Craig Wheeler stands guard against Southern incursion. Photo by Sara Stathas.
A rolling field near the Elmbrook Historical Society looks like a postcard from the past, especially when there are men positioned around it, in Civil War uniforms, and women in hoop skirts strolling about, between period cannons. Then one fires, and reality sinks in.
“I’ve lost a good amount of my hearing due to all the cannon and musket fire,” says Joe Roman, a Civil War re-enactor who’s sided with the Union for some 25 years – including on this particular weekend in May, which marked the 20th anniversary of the Historical Society’s Civil War Encampment.
Every year, re-enactors come from all over Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin to join in the event, which is a peculiar mixing of the past and present, as if a time machine had malfunctioned. On Sunday afternoon, a re-enactor was seen reheating restaurant leftovers over a fire, although she and others had spent many hundreds of dollars preparing for the day.
“Everything has to be as authentic as possible,” says Roman, attired in a navy wool jacket with gleaming brass buttons. He says it’s taken him three years and about $3,000 to assemble the “kit” that makes him look like a 150-year-old foot soldier – and he’s proud of it.
For most re-enactors, marching in a gray uniform isn’t as costly. “The South went to war with what they had, and it’s a heck of a lot cheaper for us,” says Craig Arellano, representing a cavalry unit from Alabama.
Participants are given a script of each battle and, thanks to history, are well aware of who the winner will be at the end – but individual casualties are up to the actors. If you come across a cool, shaded area without horse droppings, explains Craig Wheeler, a six-year veteran of reenactments, it might be time to die, or at least lie mortally wounded.
Wheeler has fought for both the South and North – though he claims he was spying for his Union comrades while allied temporarily with the Confederacy.
Roman, a diehard northerner, hopes to celebrate next year’s anniversary of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, which will be the 150th. “After that re-enactment, I plan on retiring,” he says, “but who knows?”
The old soldier picks up his musket. “That plan could change.” ■
This article appears in the July 2014 issue of Milwaukee Magazine.
This article appears in the July 2014 issue of Milwaukee Magazine.
Read the rest of July issue online here, or subscribe to Milwaukee Magazine.
