The Battle of the Crater

This is my entry in the 2023 Literotica Geek Pride event.

I Am Amanda Watson

Yes, that is a reference to Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons. However, I am not fond of Wolfe's overly complex and improbable plot. Nor can I identify with his -- somewhat annoying? silly? -- heroine Charlotte. I've had some problems, but I would never put up with most of the things that she did.

By the summer of 2017, I was twenty and I had finished my sophomore year at the University of Maryland at College Park, MD, just north of Washington, DC.

Just to be clear at the start: I use the words girl, woman, lady, and even chick and female pretty much interchangeably. I'm not dogmatic about such things. However, please don't call us something like a "piece of tail." No one has ever called me that, but I've heard guys use it. I know it's supposed to be jocular -- maybe -- but, just give it a rest.

I'm not the complaining type, but there was something on my mind that had been bothering me for a while. Look, I don't know what my IQ is and even if I did, I wouldn't brag about it.

But perhaps I am smarter than most people; that's just the way I am. I definitely have a wide variety of interests, some of them a bit esoteric. And I know a lot of details about topics that otherwise seem rather straightforward.

So why was that a problem? Well, it did hamper my ability to socialize with people my own age, both male and female -- even at a university. I did not try to show off or otherwise make a big deal out of it.

But sometimes, maybe a lot of times, I couldn't help myself, and I'd go off on a tangent that left people baffled. I tried to be sociable; I'm not shy, but I'm sort of low-key perhaps.

My traits had certainly hampered my dating prospects. In fact, I'd never had a boyfriend of any kind. I'll have more about dating in a moment.

I partially compensated for that issue the year before by taking on a female lover, a fellow student named Lucy Kossoff. Yes, I am bisexual. Hey, I suppose that is one thing about me that makes me hip!

Lucy is a short, plump girl with dark-blonde hair. She is from Elsmere, DE, a suburb of Wilmington, and thus she lived in a dorm when the school was in session. We have certainly had some hot times together. And yes, she's bisexual too. How did we find each other? And yet . . .

It's not the 19th Century or even the 1950's, so I was not looking for a husband yet. I was merely looking for a guy who understood what I was talking about. I'd still have Lucy in my life, although perhaps I'd keep both of them in the dark about each other. Would she get jealous? I had no idea.

So it sounds so simple but it really was not. I was not expecting a soulmate -- there is no such thing -- merely someone I liked being around. That is probably the closest thing to true love that we can get in this world.

You may have heard how picky college girls have become recently, and there is a lot of truth in that. Also, hook-up culture is very real and although it's not universally practiced, it's quite pervasive and hard to avoid at schools.

For both males and females on campus, college is "party time," which means, among things, getting laid -- a lot. That can result in some contradictions for the girls, who want to walk a line between being cool and not appearing too loose.

Some of them handled it by thinking that acts like oral sex, one-night stands, and even friends-with-benefits arrangements "don't count." They could fool themselves about what their true "body count" was.

It was strange to hear that term because originally it was used by the American army in Vietnam to count dead "enemies." If a few luckless civilians got caught in the crossfire, they were counted too.

That was a good example of how I could lose my audience. I might casually mention the irony of the new meaning of body count. My remark would go right over their heads or they just wouldn't care. That war was nearly sixty years ago, so it was irrelevant to them.

Anyway, I'm not a judgmental person. I like that old joke that "a slut is someone who has more sex than you do." Yet, I have heard some of my classmates admit, usually when they were drunk, what their true body counts were and the numbers could be astounding.

One girl, a sophomore like me, had a count of fifty-six. Another, a junior, had seventy-four. And since they were both sloshed when they told me about it, they claimed to be proud of their accomplishments. I was imagining all of the first one's paramours filling a city bus, and those of the second filling a car on the Washington Metro.

I didn't say it, of course, but I found their tales to be a combination of funny and really strange. I never heard the numbers from any of the men. And for some people, the party years went well beyond college.

With my body count of zero, at least with males, my dating life had mostly been a comedy of errors. It is true that almost any woman can seduce almost any man merely by offering herself to him. That may be part of our evolutionary heritage. But who would really want to experience the results of that?

I got a hint of what it might be like because I was on Tinder and then Bumble for a couple of months, and briefly on both at the same time. Thus it seems good for women because they are so outnumbered by the men. That's why some chicks find those apps so addictive.

True, I did get a huge amount of attention while on those things. Just having my female face available for viewing was enough. Tinder allows for nine photos, but I only had two: my face, and a full-body shot of me in jeans.

But my God, the inanity of the interactions on those apps was amazing. I had trouble believing that all of those guys could be that shallow and stupid, or perhaps they were mostly faking it because they felt they had to.

Once in a while, somebody would be so outrageous that I would play a little game with him. There was one, when he reached about his third reply, who suddenly said, "What kind of panties are you wearing?"

Instead of getting offended, I lied about it. I texted back, "Actually, I'm not wearing any at all."

I could practically hear the sound of him gulping through my phone. His reply: "So you're wearing a skirt?"

"Yes, that's the only way it's worthwhile." I lied about that too.

Then a terse, "Why is that?" I knew I had a live one there -- a gullible one, in other words.

I was quite cheerful when I wrote, "I can feel the breezes up around my hips."

He must have come out of his shock by that point. "How about sending me pics of all this?"

I could have answered with LOL but I merely wrote, "I don't think that is a good idea."

He was persistent, however. "I'll send you some of me jerking-off." I presumed he meant while he was looking at my photos. It was time to end it.

"Send them later, okay?"

"Sure," and a couple of moments later I deleted him. Maybe he went through with his plan anyway, using me for spite.

That left real-world, face-to-face interactions. There were guys asking for dates at the college, and I would try out some of them. Every one of those meetings failed, often because of me. You've heard that the secret of dating is not to be yourself? I tried, but I couldn't pull it off.

I never went to dinner for a first date, the only kind I ever had. Women will boast that they go to a lot of dinners merely to get free meals, but that seemed unethical to me. Thus I went for simple coffee-type meetings.

There was one gimmick I would use. The drinking age in this country has been twenty-one for years, but that hardly stops students from getting booze. Thus I would arrive with a twenty-once seltzer bottle in my bag, filled with a clear liquid which might be white rum or vodka. The former was good because it mixed well with diet cola.

I didn't want to get shit-faced on a date, but I needed a little something to take the edge off, to keep myself calm. Sometimes my date would arrive with his own seltzer bottle.

None of that helped. Pop culture was one topic that tripped me up. There was one guy who was going on about how one of his favorite movies was the original 2002 Spider-Man. I'm not that keen on superhero films, and he could tell that. Finally, he said, "Well, tell me a movie that you do like."

I blurted out, "Paths of Glory is pretty good." That was Stanley Kubrick's take on the French army in World War I.

He had never heard of it. The best he could do was, "Anybody in that I would know?"

"You've heard of Kirk Douglas?"

He thought for a moment. "Isn't that Michael Douglas's dad?"

Since that date was dying, I decided to give it the coup de grâce . "It's ironic that since Kubrick was filming in Germany, all of the extras were Germans." Actually, they were mostly off-duty cops from Munich, but mentioning that would have been overkill.

"Why would that matter?"

Why would that matter!

Then there was one who was a Titanic fan, the 1997 version. I thought that it had been mostly teen-aged girls who saw it over and over, but this guy, who may not have even been born at the time of the initial release, was enamored of it.

I had seen it on a DVD, and I was skeptical from the moment Old Rose is wheeled out on deck with her goldfish bowl. I had hoped that a crewman would dump that damn fish into the ocean, although the North Atlantic is probably not a good habitat for such creatures.

My date was also the only male Céline Dion fan I have ever met. I don't like how the pitch of her voice keeps randomly going up and down. Near, far, WHEREVER, you are . . .

It was time to euthanize that date too. I said, "I think the best Titanic movie is A Night to Remember." That was a black-and-white British film from 1958, and it had one advantage of being at least an hour shorter than James Cameron's magnum opus.

He had never heard of it, but he was game, "So what's so special about that one?"

"For one thing, the sinking itself is so dramatic that there is no need to embellish anything. It practically writes itself."

"But the Jack and Rose story is so romantic."

I voiced an opinion. "The main point of that is that the best boyfriends are the ones who die four days after you meet them. That way, they'll never disappoint you."

He must have assumed that I was referring to him, which I hadn't intended.

Sometimes I would get odd sexual questions. After a couple of minutes, one of them said, "Is it true that women masturbate?"

I laughed at that. Yes, I am laughing at you, not with you. I was about to say, are you serious? but I gave him a chance to recoup. "Of course they do."

He must have thought I was making fun of him, which was true. Yet I wished that he had asked me more questions. That way I could tell him what I did and what I thought about during such sessions, just to see the look on his face. It would have been fun to tell him that I never used an electric vibrator.

However, he chickened out and quickly changed the subject.

His Truth is Marching On

Now that I've established my geek credentials, you may be wondering what the title of my memoir has to do with anything. Well, that's part of my geekiness too. One of my hobbies is being a Civil War reenactor.

What that means is that a group of people, usually history buffs, would get together to "recreate" a particular battle. (Not with live ammunition of course!)

These events can be small-scale, with say a few hundred people and take place in a single afternoon. Some are much larger and can go on for a while, like the ones that try to reenact the three-day Battle of Gettysburg.

There may be thousands of people involved in one like that, marching and charging around as close to the real action as they can get. They will fire black-powder blanks, so there will be plenty of authentic smoke drifting around the field.

The reenactment may take place at the actual battle site, but if that is not available, they will use any field or woods where they can get permission to do it.

So how do they clothe and equip themselves? Genuine period items are hard to get and are too valuable to use regularly. Thus it is possible to go online and buy reproduction uniforms, both Union and Confederate. Sometimes people are talented enough to make their own clothes, or they have a family member who can do it. That's a lot of work, however.

One can buy replica weapons as well because only a handful of these people have the skills to make their own. Some of these guns can really fire bullets, although it would be foolish to bring live ammo to a reenactment.

I saw online that an Italian-made replica 1861 Springfield rifle was on sale for $1,400. Yeah, this hobby can get expensive very fast, depending on how deeply one wants to get into it. But if one chooses to do it, there is a ton of other gear that is available: revolvers, knapsacks, ammunition boxes, canteens, you name it.

Some of the guys doing this are very skilled at military drills and thus are sometimes hired by movie productions to fill in the ranks of war movies. I'll get into that soon.

So, where do women fit into this? Civilians were generally not involved in Civil War actions unless they were caught up in it by circumstances. (Say, the siege of Vicksburg.)

A few ladies will put on uniforms and pretend to be soldiers. That actually happened during the war, and probably it has happened in all wars. Personally, I'm a bit conflicted about that.

On one hand, I wouldn't want to voluntarily agree to fight other people who were trying to kill me. (Or to be conscripted into it!) On the other hand, plenty of women have died as civilians in various wars, depending on which era you're looking at. So we're sort of damned if we do and damned if we don't.

(The Soviet Union was quite open to having women in various combat roles. If you've ever seen footage of those Red Army chicks marching around Berlin in 1945, they look quite adept at tearing up some Nazi ass as needed.)

The Civil War buffs have to fake it a bit. If the reenactment goes on for more than a day, they may set up encampments -- tents and all -- to stay for the night. Soldiers were generally not allowed to bring family members on a campaign, but the reenactors will bring them along anyway.

Of course, if one has the inclination and the money, there is gear for that too. My view is the 1860's-style grooming items -- combs, for example -- are a bit much.

A digression: camping usually involves having modern plumbing available nearby. (Well, there usually there will be port-a-potties.) Few people want to go to the toilet or bathe in the 1860's manner. They will do some cooking over campfires, however. I have done that and it can be quite absorbing.

I would recruit one of my female classmates to be my tent-mate. A first they would find the idea strange, but they usually got into the spirit of the event after arriving.

That brings up the issue of presenting the right 1860's female appearance, especially the clothes. For that too, there are authentic-looking reproductions available. But of course, that also costs money. Thus I put together bits and pieces from various sources for an approximation. As long as I don't have a Wile E. Coyote tee shirt on, I'm good to go.

So what do I do there? Well, merely watching the fake battles is fascinating. At other times, I just do whatever civilians do. Televisions and such are discouraged, although people always have their phones. In any case, one gets the idea that life in the 19th Century was a lot slower-paced than it is now.

The Civil War was the first time that American women in large numbers entered the previously mostly-male nursing profession. The sheer number of wounded to be cared for on both sides required it. Angels of mercy, as they were known. There were still many male nurses, like Walt Whitman who volunteered for a stint in a military hospital.

I never played at being a nurse. But perhaps there were also camp followers around -- prostitutes, in other words, another kind of angel of mercy. I wouldn't mind sashaying around as a pretend whore, probably because it is so different from my real self. I'd have to find out what they wore back then, but I bet I'd be just darling at it.

You may be surprised to find out that I'm on the Confederate side of these events. That's because I am a Southerner. I grew up in Durham, NC, just northwest of Raleigh; I have Southern ancestors going back to the 18th Century. (North Carolina is the same state that produced that damn Charlotte Simmons.)

After my dad got a job in Washington, our family moved to the Clarendon section of Arlington, VA, which is just across the river from the District. That's one of the reasons I don't live in a dorm at UMD; I am satisfied to be a commuter student.

For Southern, Rights, Hurrah!

However, I have no sympathy for the so-called "Lost Cause" of the Confederacy. I do find the whole war and everybody involved with it interesting as an historical event because history explains how we got to the present.

I have known for a long time that there are white Southerners, nearly 150 years later, who do, deep inside, have a nostalgic fondness for Old Dixie. Of course, they won't talk about it with people they don't know well, but I know it's there.

I used to think that such people weren't necessarily bad, or racist, although somewhere in their hearts they still regretted the fact that for four years they had their own nation and then it was gone. Losers have longer memories than the victors. As it says on Quebec license plates, Je me souviens; "I Remember."

I partially changed my mind while participating in a reenactment at Gettysburg, where some of the biggest and longest of such events occurs. One evening I was in the main Confederate tent, a large one that was suitable for listening to live music among other things.

There was a string band from South Carolina in there, and they had gotten the crowd quite worked up, first with singing and then dancing. One song was "Kill That Yankee Soldier," which struck the wrong note in my mind. "Here's my hand and here's my heart, upon my country's altar."

Wait a minute, isn't your country the United States of America? I know, someone (a Southerner, I think) had allegedly said, "We're all Americans, but we have different countries."

Then they got into playing "Dixie," and some of the guys in Confederate uniforms took their caps off and placed them over their hearts. But there were also a lot of people in there wearing their faux old-timey civilian clothes. Many of them were women, and some of those ladies were my age. And it struck me that they all weren't just having a good time, they were taking that neo-Confederate stuff very seriously too.

I moved as far to the side as I could so that no one would notice my lack of enthusiasm. I, a native of North Carolina and with deep roots in that region, was finding that show and everyone participating in it very creepy.

I got even more creeped out when I got home and found an online picture of the band's album, "Unreconstructed." That clinched it for me. The implication was that the end of Reconstruction meant the return of Jim Crow laws, and the rest of the country then tolerated it for eighty years.

It was as if I had seen the Jungian Shadow Selves of all those people in the tent. Would they try succession again if they had the chance? Yet Southerners have joined the American military in large numbers for many decades. We can be a difficult people to understand, perhaps.

This Is Not War, It's Murder

The Battle of the Crater, during the siege of Petersburg in 1864, was one that was virtually impossible to reenact properly because of the nature of what happened there. With both sides locked in trench warfare that resembled the later First World War, the Union Army came up with a scheme to break the siege.