Nottinghamshire Shooters Take on the Confederates

Notts. and Derbys. Vintage Arms Society
versus
34th Battalion Virginia Cavalry
of the North/South Skirmish Association of America (NSSA)
October 2014

By Michael Hunting, NADVAS Team Captain

OK so it's October 2014 and therefore 149 years after the end of the American Civil War but the woodland range of the Notts and Derbys. Vintage Arms Society was filled with smoke and gunfire as the rifles of the Club's Enfield Team rang out in a video "postal match" against a team from the 34th Battalion Virginia Cavalry. This unit was a famous Confederate group of "hard core" fighters, described at the time as "a motley troop of reckless riders – the most dare-devil looking ragamuffins I have ever seen". Also known as Witcher's Nighthawks, after their noted Commanding Officer, Colonel Witcher, they took part in many battles from 1861 to 1865. They were mounted infantry: I guess we'd refer to them as dragoons. Historical information shows that they were armed with an assortment of rifles but mainly Mississippis, Richmonds and Enfields.

Fortunately for us we were not engaged in actual combat with the original members of this famous unit. What we were involved in was a match against the current 34th Battalion Virginia Cavalry, who are part of the North South Skirmish Association of America (NSSA). Many of the current members are descendants of original soldiers of the 34th Battalion and are proud to keep the tradition of their forefathers as being sharpshooters who are to be reckoned with.

The competition consisted of a team of 6 shooters using rifles of a type in common use during the Civil War, with 13 shots (best 10 to count) fired at a paper target produced by the NSSA, at 100yds in 30 minutes.

Our Confederate friends completed their side of the match at one of their Skirmish Shoots, in Virginia. They took a film and stills record to swap with us. Likewise we filmed our shoot with a "welcome and meet the team" slot, followed by a "watch us fire" element and finally "observe the scoring" process.

Watch our video by following this link, and their video by following this link

The result:— We won with a team score of 551.11 to the Confederates score of 532.5.

It was a close run thing. In my opinion everyone who took part was a winner because we really enjoyed the team ethos and the fact that this was, in its own way, an historic match against a really nice bunch of people. We have offered them a return match and also opened up the challenge to any other unit in the NSSA be they Blue or Gray.

I really recommend matches such as this because they encourage team participation, raise the standard of shooting, enable us to "meet" like-minded people and do wonders for the morale of those who take part.