Battle for the MS Texas Hospital is quickly approaching, and the citizens of Clarke County will be able to start enjoying the multiple events for the weekend on Friday, February 19.
“Reenactors will be coming in on Friday night, and we’re going to go to Chefski’s,” stated Jerry Mason, event organizer. “You’ll see the reenactors in period clothing, we’re going to have a period band, and there will be dancing. Everyone else is invited to come and see the dancing.”
There are more events planned starting up Saturday morning. The group will begin at the park with revelry before heading to a ceremony on the courthouse lawn that is set to begin at 9:00 a.m.
“We’re going to start out at 9:00 at the courthouse for a memorial celebration and gun salute, and then we’ll march to Quitman’s Confederate Cemetery,” said Mason. “There will be a ceremony there, and then we will go back to the park.”
Once the group returns to Archusa Creek Memorial Park, they will begin the big pageant. There are still available spots for anyone who would like to participate in this year’s Battle for the Texas Hospital pageant.
“Once we get to the park, there’s going to be a Battle for the Texas Hospital pageant. We’ll have the missus, the miss, the junior miss, and the teenager for the battle,” explained Mason. “They’ll be crowned at 1:00 and will preside over the battle at 2:00.”
There will be various vendors on the location and sellers that sell the period clothing.
The battle itself will take place at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 20 after the pageant.
The fun doesn’t stop when the battle is over, though. There will be a ball that night that the community is welcome to attend.
“Later that night, there will be a period dance ball for the reenactors and anybody else that wants to show up to come to it,” stated Mason. “It’d be dancing from that period dance. You don’t have to be a great dancer to do it. It’s easy to do, and you just follow the steps of everybody else.”
Between 7:00-8:00, anyone watching will have the privilege of seeing night firing of the cannons.
“That’s something really neat to watch,” said Mason. “It’s really neat to see the cannons going off and shooting those flames out.”
On Sunday, February 21, the group will start with a church service at 10:00 a.m. and have another battle at 2:00 p.m.
Last year the battle started up again for the first time in years and had a great response. Thanks to that great response, it has grown even more this year.
“Last year we had 200 reenactors. We may go up to 300-400 reenactors,” expressed Mason. “We’re going to have at least eight cannons out on the field—four on each side. That would be something different that we haven’t had in a while, so it’s going to be a really smoky and cool battle.”
Everyone in the community is invited to attend these events and watch history played out live. Citizens are able to visit the different campsites and talk to the reenactors and see how they would have lived in the time period.
