We have a pretty large reenactment near here....
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Or did, cancelled last year due to Covid and I haven't heard about this year.
As avid of a Civil War Era fan as I am I never really had any interest in getting into reenacting... BUT.... I really enjoyed going to them. Amazing how knowledgeable some reenact-ors are regarding the Civil War... the food they ate, how it was prepared, how they foraged for food..... their uniforms and unique distinctions between regiments, companies, brigades.
And then the booths set up at the reenactment - some serving food from that era, others selling actual Civil War artifacts - I have several mini-balls taken from various battlefields although I didn't buy those at the reenactments - got them from people who salvaged them from the battlefields back when that was legal... today it is not legal.
I also have some letters written during the Civil War.... love letters home, letters to the soldiers in the field.
We hosted a foreign exchange student from Switzerland many years back... 1997 - that was even MORE enamored and well read about the Civil War than I am. To this day I correspond often with her about that era. She also has many items of memorabilia. Last time I visited with her was 2010? I think. We met her in Washington D.C. and drove a route we had planned... culminating in a visit to Appomattox... the site where Robert E. Lee surrendered to U. S. Grant and ended the war.
She has actually been to several Civil War sites that I have not... most notably Fort Sumter.. where the war began. But she has never been to Gettysburg, and I have... we have that planned for some day soon before I get too old.
As avid of a Civil War Era fan as I am I never really had any interest in getting into reenacting... BUT.... I really enjoyed going to them. Amazing how knowledgeable some reenact-ors are regarding the Civil War... the food they ate, how it was prepared, how they foraged for food..... their uniforms and unique distinctions between regiments, companies, brigades.
And then the booths set up at the reenactment - some serving food from that era, others selling actual Civil War artifacts - I have several mini-balls taken from various battlefields although I didn't buy those at the reenactments - got them from people who salvaged them from the battlefields back when that was legal... today it is not legal.
I also have some letters written during the Civil War.... love letters home, letters to the soldiers in the field.
We hosted a foreign exchange student from Switzerland many years back... 1997 - that was even MORE enamored and well read about the Civil War than I am. To this day I correspond often with her about that era. She also has many items of memorabilia. Last time I visited with her was 2010? I think. We met her in Washington D.C. and drove a route we had planned... culminating in a visit to Appomattox... the site where Robert E. Lee surrendered to U. S. Grant and ended the war.
She has actually been to several Civil War sites that I have not... most notably Fort Sumter.. where the war began. But she has never been to Gettysburg, and I have... we have that planned for some day soon before I get too old.
