young to Ida Lupino to Anne Archer to Zooey Deschanel—the list is long!

GC: Lastly, I ask this to every historian I interview: why is it so important to keep the past alive?

GZ: Our past is our present; our present is our future. All of it is vitally, inextricably connected, and the more we know about where we came from, the better equipped we’ll be to deal with the challenges of the future. So much national conflict today arises from the fact that history ain’t taught a damn in our schools anymore. Also, even fiction can’t compete with the sheer drama, action, mystery, and color you can find in history. Which is why so much fiction is drawn from history.

I want to thank Mr. Zaboly for taking the time to conduct this interview, and also want to point out two things that are becoming redundant in each of the three interviews I have conducted with a historian on this site. First, for the two “Alamo buffs”, both were drawn into history, largely in part due to Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett. And secondly, both Gary and Kurt Epps, who I interviewed here, both point out the unfortunate truth that history is not being taught as it should in our school systems today. This is a sad truth that I can only hope will be corrected one day.

Movie Review: The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory (1987)

As an Alamo buff, I own this gem (note the sarcasm) on VHS, but had not seen it in years. Thankfully, one of my former history professors was kind enough to send me a text message, alerting me that it was on Encore Westerns last night. As flawed as the film is, because it has to do with the Alamo, I watched it in its entirety on TV, and Encore showed the entire thing, commercial free.

The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory was made as a mini-series on NBC back in 1987, clocking in at nearly three hours, depending on the cut you see. There is so much good in this movie, but far, far more bad. The set they used for the Alamo compound and town of San Antonio was the same set that John Wayne built for his film, The Alamo, back in 1960, in Bracketville, Texas.

Not only did they steal the scenery, but battle footage as well. Whenever there were shots of large numbers of Mexican troops marching, it was lifted from The Last Command, from 1955. For the final battle scene, part of the main charge were also stolen from that movie, and spliced it with footage actually shot by the director Burt Kennedy. Only problem with this, is that the walls of the Alamo in The Last Command were a dark tan and made of bricks, while the set used in this film was a clear, smooth white. The director made no effort to hide it, so if you have seen both movies like I have, it’s a laughable error.

When it comes to the actors, you can say this little epic had an all-star cast. Brian Keith played Davy Crockett, James Arness was Jim Bowie, and the up-and-coming Alec Baldwin was William Barrett Travis. Raul Julia and David Ogden Stiers also made their way into the film, and I must admit, with as bad a dialogue as the writers of this film gave Julia, he made the best of it, and delivered a great performance.

But even with the all-star actors involved, they were horrible mis-cast. Brian Keith was 66 at the time, and was supposed to be playing a 49 year old Crockett. He did a good a job as he could, and being how old he really was, made it seem like he was even more wiser, and had more experience when he was telling stories. But all his charm could not save him from looking completely out of place.

Jim Bowie, on the other hand, was 40 years old at the time of the Alamo, and was being played by a 64 year old Arness. As usual, he delivered a gritty, convincing role, which was good for entertainment purposes. But as for historical accuracy, what a botched job it was.

Lorne Greene also makes a cameo appearance as Sam Houston. This one scene, would probably be the most embarrassing of his film career. He looks ancient in the role, and when he speaks, he is emotionless. Let me stop there.

As my professor Jeff Huber said, “It was amazing that it took the Mexican army an entire thirteen days to beat the geriatric brigade.”

The only actor who was not out of place was Alec Baldwin, who actually bore a resemblance to the real Travis and was close enough in age.

When it came time for the actual battle, scenes of the charge were lifted from The Last Command, as mentioned above, but the parts that were actually filmed were just downright terrible. The rifles they fired sounded like cap guns and not one cannon ever recoiled after a shot.

The most ridiculous part, though, was the Travis’ last stand. He chose to stand on top of a well, and throughout the battle, we see the same exact scene three times: he fires his pistol, killing one soldier, and stabbing another with a sword. The director made no effort to even make the scene look real, and not once do we ever see him reload. When Travis finally does die, the bayonet that kills him conveniently stabs him underneath a flap in the jacket, so we never see any blood.

Speaking of bayonets, every time a soldier was running with his rifle, you could tell they were rubber because they kept flapping in the breeze. In one scene, where a Texan is stabbed from the side, you can clearly see it bend once it touched the side of his chest, right there on-screen, with no effort to hide it, as if the director was trying to insult our intelligence.

For educational purposes, I suppose this film can be used, if shown and explained in the right way. The film does accurately depict the fate of the women and children in the Alamo as well as Travis’ slave, Joe. It is, to date, the only Alamo film to get that right.

However, when it comes to dealing with Santa Anna and his staff, it depicts the general as a fearless warrior patriot with inept officers. In reality, it was the other way around. Santa Anna was the stubborn one, and his generals, such as Manuel Castrillion (not depicted in this film) tried to persuade him not to attack, and then to take prisoners when they did. Both requests which Santa Anna denied.

For my final rating, I will give this film a 5 out of 10, because it shows many things that other Alamo films have ignored, such as Colonel Fannin at Goliad, the fate of the survivors, a soldier asking to leave after Travis drew the line in the sand, and actual showing advanced dialogue between Santa Anna and his generals, even as ridiculous as some of his statements were.

This film is not available on DVD, nor should it be. There are copies on VHS that some people are selling on Ebay. If you love history, and love the Alamo, it is worth a watch, if you can get it for the right price. After you have seen it once, watch it again and make fun of all the errors; it really is a good time. Also, check your listings if you have digital cable, because it will be airing on certain channels in the next few weeks.