Sanders County Ledger - Your Best Source For Sanders County News

To say that the Sink family from Thompson Falls are history buffs would be an understatement. The group gives their time to helping show others the joys of exploring history hands on by living it. Wesley Sink, and his family, have been attending numerous Civil War reenactments and living history events for some time, and this last weekend they traveled to Eagle City Park near Prichard, Idaho, to do just that.

The event was a last-minute battle reenactment thrown together by a man named Gene Black and several other members of an organization called the Washington Civil War Association (WCWA). Though the event was not officially sanctioned by the organization, according to one of the Sink clan, over 90% of the participants last weekend were members of the WCWA.

The weekend hosted two battles on Saturday and one on Sunday. The skirmishes were organized beforehand and the night before the officers would meet to discuss the next day's battle layout. This "battle planning" is done to ensure the safety of visitors and participants and an exciting event.

The officers will then meet the morning of the battle, during what is called sergeant's call, to go over the events one more time. Each group knows what they need to do and where they need to be, as well as who will win, who will lose and how. However, those who aren't officers are left mostly in the dark. Those being led must listen well to their commanders during the battle, and leadership is shown through the best performance. Keeping the lower ranks out of the loop keeps the battles interesting and makes the event more realistic.

The Sinks participated as the Pennsylvania Light Artillery, Independent Battery B. The group was one that Wesley Sink knows well, as he had several ancestors participate within this division. The Sinks operated one of two cannons that they brought with them. One was a three-inch ordinance, and the other was a three-inch Parrott.

Each gun was riffled and would have fired a 10-pound projectile over a charge of one-pound of black powder. In the reenactment, however, each gun fired a blank charge of about a half-pound of powder. Both guns, during the war, would have had an accurate effective range of 4,180 yards and were both extremely common canons used by the Union at that time.

"Most people think that technology during the Civil War was primitive, but it was actually fairly sophisticated," said Sink.

John Dowd

TAKING AIM - Wesley Sink sights in his 3-inch ordinance cannon during a Civil War battle re-enactment last weekend near Pritchard, Idaho.

The Sink crew showed up five-strong to the battle and has done living history demonstrations and re-enactments across Montana, Washington and Idaho. The first cannon Sink bought was the three-inch ordinance that they used during the battles, and he said it needed work. After he refurbished it, he found his love for cannons. Later, they bought the three-inch Parrott, which is a more historically accurate gun of the two.

Sink's love for black powder shooting started when he was young. He built his first 50-caliber black powder gun in seventh grade, and then saved up all his money after high school to buy his first nice flintlock. Another member of the Sink crew who attended this reenactment was young Ty Hedahl, who works with the Sinks at Ace Hardware in Thompson Falls. This was Ty's first time participating in a re-enactment, but says he has loved it for years, ever since watching re-enactment movies.