Today, November 22, 2013, a senior at Stockton named Adam came into the honors freshman seminar class and talked to us about Civil War Reenactments. He came in wearing his uniform that he wears to the battles which was pretty cool and easily got everyone’s attention.
He started out by talking to us about what he was wearing and the whole uniform is completely authentic. It was all wool and leather just like what soldiers used to wear when they were in the army. He said the uniform is really hot and doing reenactments in the summer is hard because of this. He also told us that the uniform is extremely expensive and when you join a group that does reenactments you have to buy your own clothes and weapons.
After he talked about his outfit he explained what happens when you’re doing reenactments. He said a lot of people get really into the battles and it’s easy to get lost in character. He also explained that there are two main types of reenactments. There is one where it’s very accurate and follows history meaning that the side who really won the battle wins the battle during the reenactment. On the other hand, there are battles where the both sides go into the battle not knowing what the result is going to be and they just fight until one side wins.
A lot of people were really confused at how they determine who wins because they can’t really shoot each other so how do they know when they’ve been shot or when to die? Well, Adam said that they just kind of fall over and die or “get shot” whenever they feel like it. If you get shot at and it’s clear they were shooting at you then you just die. Then the question of theatrical deaths came about and he said that because the uniforms are so expensive they don’t typically tend to die in a theatrical manner.
After a few more questions had been asked, he concluded with some information on local groups that engage in reenactments. He also left some business cards for a few of the local groups so that anyone who was interested could go up and grab one. It was a really neat experience.