Every weekend in different places around the country, there are a group of people who don the uniforms, clothing, and paraphernalia of times past. For a brief time, they enter the lives of people who have long since passed from this earth. These "time-travelers" are called reenactors or living historians. Though there are those who represent eras throughout our country's history, the ones I would like to expound on bring a very important and yet tragic part of our past to life.

During this, our American Civil War, more Americans died than during all our other wars combined. No family went unscathed by the conflict and every town or city felt it's effects in one way or another. The whole world watched as this new form of government called democracy underwent its first true test. Would this union of individual states hold together?

Well, we all know the answer and the outcome of those four years of bloodshed. However, most of us have seen or heard nothing more than what we remember from school or from visiting museums and parks. This doesn't give us enough to truly see what life during the mid to late 1800s was like or even what a Civil War soldier may have experienced on the battlefield. This is why reenactors have chosen to take to the woods and fields in order to bring history out of the one-dimensional books and into the outdoor classroom.

There are different types of events held at different sites from coast to coast. These include living history camps, battle re-enactments, living history marches, parades, and period balls. Of these, the first two are the most common and the numbers involved can range from a small handful to 20,000+ depending on the event. The national events are the larger ones for they draw participants from all over the country and overseas.

The living history encampments are actual representations of living conditions the troops had to deal with in the garrison or in the field. In addition to opening the camps to the public, the various branches of the military perform maneuvering and firing demonstrations. At events on the coast, you can even see a huge coastal gun fired or watch two frigates battle it out in the bay.

The battle reenactments range from small skirmishes to huge panoramic engagements. This is where you can start to get an idea of what the battlefields looked and sounded liked. The ground shakes from cannon fire, the air roars from musketry, and the acrid smell of sulfur flows across the fields in the smoke. Yells and screams from hundreds or thousands of throats mingle with the sounds of war to make you consider that maybe for just a while; you did look back into history.

I am a proud member of those we know as reenactors. My unit portrays the 28th Georgia Infantry Volunteers, Company G when we do Confederate and the 123rd New York, Co D when we do Federal. We take pride in it and do detailed research about the soldier's way of life in addition to the battles. We are dedicated to preserving the history as it happened and are not attempting to sugarcoat or change it. Those four years were a horrible culmination of a decade of strife, but they must not be forgotten.

I would like to invite each and every one of you to take some time one weekend to visit one of the many events happening in this area. Allow yourself to step back in time and view the 1860s in a different three-dimensional light. After experiencing it, I hope you can take home something that will never be forgotten.

Printed in Gwinnett County's "The Weekly" newspaper on February 10, 1999.