From StarGazette.com: At Newtown, fighting doesn't mean enemy status
The combatants were friends before the re-enactment of American Revolution's Battle of Newtown began, and they remained friends at the end.
The annual skirmish at Newtown Battlefield State Park on Saturday was a victory for the British, according to Rangers of the Ohio, a militia group allied with the Britons.
"We pushed the continental militia and their regulars back to their village," said Ranger Gary Hope.
The continentals would still win the war, said Gary's brother and fellow Ranger, Greg Hope. "But we don't know that yet."
After the shooting stopped, both sides shared open fires smelling of bacon and coffee, tales of history and congeniality. They know their stuff and love to share it.
An Ohio Ranger nicknamed "Pooch," from Canonsburg, Pa., said the fun is 20 percent re-enacting and 80 percent people.
"We get to play with guns, tomahawks and knives. Nobody gets hurt. There's a great deal of fellowship in this hobby of re-enacting.
"Come without eats and you'll get fed."
"In the end, we're all on the same side," said Paul Perine, president of the Chemung Valley Living History Center, sponsor of the event which continues Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
One exception of the good time everyone was having was a forlorn captive tethered to a tree surrounded by firewood. His freedom was negotiated before he was toast.
About 500 re-enactors took part and public attendance neared 300 before mid-day.
Among them were 60 or so members of the Sons of the American Revolution on a family picnic.
Happens every year at the re-enactment, said William Woodworth of Painted Post, SAL state president and vice president general of the North Atlantic Region.
Family was the common denominator.
Eight-year-old Elise Smith sat with her dad, Matthew Smith, as he cleaned his "Brown Bess" flintlock rifle.
He paid $100 for it when he spotted a friend's kids using it as a javelin, he said.
Fifty-nine-year-old Lisa Michaelsen, of Lockpor,t was dressed as a Seneca Native American toting a bow and quiver full of arrows.
This registered nurse has learned much during her 10 years in re-enacting. She can sew the clothes and make the moccasins.
Lisa and her 15-year-old granddaughter, Peyton Harris, tended camp while their husband and grandfather chased the continentals back to their village.
