Tom Castrovinci can tell you a thing or two about the sunny side of Benedict Arnold. He can detail how a Revolutionary War general won a key battle by throwing out the rulebook on military doctrine.
And he even has got it first-hand how in 1944 a soldier came to be the most popular guy on Omaha Beach by stashing handfuls of cigarettes in tied-off condoms, keeping them dry from cold waters of the English Channel during the invasion of Normandy.
By day, Castrovinci is owner and president of Amysn Inc., a Stamford company that imports, distributes and consults on specialty chemicals and pharmaceutical ingredients. Next weekend at the Norwalk Historical Society”™s Norwalk Militia Muster, the New Canaan resident becomes the modern commander of the historic Fifth Connecticut Regiment.
Castrovinci and his fellow Revolutionary War regiment members will appear at three-dozen events this year, including reenactments, school demonstrations and speeches to groups like the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Some 70 volunteers make up the regiment today, including about 35 women and five youngsters who form a drum corps, including Castrovinci”™s son Peter.
Castrovinci first got involved in the group a decade ago.
“The long answer for the reason I got into it is this: I always was fascinated with having a musket ”“ I thought it would be a cool thing to have,” Castovinci said. “The short answer is that I suck at golf.”
After purchasing a replica Brown Bess, however, he learned his first lesson: loading and firing a musket is inadvisable without expert instruction.
“I opened the box, looked at it and told my wife, ”˜I am going to kill myself with this thing,”™” Castrovinci said. “I went online and found the reenactment community.”
The Fifth Connecticut Regiment was one of six formed in May 1775, following the clashes between British troops and Minutemen at Lexington and Concord, Mass. Members of the regiment fought in Gen. Benedict Arnold”™s aborted attack on Quebec City. After the Continental Congress approved new funding for the army, Arnold again led regiment members in a skirmish in Ridgefield.
Last year, the regiment participated in the Battle Road reenactment in Massachusetts, in which Minutemen harassed British regulars as they marched through woods and farmland.
This past weekend, regimental members assembled in Ridgefield to commemorate the town”™s tercentennial. Next weekend, the Fifth Connecticut Regiment will snap a straight line at the Norwalk Militia Muster, hosted by the Norwalk Historical Society.
Castrovinci is currently taking riding lessons to better depict mounted officers, including a Washington aide on June 21-22 at the 230th anniversary of the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey.
Washington himself will be played by another Connecticut resident named John Koopman.
While Arnold is the most intriguing personality of the American Revolution for Castrovinci, the event he is most interested in is the Battle of Cowpens in 1781 in South Carolina, a victory for the Continental Army and local militias under the command of Gen. Daniel Morgan.
In jettisoning several accepted tenets of military thought, the general concocted what historians consider to be a masterful strategy. Morgan placed his troops between two rivers so that his green militia members could not flee advancing British troops, but the general allowed them to retreat behind Continental Army regulars after firing two pot shots at the approaching Red Coats, allowing the militia to reform ranks. Rejecting the conventional wisdom of securing the high ground, Morgan stationed his troops downhill from the British, correctly reasoning that would induce the enemy to fire above the heads of his own troops, while also silhouetting enemy soldiers for his own sharpshooters.
While Castrovinci has little interest in the Civil War era, he perhaps has a softer spot for a unit linked to the Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson. As part of the 116th Infantry, a Virginia unit that traces its history to Jackson”™s “Stonewall Brigade,” Castrovinci”™s father stormed the western flank of Omaha Beach at Normandy.
Castrovinci said his father earned the family nickname “World War Daddy” for the delight he took in retelling stories. The tales included the wisecrack he related from a commissary sergeant on the eve of the invasion of Normandy, who queried the manner in which the senior Castrovinci intended to secure the liberation of France, after he put in an order for three cartons of cigarettes and a box of condoms.
Castrovinci”™s father made it off Omaha Beach in one piece ”“ not all his comrades were so lucky; the 116th Infantry sustained 800 casualties ”“ and he survived getting hit in the leg by mortar shrapnel at St. Lo, France.
For Castrovinci, it serves as a reminder of the seriousness of the “business” he spends his free time relating at events like the Norwalk Militia Muster.
“I remembered that before my father died, the medal he said he was most proud of was the combat infantryman”™s badge,” Castrovinci said.
Incidentally, that medal depicts an oak leaf cluster framing a Brown Bess musket
