Cyber Warriors to Fight in Charleston Harbor this June

Part of the War at Flood Tide Civil War History Weekend Web Pages

Cyber warriors will exchange their computer mouses, modems and monitors for real gunboats and cannon when the winners of Sierra Online's Civil War Generals II national contest don wool uniforms and join the reenactors presenting the War at Flood Tide Civil War History Weekend in Charleston this June 12 - 14.

A trip to the Charleston event, which includes two battles in the City's Historic Harbor, and an opening parade with a full battery of horse drawn cannon was selected by the promotions department of Sierra Online as the prize for the first place winning Confederate and Federal Generals in the 500 participant contest played on the Internet. The winners will receive an authentic reproduction of a enlisted man's uniform to wear during the event in Charleston and will join the reenactors as they work the cannons and sail the Federal mortar schooners recreating an artillery and gunboat battle of June 12, 1863 exactly 135 years earlier.

However, after the patriotic concert with artillery accompaniment which concludes that Saturday's activities, the contest winners will retire to the air-conditioned comfort and hot running water of Charleston's exclusive Fulton Lane Inn instead of the rustic tents of the reenactor's downtown Civil War Camp.

According to War at Flood Tide Chairman, William Hamilton, the Sierra Contest is only one of many ways high technology is meeting history that weekend. The event has an extensive internet website, http://www.awod.com/waft/, solicits donations with Powerpoint Presentations and will make use of a complex radio and cellular network to coordinate activities around the city. Research for the three day weekend has been conducted using the original Civil War records that have recently become available on CD Rom.

According to Hamilton, however, the technology is in the background, "When the shooting starts, it will be like 1863, recreating the siege of Charleston, itself the most technically advanced military operation of the Civil War." The signal flags will be sending messages across the water, the cannons will be our sound effects and the high tech tools making it possible will be hidden out of view.