‘We March With Pride’

Re-enactors Have A Blast Recreating Battles, More

VIRGINIA CITY, Va. – The troops in blue march in battle line into town, and it’s downright uncomfortable.
It’s hot, and the soldiers wear wool coats buttoned top to bottom and wool trousers. Shoes issued that morning by the quartermaster are not quite big enough, and feet are aching as the regiment climbs a hill over uneven ground through the woods to reach the edge of town.
Had this been the real Battle of Wytheville, fought in 1863, the situation would have been much hotter for the men in blue. The Union soldiers were fired on by citizens from their homes and eventually driven off by Confederate troops.
However, on this particular weekend, these are re-enactors merely playing at war. Consequently, the initial occupation of the town is peaceful. But there is a tension among the spectators on this Sunday afternoon that suggests to anyone dressed in blue that they aren’t welcome.
That much becomes clear after some troops, having made a quick uniform change into Confederate gray, storm into town to drive out the Yankees.
A woman shouts above the sound of musket fire: “Now that’s the color we want to see!”

HAVING A BLAST
So what am I, a born-and-bred Yankee from Michigan, doing in both Union blue and Confederate gray?
Having a blast, that’s what.
I’ve been fascinated with military history, particularly that of the Civil War, since I was a kid. My brothers and I would don blue or gray caps, shoulder toy muskets and march through our neighborhood en route to a pretend battle.
I had many times since watched grown-ups do the same thing in re-enactments on historic battlefields, wondering just how much fun it would be to join them. Last weekend, in this small resort town just north of Wytheville, I did.
Actually, it started two weeks earlier in Saltville, where re-enactors helped to stage the 1864 battles that eventually resulted in the destruction of that town’s salt works.
Among the participants were members of the 24th Virginia/83rd Pennsylvania regiment who, when I stopped by the recruiting table at their encampment, asked me to try it.
This group of re-enactors, who hail mostly from south and central Virginia and North Carolina, makes it easy to try it.
Quartermaster Frank Moseley, a retired history teacher from Blacksburg, Va., hauls the regiment’s “supply wagon” with him to each event. It is loaded with spare blue and gray jackets, trousers and caps, shoes, belts, buckles, cartridge and cap boxes, and muskets – everything to outfit a recruit.
Moseley, whom I met at Saltville, said the regiment will outfit a recruit for his first few battles. After that, Moseley said, to participate on a regular basis, a re-enactor must eventually purchase his own uniform, equipment and musket.
Good deal, I say. I will try anything once.

GETTING READY
Arriving early last Sunday morning at the regiment’s encampment just below town, I am momentarily reminded that this is the 21st century, not the 1860s.
Moseley is a Virginia Tech football fan, and he’s taped the Hokies’ opener at East Carolina so he can watch it when he returns home. He does not – repeat, does not – want to know what happened in the game.
At the “supply wagon,” I slip into a long-sleeve cotton shirt and try on blue and gray coats, several pairs of light blue wool trousers, blue and gray caps, and shoes to assemble my uniforms. I also draw suspenders, a leather belt, cartridge and cap boxes, ammunition and a musket.
Corporal Gary Parks, of Winston-Salem, N.C., forms all recent recruits into line to teach me and remind them about the manual of arms: how to handle a musket when marching in ranks, how to load and how to shoot. Several of us also are issued bayonets and taught how to stack arms.

THE BIG BATTLE
Because I am loading and firing a musket for the first time, Private Duffy Bowers, of Wayneboro, Va., marches me into the woods nearby to practice. He explains how to bite the top off a cartridge, pour the gunpowder down the musket’s barrel, go to the ready with the hammer half-cocked, replace a used cap with a new one, aim with my feet properly aligned into a “T” and fire.
Leaving muskets in camp but bringing along gray coats and caps, the members of the regiment then march up the hill to town to review the choreography for that afternoon’s re-enactment.
Most of us will march in as Union soldiers after skirmishers drive out the tiny Confederate garrison. We will search the town, jail any Southern sympathizers and attempt to fraternize with spectators. Then, after hearing gunfire from the woods south of town, most of the regiment will reform and march out in search of a fight.
Once out of sight, we’ll swap our blue coats for gray ones and load our weapons before charging back into town as Confederate soldiers.
Moseley, who plays the Union colonel on this afternoon, asks if anyone is willing to be killed during the battle. When only one man raises his hand, Parks is ordered to pick “volunteers.”
I’m ready to “die” for the cause, I tell Parks, but I’d rather not miss the fun of reloading and shooting a musket at my first re-enactment. Parks grins and chooses someone else.
Once the re-enactment begins, we march in ranks but never shoot that way. So much for all that shooting practice. The battle is a skirmish, so we move quickly from building to building. We crouch behind anything that provides cover, loading and firing our muskets from there.
When I am issued shoes that morning, I am warned that the soles are slippery. I forget that key point as the skirmish begins, and, as I dash from one building to another, I slip on some loose gravel and fall.
It would have been a dramatic death, but not on this day. I scramble to my feet and find cover behind a water barrel, from where I fire as often as I can. Then, ordered to advance, the Confederate troops kill or capture the remaining Union soldiers.

PAYING TRIBUTE
The original 24th Virginia was formed just weeks after Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumpter in the spring of 1861; the 83rd Pennsylvania was recruited in the fall of that year.
Both regiments have storied histories that include the Battle of Gettysburg. The 83rd helped to defend the Union’s left flank on Little Round Top; the 24th participated in Pickett’s Charge.
Many of the re-enactors in the current regiment have relatives who fought in the Civil War, and nearly all of them are native Southerners. At large re-enactments, such as the one this summer in Gettysburg, Pa., they wear Confederate gray during a battle. But at smaller events, such as this one and in Saltville, they also don blue to make certain there are enough Union soldiers.
It is their way of paying tribute to all who fought so valiantly, they say.
“No matter what we wear, we know that it reflects on us,” Bowers said. “We march with pride, no matter what flag we are flying.”
And no matter how hot or uncomfortable it is wearing wool on this humid Sunday afternoon, Parks reminds fellow re-enactors that it was a heck of a lot worse for the soldiers who fought near here 145 years earlier.
Armies marched in all kinds of weather, often under fire from the enemy. Soldiers would travel on foot for miles, fight a battle, cook dinner for themselves, then do it all over again the next day. They’d go weeks without being able to bathe.
“We get to play at this on weekends, and then go home,” he said. “For them, it was life and death every day.”

WANT TO TRY IT?
The 24th Virginia/83rd Pennsylvania regiment attends re-enactments throughout the summer and fall, and interested men and women are invited to particpate. The regiment provides everything – from uniforms to a musket – to try it out. Visit http://www.24thva.org for more information.