Buffalo Hunter's Camp: After action report.

[James Hunt]

Thanks to all who contributed their input on the lighting issue of what might have existed in that way in a buffalo hunter's camp circa 1879 lying outside of Miles city. At the end both the literature and period images did not suggest allot beyond the cook fire and the use of tallow - still an interesting question. So how did our camp go?

Moneray Jack Brass and I decided to use the Nationals as a chance to live for a couple of day's as a hunter of the northern herds would have. We gathered as much information from period literature and what period images were available and it was an interesting experience. So I figured and after action report would be good - sort of a debriefing.

Shelter: We had a single sheet of canvas about 10 x 10 stretched over a ridge pole that was supported by brush found and cut so that the ends were a splitting of the branch forming a Y. With this we simply sunk the opposite ends in the ground and hooked the Y end together with the ridge pole and tied together with hemp rope (period correct for the rope). This mimicked the type of camp we found in period images although we decided that the next time we would use hide - they probably would not have wasted the rope with that much green hide available. The structure roughly formed an A frame shelter but given the weather we lifted one side and supported it with sticks secured by ropes to the ground. The later made sense although we have no information that they did that. The shelter worked well, held up well, and was simple to construct.

Sleeping: I simply threw a hand woven wool saddle blanket on the ground, rolled up in my handwoven wool blanket and used my sack coat as a pillow. I was very comfortable. Brass, being the dandy that he is, had a bit nicer hand woven stuff he rolled up in, but basically was the same.

Diet: Brass was in charge of period food, and since he has CW reenactment experience galore, he came across in fine style with correct food. We always had water available from then pail or canteen. For immediate sustenance Brass had made corn pone (sp?) that tasted fine, simply was stored in a rag of some sort, and went into your gut and stayed there forever. We also had heavily salted pork. That and water was all we ate on Thursday eve and Friday throughout the day. I was not in the least bit hungry, it worked well and was satisfying. Because of fire restrictions we could not cook in front of our tent, all right, because in the period there were certainly times when they could not make fire. On Friday eve Derby Dan graciously offered there fire to cook on and we made the best of it. Potatoes, onions, and the pork - and buffalo flank steaks (OK it was really beef). Man was that good, really good. I mean downright tasty. There were no seasonings put into any of the cooking but we used cider viniger to add taste. The salt in the pork seemed very satisfying. And the meat was just downright tasty and tender with nothing on it. We ate well with food goods (outside of the meat which was meant to duplicate fresh killed buffalo) that could be hauled around for awhile and kept without refrigeration - the only thing we brought a cooler for was the meat and that stayed in our car until we were ready for it.

Coffee: to most of us this is a therapeutic requirement and deserves its own heading. Brass brought coffee beans which were pitched into a pail and boiled, and boiled. Then left for a bit, and reheated, etc. We drank it over a day ignoring anything floating in the pail. You need to know that this coffee could be classified with any catecholomine out there, I mean epinephrine and dopamine had nothing on this stuff. My systolic pressure never moved under 180 mmHg until Sunday morning. By mid day Friday I was looking for a large man to hit just to see what would happen. Man - that was some powerful, powerful stuff. My hands were shaking like mad throughout the shoot. Now with my short range firearms skill it made little difference but you gotta wonder what that would have done to my 200 yd rifle skills if I actually had to kill something to make a living. Sweetened with molasses it was an interesting beverage - but if these boy's actually drank this stuff they must have pretty much been hypertensive until stroke claimed them by age 50.

Clothing: Well, we weren't exactly poster children for Wah Maker. We probably looked pretty nasty. First of all we dressed Thursday nite and stayed in those cloths except for a shirt change on Saturday. We wore clothes appropriate for the period. I wore a medium to heavy weight wool pant and to be honest was comfortable. I was never really hot, and they were very comfortable to sleep in. My boots were low heel stove pipe with no vamp. Typical and comfortable. My socks were woven, and the shirts were of a cotton material, either machine sewn with hand sewn button holes or entirely hand sewn. They had period buttons and correct button placement on the cuffs. Period correct under drawers by brass, and I confess when I got there I could not get my pants buttoned over my under drawers - must have been all those holiday goodies but I gotta loose 15 pounds for sure.

Robes: What is a buffalo hunters camp without robes. Well we didn't have robes, but we both had coats so we threw them around as if they were robes.

Hunters Tools: We tried to put together the tools a hunter would have had. Of course the rifles, in this case three all Sharps. Two in .50 caliber and one in .45. I had managed to put together a small collection of skinning knives from the period. I. Wilson, etc. and two sharpening steels, one round and one straight sided. We also had an old hand turned sharpening stone which duplicated one from an image we had, and a period correct round, ribbed five pound BP can I found on ebay, and we used period firearm cleaning materials only, water, rags, and tallow (works wonderfully - not a spot of rust anywhere).

Conclusion: All the information we gathered worked. The camp, cooking, tools, etc. We were very satisfied with the experience. Improvement would be continuing to accumulate hunters tools. More skinning knives and the period containers covered with green hide that is so prevalent in period images and collections. Also, we need to provide period reloading tools and practice casting bullets over the fire (I have done round ball many a time - but getting a good bullet, interesting) and paper patching them by the light of the moon . Oh yes, what about lighting? We went to bed at dark and got up at light. I awoke once with a skunk next to my head and had to shoo him off - guess I'm glad I didn't surprise him with a flashlight ! Not sure how many copper heads slithered past in the night.

Thanks to all there who put up with such foolishness, and offered advice. It was a good time, and we look forward to doing better next year.

[Will Ketchum]

Jim, your camp look outstanding with the typical clutter of gear we seen in pictures of the hunting camps.  I fely kind of bad for you when your neighbor moved in with his modern nylon tent.   I kind of detracted from the impression but that certainly wasn't your fault.

Will Ketchum

['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

Mr Hunt – well done, your description of our 1st time outing in the buffalo camp was very good and accurate. To supplement your after action report, I am posting the following:

Regarding the coffee – yes, definitely was a couple of good batches of coffee and your outline of the effects is accurate – nothing like a caffeine buzz that would kill a 70 year old man. Grinding beans...!?!? Who needs it! The coffee is done when sufficiently boiled and the beans all sink to the bottom of the camp kettle or the bucket (depending on what we had available at the time) and when you could see the pronounced oil slick on the coffee's surface. Molasses wasn't required but sure helped.

For the sake of the chow situation, which was period correct and did not require refrigeration, here is a comprehensive overview of the larder we subsisted on for the week-end (with the exception of the faux buffalo steaks we had Friday evening), the quantities below were for both Mr Hunt and I and not individual ration quantities:

2 corn pones, made from 1862 recipe in the Richmond Examiner
1/2 small loaf of bread, Burghardt's heavy/hard type
1 pint dried whole green peas
3 salted/cured ham hock quarters
4 potatoes
4 onions
20 oz roasted coffee beans, whole
6 oz apple cider vinegar
12 oz black strap molasses
Big chunk o'lard
* Note – all rations were stored in original, period containers or wrapped in linen or cotton rags

Here is a picture of the camp (sans fire due to the fire restrictions)


YMH&OS,

'Monterrey' Jack Brass

[Fox Creek Kid]

Where's the buffler hides?  

[Dr. Bob]

FCK,

Duh, in the wagon where they belong, ready to take to the buyer!


By Friday afternoon, the camp looked well lived in!  I was impressed with the details and all that they had gathered in a short time!  Great job fellows!  The whiskey was PC for your station in life, but not suited to my palette!   Ask Brass for the details!

[Ottawa Creek Bill]

Here's the Old Buffler Hunter himself........ Uh and no...it didn't come out of the butcher collection and it has the right date on it.... 2007

OCB

[Dr. Bob]

Great image OCB!

[James Hunt]

WOW Bill that is a GREAT shot. Thanks for posting it, I saved it to my photo's folder. Thanks again. Jim

[Mick Archer]

  Howdy PArds!

  I knd of see, the ghostly spirit orb of the Great Buffalo he is talking to, too..   

  Buffalo Springfield

[Ottawa Creek Bill]

  Howdy PArds!

  I kind of see, the ghostly spirit orb of the Great Buffalo he is talking to, too..   

  Buffalo Springfield

Mick........No....., that's just the reflection of the sun going down in the west in those Kentucky hills we love so much.....

Bill

[James Hunt]

I do appreciate that photo Bill. And of course since God made photoshop for us to fool around with, why not look at a little sepia tone to get a sense of a period image.

[River City John]

You must have been pretty far from the herd else that good grass would have been cropped. . .


Looks great, James!

[Dutch Limbach]

This must be the picture Mick Archer is referring too.

[James Hunt]

RCJ: we picked that site so's the horses wouldn't drift far over night.

Dutch: Great work there, it reminds me of one of those silk screens they sell out in front of the Shell Mart - or as they say in Kentucky the shellmer: "turn left at the shellmer cause it'll take ya'll to Mckee". Not knowing what a shellmer was it took us another hour to get to Mckee. To all you southerners its Shellmaaarrrrrtttttt. We drove all over creation and never found a shellmer to turn left at.

You know the image I posted shows up on the explorer browser but not if you are using a firefox browser - another Bill Gates mystery.

[Mick Archer]

  Howdy Pards!

  Thank 'e, Dutch!
  That was it!!
   

   Mick Archer

[Black River Smith]

James and Monterrey,

I looks good.  Sounds like you didn't miss anything in your efforts.  Sorry I missed seeing it.

[gw]

Having camped with these "buffler runners" the better part of the week, I will attest to their abilities and capabilities to provide a picturesque buffalo camp setting that was appreciated by all who saw it. I will hold them responsible however, for some lack of sleep on my part as I awoke several times to the sound of thundering hoofbeats as "the herd" passed close-by in the night! Perhaps a cup of MJB's whole bean coffee just before bedtime  would have soothed my nerves.

[James Hunt]

Thanks for the kind words GW, I also heard the thundering herd the sound of which was probably enhanced by drinking MJB's coffee and as you know they appeared to be a mite smaller, on the order of a family of coons and some feral cats .

['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

GW - In hindsight, it was a good thing that Mr Hunt and I were not able to have our own fire. Spending time with you, Derby Don and the rest of the Modoc crew at Hooten was excellent. Looking forward to seeing you guys in Indiana a bit later this year.

'Monterrey' J. Brass

[Ottawa Creek Bill]

Well.....
You boys have inspired me to get back into primitive camping. So at our clubs eastern regional we're going to set up a primitive camp for the weekend....can't wait!! See you all this (oooops...next Sunday) Sunday at our regular shoot...and GW, don't forget to bring that Richards.

Bill