"To Your Post"

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Corps;

I have just completed a finalized report solicited from your After Action Reports (AAR) submitted from the Endview Plantation campaign. Your comments and concerns have been shared with the Corps Staff as well as the Staff at Endview in hopes of making next years event more enjoyable. Your comments and concerns are taken seriously by your commander and the Staff. As an example, due to the recent unfortunate fire incidents, the Staff has discussed these concerns and Major Nick Syropolos, as your Corps Safety Officer, has implemented a directive that no camp fires remain unattended and that an adequate supply of water be maintained near all campfires for emergency use.

I envision the responsiblity of this Staff as one to provide the rank and file the most enjoyable experience at each event while lending a hand to make that experience do Honor to his/her ancestors. To that end, much planning and preparation has gone into the scenarios for the 145th Gettysburg. Our focus has been to not only portray specific units for these scenarios, but to also enter the field of combat much as they did in July 1863. We will try to employ multiple routes to the battlefield which will call for great coordination between commands. Each soldier must be willing to follow commands without fail. commanders must be prepared to move when the order is given. Timing is everything.

I have served for more than twenty years with the men and women of Longstreet's Corps. I know the meddle of which you are made. No task is too difficult for you to accomplish. You consistently rise to the occasion - no matter what it is. To that end, I am asking each of you, in the days ahead - prior to the Gettysburg campaign - refresh your memories as to the accounts of the actions around Willoughby Run and McPherson's Ridge on the First Day. Remember the fight of Early's and Rhodes' Divisions at Cemetary Hill on the Second Day, as well as the struggle at the Klingle Farm and the Peach Orchard by Barksdale's Mississippians, and relive the hell of Armistead, Garnett, and Kemper as they assault the Federal line in what has become infamously known as Pickett's Charge on the Third Day.

From my own experiences, I have found that as you re-read accounts prior to a recreation of the event, you enhance your opportunities to experience what your ancestors must have felt as they experienced the actions first hand. You have a deeper respect and admiration for what they did. I challenge each of you now, make this Gettysburg the best of your re-enacting experience! "Up men, up and to your post!"


Maj. Gen'l. D. H. Cornett
Longstreet's Corps