8th Annual Civil War Weekend at the Grange
Sayville, NY
September 16 - 18, 2016
Our 8th time was another dry one thanks to Mother Nature. On the Friday night, the Friends of the Grange showed another outdoor movie, this time playing Gods & Generals. And thanks to another generous donation from the John C. Dunphy Foundation we generously invited our usual partners to the Grange including Co. H, 14th Brooklyn, the 10th New York Cavalry, the 9th Virginia, the 30th Virginia, the Sons & and Daughters of Union Veterans, Confederate General A.P. Hill played by local Patrick Falciand, Mary Nagin & Vince Bruno who played period music on Sunday. Healthy and eager this year, the 6th New York Independent Battery returned to deliver a thundering soundtrack to the festivities. Unfortunately, illness took out our Sutler, the Florance Drum Company however we had a new addition to the mix, a period photographer from upstate New York, Mark C. Richards, who was busy all weekend creating tintypes.
Sadly, this was our first Grange event without two key fixtures, Surgeon Bob Tycenski of Co. H, 14th Brooklyn and our own Tom Crowley, the master cinematographer that captured our Grange events on video. We carried on just as the real soldiers did when they lost their comrades in battle yet they were sorely missed. It was more than appropriate that on this occasion we ceremonially burned our National colors that we have flown for near two decades on Saturday evening. As per custom, we built a special fire, gathered round, shared shreds of the cloth and then we each took turns dropping the fragments into the flames dedicating it to someone special in their lives. Bob & Tom... along with John, Jerald, and Brian, were certainly mentioned.
