"current political climate"

ACRose

The message from the event coordinator of a local park started this way: "With the current political climate, my director is asking that this be a private event." The way that I interpreted the statement does not bode well for the Confederate-side of Civil War re-enacting. As we all know, there is history to be told here but telling just the Federal side does not anywhere near tell the whole story.
The way that we conduct re-enacting events may be changing - all of the turmoil from the past couple years and the cancellations caused by COVID have hit the hobby hard. We may be relegated to small, living-history events for a while. It will be necessary for the members of the hobby to really become historians and tellers-of-the-tales of life for those Civil War soldiers from both sides.
The best way to become that true historian is to read the personal accounts. Diaries will of course provide the best stories. Right now I am reading "Hardtack and Coffee", written in the 1880s by a Union veteran. Another book that was suggested to me is "Si Klegg and his Pard". Both of these are from the Union side.
Please share any other books or articles that we may consume to broaden our knowledge of what life was like for those soldiers who we portray.

Steve Corey

Estabrook

Couldn't agree more with you Steve. We all could see this time coming. Now it's here. Great suggestion to read more CW books now so we can "impart" the history of that time to the general public. I just finished our pard Jonathan Steplyk's book "Fighting Means Killing - Civil War Soldier's and the Nature of Combat." It's a great read and Jonathan did a great job of researching and culling through soldier's diaries and letters to get their perspective of what killing in war meant. It also shows the benevolent side of those same soldiers.