Military Through the Ages (MTA) this year (Mar 18-20, 2016) was a busy event for the 95th Rifles 1st Battalion. There were over 2900 visitors on Saturday and a total of 4500 for the entire weekend. This traffic kept the four riflemen, John Dittamo, Bill Goumas, Rich Miller and Jim Tate very busy answering questions. Using wooden rifles we could train these visitors in our manual of arms. We almost completely used up our supply of recruiting brochures. A new supply will be ordered.

In addition to camp activities, we conducted a demonstration of the loading procedure and firing of the Baker rifle. John Dittamo gave a demonstration of the whistle calls for the skirmish drill. One problem we found was that having a small group of demonstrators makes it important that all rifles have been test fired. We need to find a way to test fire the rifles before the demonstration.

Our friends, 3me Regiment d’Ligne, camped next to us and provided camp fire meals for us. Everyone enjoyed our company dinner at the King’s Arms Tavern in Colonial Williamsburg on Saturday night. This dinner was arranged by Billy and Donna Colwell and our thanks go out to them for a wonderful evening.

The plans for next year’s MTA are underway. One possible idea is to set up the camp as a picket outpost at the bridge at Barba del Puerco on March 19, 1810. In this engagement, four companies of the 1/95th held off an assault of 600 picked French troops with a reserve of 1,500. More information on this idea or others will follow on the website discussion page.

Photos of MTA were posted on Facebook by Bill Goumas. More photos taken by Jim Tate and Erika Louis Onsager (3me Regiment d’Ligne) will be posted on this website.

The weather in Virginia in March can be fickle and this year was no exception. Although we had clear sky and mild temperatures on Saturday, the rain started at 2 PM on Sunday and continued intermittently the rest of the day. Yes, we packed up wet canvas.