Camp Floyd: Adults can journey to the past with the children

FAIRFIELD — "I think we were born at the right time," said Gayle Warren of Lehi after she and her son tried their hand at loading and firing the heavy war muskets at Camp Floyd's recent campout. Warren was surprised at how heavy the guns were.

"I can't imagine shooting it (the musket) in battle and having to aim it," Warren said. "It had a pretty good kick to it."

Warren also noted the patience it must have required to reload after every shot.

She and her 10-year-old son James were two of the "recruits" gathered in Fairfield to relive the time just prior to the start of the Civil War when Johnston's Army occupied the area.

It was the first adult camp the park has ever held, and the first overnighter, said Sgt. Jared Pedrosa, a re-enactment soldier from Eagle Mountain, although the staff has held three, three-day youth camps this summer and is considering hosting a Boy Scout camp. Under the direction of park ranger Mark Trotter, the camps bring to life as accurately as possible the life of a Union soldier during the period.

Wearing heavy, dark blue, cotton uniform jackets and a military cap, the "soldiers" at the first Camp Floyd adult army camp held recently got to learn how to march and present arms Civil War style. (Decked out in full uniform, Pedrosa noted that the woolen jacket stayed warm, even when wet, but also attracts critters. Lice and fleas like to nest in the wool, he said.)

They also learned to churn butter and make adobe bricks. They made hand-dipped wax candles and rolled their own cartridges. The cartridges were filled with tissue paper instead of real bullets, but the black powder was real.

Each made three cartridges and learned to load and fire them in long guns.

The "recruits" arrived on a Friday night to begin their Civil War experience and dined on cavalry chowder and peach cobbler.

Then they put up tents, including two Sibley tents that look much like a teepee. Most of the participants slept in a Sibley tent, rather than in the smaller tents that were scattered nearby.

Many of the participants were parents and their children.

"My son is a war buff," Mary Thomson of Bountiful said.

She and her husband, Tucker Thomson, brought son Iaian, 8, because "they didn't have any World War II camps."

They learned of the Civil War camp from a pamphlet at Fort Douglas.

"I love guns," Iaian Thomson said. "They're awesome."

Jared Orton of Spanish Fork brought his daughter, Jennica, 9, and son, Devin, 11. Both children said they enjoyed the camp, but Jennica particularly liked shooting the gun.

The start of the Civil War marked the end of Camp Floyd and the return to the east of Union soldiers sent to quell a Mormon "uprising."