Military Ranks and Drilling

We talked a lot about what daily life was like for a soldier, and one of the main things they did was DRILL! We watched this video showing how many steps were needed to load and fire a musket. You can see why drilling would be so necessary, especially for soldiers who had never handled firearms before!

I read about some of the drill commands (you know, things like "Forward, March!") here. Then I made everybody march around the yard with their muskets.

Ready, Aim, Fire!

I love this---Junie running to catch up :)

We also discussed the different divisions of the military, and various ranks that soldiers could achieve. This was all new to me, and the boys found it quite fascinating too. To help us understand how 2 platoons make a company, 2 companies make a battalion, 2 battalions make a regiment and so forth (we had a book that told us these things) we made an army with Hershey's Kisses and used different colors for the different officers. It was a good way to visualize what we were learning.

This site was also useful (it talks about ranks in the Civil War and shows the insignia for each; my children love stuff like this).