Blast From The Past

 I just stumbled upon this clipping from a July 1977 issue of the Montreal Gazette.

Hard to believe but some of these Heritage pikemen still march on my table under the banners of the Midlands on the Gathering of Hosts blog.

One of my first (and possibly the last) appearance in a major newspaper. I had graduated from the College Militaire Royale de Saint Jean in May and been assigned to the HMCS Ottawa in Halifax for on job training before heading to the West Coast to finish my training. However, I also had leave and came home to visit my parents in St. Lambert, across the river from Montreal. While I was there, the Montreal Wargames club, of which I had been a a member, (The club itself and some of its original members are still active.)  was taking part in an exhibition of hobbies etc over the summer. Since I was there, I volunteered to do a shift and thus had my first interview with a professional reporter from the Montreal Gazette. 

 

Ever since I read the distorted, inaccurate, supposed quotations, (not to mention the misspelled name,,,)
I have given less weight to newspapers! 

Now The Battle's Lost and Won (Incomplete Post Now completed..... Ooops!)

It was a cold January day in Acadia, the festivities were over when word came of an English column marching towards Belmont. The church bells began ringing and the women, children and old folks headed for the woods, carrying supplies and driving what livestock they could manage and a messenger sent to the local Mi’kmaq camp to ask for their support. Before long the beat of the British drums could be heard.

At last the British columns came into view along the snow covered road while rangers could be seen flitting through the woods and on the hills. 

    

The Acadians watched the British battalions deploy and advance towards the village and listened to the sporadic fire from the woods. Soon the Acadians, supported by some Compagnie franches from Canada, joined the battle as the Royal Americans and a battalion of provincials advanced. 

The 60th suffered heavy casualties and was forced to fallback having done little harm to the Compagnie franches in the stone church, but the provincials halted and kept up a heavy fire.

As the Acadians began to suffer casualties, they turned and retreated despite the Priest's admonishments.

The Provincials pursued but the Acadians rallied behind another stone wall and the Provincials stopped to pour another volley into them before crossing the wall and preparing to charge. 

As the Provincials advanced across the open field, a deadly stream of fire came from the Acadians in front of them, but another hail of bullets also poured into them from the flank.  Compagnies franches and Mi'kmaq warriors had moved into position to support the Acadian militia.

Their Colonel ordered a charge, but he was shot down and seeing that the 60th foot had broken, they voted to carry their commander to safety. 

Day By Day

 Despite several hours of cracking and removing 1"+thick hunks of ice today, I managed 1 turn.

Hopefully tomorrow will include an hour of downtime to allow me to finish the game.