Last night on the Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel described Civil War re-enacting as a bit of a mystery to her, and I don't really blame her. So here's my take on re-enactors.
In my on-going study of the Civil War, I've spent quite a bit of time with re-enactors during my hundreds of visits to Gettysburg and other battlefields. They're definitely a strange and often contradictory group of guys (and some ladies). But here it is: re-enacting is mainly about educating non-historians about Civil War battles. More importantly, when it comes to kids who are generally bored to death by history, Civil War re-enactors inspire them to want to know more about that critical era in American history. All good, as far as I'm concerned.
Re-enacting is equal parts acting and education, and it's not unheard of to observe that many actors and many educators tend to skew towards the eccentric end of the personality spectrum. So it's no surprise that re-enactors are flamboyant and weird, and therefor an easy target for casual observers who mistakenly perceive them as gun-powder-toting versions of Star Trek geeks. While there's an element of geekery, fanaticism and dress-em-up, there's a big and obvious difference insofar as Star Trek is science fiction and Trekkies don't provide valuable historical non-fiction education. And they're very enthusiastic about it. They have to be in order to muster the spirit to run around an open farm field on an intensely humid 90-degree Pennsylvania July afternoon wearing thick, itchy wool and hauling 60 pounds of gear.
There are also re-enactors, self-identified as Hardcore or Authentic Campaigners, who don't often "perform" in public re-enactments, and, while they occasionally organize public re-enactments of small battles, they typically re-enact for their own personal educational purposes. They're driven to know exactly what it felt like to be a Civil War soldier -- in every way. They march, they eat rancid meat and hardtack, and they know everything about the soldier's life (except for, you know, the getting shot part). I often refer to these guys as "living historians" -- they don't just read and interpret the war, they're masochistic enough to go out and experience it for themselves down to the smallest detail as a means of adding a very thorough and personal insight into what it was "really" like.
All that said, I have one big gripe about re-enactors (apart from my huge list of personal and political issues with Confederate re-enactors). Mainstream re-enactments, like the annual event at Gettysburg in July, give the false impression to spectators that the war was fought between 20 fat middle aged men in blue versus another 20 fat middle aged men in butternut. It wasn't. Civil War battles were massive in scale, and there wasn't a single beer belly among the ten to sixty thousand young men engaged in those battles. These were lean, often starving guys participating in epic battles more closely resembling Lord of the Rings in scale. Pickett's Charge, for example, on the third day of Gettysburg featured thousands more Confederates attacking the Union lines on Cemetary Ridge than there were Uruk-hai attacking Helm's Deep in The Two Towers. That's huge.
To be fair, 100 percent accuracy is impossible and too much to expect from an event. If a re-enactment even partially replicated a Civil War battle using the most state of the art special effects, spectators would be horrified. Most viewers would flee, and those who stayed would probably lose their lunches. For instance, the ballistic impact of a "canister" artillery shot (often two or three loaded into a cannon) was brutal beyond description. Each coffee-can sized round was filled with lead shrapnel and shredded entire lines of men beyond recognition. You can't re-enact that.
Ultimately, they're not too difficult to understand if you look beyond the bellies, the era-specific politics and the Victorian regalia. Cut them a break, at least for the next four years or so as the 150th anniversary of the war is commemorated. You might learn something from them.
Also, read this book.
Adding... Rachel was mistaken about one thing, though. She said re-enactors are exclusive to the Civil War. Actually, there are re-enactments and re-enactors for most American wars.