The annual Hurricane Bridge/Scary Creek Civil War weekend took place on the weekend of March 27-28 at Hurricane, WV. Thanks to my hosts, Bill and Linda Donegan for putting up with me so I could attend again this year. This event is sponsored by the Putnam County Visitor’s Bureau. The hosts are friendly and go to a good deal of effort to meet the needs of the reenactors. Three meals are provided as well as the usual amenities needed for a camp – hay, firewood…etc.
While the ground was pretty wet and muddy, the weather on Saturday was warm and quite pleasant for the battle reenactment. There was a nice ball on Saturday night with live period music and a figure caller. There were some well-done period outfits. Also, the troops and visitors were treated to a visit from President Abraham Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln who participated in the dance and also gave a rendition of the Gettysburg Address earlier in the day. There were also several sutlers this year offering a decent variety of reenacting goods for a small event.
Having said that, I guess that I have been doing this long enough (20+ years), that I just can’t get that excited about a Civil War battle which takes place on a soccer field. At least the goals weren’t there, but I can’t suspend my awareness of my surroundings that much anymore. Also, as is usual in these little events, the numbers of reenactors were very lopsided. There appeared to be at least four times as many Confederates as Unionists and this may be conservative. In a real fight, the handful of Federals would have been swept from the field in one concerted rush.
Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to this event just one week after MTA, but it seems to me that, outside of the Campaigners, the quality of CW reenactors has been on the skids for some time and this event seemed to reinforce this to me. Once again, in the Federal camp, tourists were taking pictures of the reenactors sitting around with soda cans and cigarette packs sitting out in plain sight on the tables. Black sneakers seem to be the new brogans if you can go by this weekend. I even saw one Confederate wearing cargo jeans with his grey jacket. What is next, gray and blue work uniforms and bolt action hunting rifles?
There was a time when ‘mainstream’ CW reenactors made an effort to provide an authentic camp. Apparently, manyof these folks are so old and burned out that they just don’t care any more. That’s a shame. It shortchanges the event organizers, who put a lot of effort and cash into organizing these things and more importantly, it shortchanges the public who are the ones we are supposed to be educating.
The cure for this is simple: Units need to start taking authenticity seriously again. This doesn’t mean 20 mile marches or sleeping on the ground with just a blanket. It means keeping anachronisms to a minimum and completely out of sight when the public is around. It means insisting that individual who are going to dress, actually dress in period clothing. If you don’t want to wear period clothing, then what on earth are you doing in this hobby?
And it also means spending some time to research what period camps looked like and get the proper seating, boxes, tools, etc. to make the camp look period and lived in. Groups who do other time periods do these things. If Civil War reenactors can’t do it, then the CW end of the hobby probably deserves to die off. Like I said, I probably shouldn’t have gone to this just one week after MTA.
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