Bucktail Reunion Today

Bucktail Thomas Kane

The annual Bucktail Reunion continues through Sunday in Driftwood.

This celebration of the region's unique Civil War heritage is being highlighted by a performance by the worldrenowned 2nd South Carolina String Band on Saturday night, starting at 7:30.

The band is well known for

its performance of authentic

Misty Travis Photos

Civil War music, played on 19th century period instruments. Its songs are filled with the language, slang, and experiences of the common man.

On Saturday morning at 10:00, re-enactors from the region's Bucktail Civil War Regiment will gather at the prominent Bucktail Monument to mark the 100th anniversary of the marker's arrival in 1906. St. Marys School Superintendent Murray Neeper will be the featured speaker.

The reunion concludes on Sunday at the Grant Cemetery along Rt. 555 with a rededication of the memorial for George W. English, from Company G of the 13th Reserves.

Games and vendor booths will also be operating. All activities, including the concert, are free and open to the public; lawn chairs are recommended.

Much has been written about the colorful 42nd Regiment, 13th Reserves, the First Rifles of the Pennsylvania Reserves. They were sometimes referred to as the Bucktailed Wildcats.

Their skill as marksmen and frontier background gave them an advantage on the battlefield as soldiers in the Army of the Potomac.

General Thomas L. Kane assembled the regiment of volunteers from the northwestern Pennsylvania

Wildcat District," which had no specific boundaries. John A. Eldred recruited men in Emporium at a hotel. Soldiers attached the tail of a whitetailed deer to the back of their hats, demonstrating marksmanship and pride in the regiment.

For more details on the Bucktails Reunion, contact Chuck Copello, captain of Company K, 1st Rifles, by email at chuckcopello@webtv.net.