Glenn W. LaFantasie: The Foolishness of Civil War Reenactors

Glenn W. LaFantasie is the Richard Frockt Family Professor of Civil War History at Western Kentucky University. He is working on a book about Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.

Last month, the Civil War sesquicentennial began with a bang with a "living history" event in Charleston, S.C., that commemorated the firing on Fort Sumter, the momentous act of violence that started the war.

If you’re not familiar with what "living history" means, this is a term that Civil War reenactors use to describe their hobby of dressing up in Union and Confederate uniforms and acting out battles and other significant events that occurred between 1861 and 1865. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired (for real) on Fort Sumter, a military installation manned by federal troops, and continued the bombardment for more than 30 hours, when, outgunned and almost out of supplies, the Union commander, Major Robert Anderson, surrendered the fort and its garrison. It was the fall of Fort Sumter that began the Civil War, and modern reenactors pretended to do it all over again, only this time they did not use live ammunition, did not keep modern Charlestonians from getting their sleep by sustaining the thunder of cannons through the night, and presumably did no damage to the preserved stone walls of the Fort Sumter National Monument, which is located on an island in the middle of Charleston harbor.

In fact, the "living historians" at Charleston fudged the history more than a little by firing their first shot at the fort at 6:45 in the morning rather than at the very famous historical time of 4:30 a.m. Presumably, this enabled the reenactors to sleep a little later than their historical counterparts did 150 years ago. Then, when the mortar shot was finally fired to begin the reenactment, it barely sailed up 40 yards or so into the sky, although the noise it made was, according to the Charleston Post and Courier, "thunderous." But the newspaper also reported that the pyrotechnics left something to be desired: Rather than the "star shell" of a century and  a half ago, the explosion seemed more like a "bottle rocket." The fireworks technician in charge of the mortar shot explained that the burst was "intentionally weak, as a safety precaution to the crowds of people on hand to witness the waterfront ceremony." So much for historical accuracy.

The promoters of this observance insisted that their event was not a "reenactment," but a moment of "living history." Although I’ve been a practicing Civil War historian for quite some time, I’ve never quite understood why reenactors dislike being called reenactors. They almost universally claim to be "living historians" or to be engaged in "living history." But I find these terms mystifying. For one thing, I think that I am a living historian; if not, someone should inform my loved ones of my passing. For another thing, "living history" makes me think of apparitions, like ghosts possessing the living and walking about historical sites in the manner of zombies, wide-eyed, with arms outstretched and flesh dangling off their faces. But if reenactors wish to be called living historians, so be it.

At any rate, the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War is off and running (with the Union "living historians" dutifully surrendering Fort Sumter to Confederate "living historians" in a pageant held on April 14, fraught with high seriousness and furrowed brows suitable to the occasion. To a very large degree, I confess to some unease about all this playacting as we look down the road to four years of battle reenactments, fancy-dress balls (modeled on the ones portrayed in the films "The Birth of a Nation" and "Gone With the Wind"), and professions of neo-Confederate sentiments about the war having been fought over states’ rights and not slavery, as if that’s a good thing.

The sesquicentennial should be an enormous opportunity to educate the American public about the war, its causes and its consequences. The Civil War still captures the American imagination, and there is probably no more popular event in American history than the Civil War. Civil War books outnumber works about other periods of our national history (despite the fact that the American Revolution was actually the single most important event in our country’s history), Civil War national parks outnumber other historical parks from a single time period, and Civil War reenactors and buffs by far outnumber other enthusiasts who immerse themselves in the details of, say, the French and Indian War or even World War II. Still, for all this interest, many Americans still possess little understanding of the Civil War and its outcome. The sesquicentennial might help to remedy this knowledge gap by raising public awareness of the war in all its many dimensions, revealing local aspects of the war to many who might not know that their communities were involved in fighting the war or supporting the war effort, and spreading a broad public understanding of what the war meant to the people who experienced it and to subsequent generations of Americans who live, even 150 years later, in its very long shadow.

But the thought of being deluged with everything about the Civil War over the next four years leaves me with a distinct feeling of dread, if not outright exhaustion. For one thing, I already "live" in the Civil War era on practically a daily basis. It is my job to read and write about the war, to teach my students about it, to speak to scholarly and community groups about it, and to learn as much about it, day to day, month to month, year to year, as I possibly can. The fact is, I’m already immersed in the Civil War -- so much so that I often feel like I need a vacation from the 19th century, just to stay in touch with my family, my friends and the world in which I live. Other Civil War academics have admitted to me their similar feelings: For those of us who "do" Civil War history, it is possible sometimes to o.d. on the Civil War. When that happens, I purposely take a vacation to some place unhistorical in nature or importance, drag along a suitcase filled with pulp fiction, detective novels and unread magazines from our coffee table, and find a quiet, shady place to forget about the Civil War. Inevitably, these "rehab" experiences fail miserably, and I usually end up with my thoughts drifting to some aspect of the war as Hercule Poirot continues to gather clues or as Thomas Frank says something truly brilliant in his Harper’s "Easy Chair" column. Predictably, I begin scribbling notes about my next writing project on slips of paper, napkins and those little, otherwise useless pads you find next to the telephone in hotel rooms. Being a Civil War historian means living in the 19th century, whether you like it or not, and it’s damned difficult to jump back and forth between centuries.

Which is why, in at least one respect, I find the unfolding Civil War sesquicentennial daunting. As more and more people become involved in the war’s commemoration, I fear not only immersion but inundation. How much more Civil War can I deal with in my in life? How much more can I sink below its depths before it drowns me? How much more can anyone stand?

Civil War reenactors and buffs seem to have a far greater tolerance level than I do. They live and breathe the war readily, without hesitation, and with a passion that veers close to a religious experience or even sexual arousal. I have a passion for my work, especially my writing and my teaching, but enough’s enough. I lack the hobbyist’s obsession with the war, its players (great and small), and its minutia (which is endless). My job requires me to be an expert about the war, a position I do believe I’ve attained, but I can’t bring myself to devote the entirety of my life to it -- and I certainly (unlike some of my academic cohort) have no interest in donning a uniform, firing a Springfield musket, or participating in a battle reenactment under a blazing sun or a dripping sky....