Civil War Reenactments

This year marks the 150th anniversary of America's "War Between the States" (not the "Civil War" according to the Prussian General actor at one reenactment). Unlike perhaps other countries who hold moments of silence for their some 500,000 who died in war, Americans like to celebrate the history and symbolism of this war by reenacting it.

As one dear friend said, "A sitting African-American President from Illinois (who sounds more and more Lincolnesque) at the same time of Civil War Reenactments. Strange times indeed." And rightly said. At a time in American history where we have powerful blacks, women, minorities, Southerners, Northerners, and many troops on ground abroad fighting very bloody wars, you would think Americans would not feel a need to constantly celebrate the Civil War, but they do.

My sister, inspired by a book, Confederates in the Attic, by Tony Horwitz, decided to do her senior project exploring Civil War Reenactments. First top? Lewisburg, West Virginia. During this particular May weekend, reenactors would carry out a four day "living history" extravaganza.

Now, Lewisburg has been voted the "coolest small town in America" by travel magazines. It has quirky little shops, yoga, homeopathic medicine, and tons of people who love to study the Confederates; very few think of themselves as Yankees, even though West Virginia, "Mountain Moma" as John Denver might say, seceded from Virginia in a disagreement over whether they should be Confederates or Yankees; one reenactor told me the disagreement was not over slaves, but overeconomy--the rich folk in the East were doing all the politicking while the poor white trash in the West were doing all the dying.

This is a trend in Civil War Reenactor Speech. As one Prussian General who fought on the side of the Confederates told me, the biggest misconception about the War Between the States was that, "Americans just want to put it on a bumper sticker, 'SLAVERY.' It was more than that. It was economy and states rights." Alright, economy in the South depended on slave labor (which of course New York and other cotton consuming industries depended on), but what rights were they trying to exert other than to keep their economies in healthy condition, to lower tariffs, and to keep the slaves that allowed them to have such labor intensive economies. One Black Soldier, from the 54th Massachusetts regiment claimed, "Slavery had NOTHING to do with the war. Not one thing." Then we asked if it had anything to do with moral, "Maybe. Sure you wanna go shoot the guy oppressing you, but we just wanted to be like everybody else. Not about slavery at all." I think you are feeling what I'm feeling right?

Indeed, aside from slavery, many reenactors place many of their own anxieties onto the war. The man playing General Lee assured us that if Lee were alive today, he would be part of the Tea Party. Because really, the rebel flag and Confederacy were exactly what American conservatism were today; anti-government, rebels with a cause of keeping the government out of their issues. Another man claimed he did reenactments because "The First thing that dies in war is the truth" and that we all had to read the other side to know "truth." I don't deny these things. Another man was very concerned about how youth learn history; his teachers had been very cruel to him in college with certain failing grades when he had to make a relative's funeral and couldn't make up the exam. He felt he was beloved by his students because of his stories and did reenactments to tell STORIES. He did have some really interesting stores too!

(temperance movement, at the irish pub of course)

Perhaps the strangest aspect is the frequency of such reenactments. One woman from Montana who used to work for the Department of Defense claimed she used to do just one a month, now spends almost every weekend in the spring and summer devoted to being different Confederate women, prostitutes, dames, abolitionists, and peacemakers. (While she was there, she led a temperance movement and threw all the guys out of the Irish Pub!) She said she liked it because it reminded her of a simpler time and life back home in Montana (though she assured us she saw some interesting things, like events leading up to the Fall of the Berlin Wall, or archaeology in Tel Aviv). She flashed in and out of personae, as if living multiple lives in multiple times and places.

The strangest thing is that all of the reenactors placed their own wishes, desires, doubts, frustrations, and hopes onto this war reenactment. Everything they hated about the government could somehow be in there. Everything they love about a certain lifestyle was suddenly manifest. Some men escaped their boring day jobs as mechanics, store cashiers, or high school students in small towns. Some women escaped their husbands for a little while and found other women doing the same. The war, the Rebel Cause, and the reenactment suddenly became a sort of escape, even despite being a symbol of suffering, division, slavery, and death. These "living historians" preached the truth, just like the Evangelical preacher at the Confederate Sunday Mass claimed. Everyone in the reenactments has their own truth; they choose when they die and when they resurrect (which is ultimately shouted at the end of skirmishes as well!). They choose what kind of history they approve of and which are too simple. (States rights and economy apparently do not go back to the issue of slavery at all, but each reenactor can tell you that the buttons on underwear at the time were made of animal bone, or that train tracks were standardized during the Civil War.)

All and all, this strange phenomenon in American history will be here for a long time. Perhaps as we sit here and dwell on how half a million lives were lost 150 years ago for economics, slavery, belief, propaganda, power, or rights, we should think of our own paranoia, angst, problems, shame, and concerns in an era of struggling economics, bipolarity, and division; let us not let history repeat itself except in a reenactment, on a hot summer day in Lewisburg, in 19th century garments.