New Jersey reenactors take the field for Gettysburg's 150th anniversary

An hour-and-a-half before the searing July sun breaks the horizon over the rolling fields of southern Pennsylvania, a bugle call cuts through the darkness to stir a still-sleeping army from its slumber.

Slowly, ghostly figures tumble out of their canvas tombs to light the fires that will boil their morning coffee and cook their breakfast bacon. Before long, after more snooze-button-style bugling, more men emerge, buttoning shirts and pulling on blue woolen jackets before the morning roll is called.

It's not the first time that these fields, which are located just a few miles northeast of the small village of Gettysburg, Pa., have seen this spectacle, but if things don't change soon, it might be one of the last.

Undoubtedly, Civil War reenacting is a bit of an odd pastime, and few who are not in "the hobby," as it's called by those in the know, can understand what drives thousands of men, women, and children to dress up in Victorian era clothing to party like it's 1863. Tell someone, with any degree of seriousness, that you're a reenactor yourself, and you can quite literally watch the look on their face change to what can only be described as a cross between incredulousness and pity.

In reality, though, this peculiar pursuit is much closer to a massive theater production than many in the public realize, and it's designed to breathe temporary life into the shadows of history for a few short days to give citizens a lesson they couldn't glean from their high school teachers.

And it certainly does that - from the loud, flea-market atmosphere of Sutler's Row to the sulfur clouds floating over the swarms of rifle-toting men that fight out the battle, the sights and sounds offered by the 150th reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg could not be replicated in any classroom.

Sadly, though, as the current flock of reenactors continues to gray, the future of this undertaking may be in danger. Although about 8,000 living historians make the trek to the hamlet 40 miles from Harrisburg, it's a far cry from the now-legendary 135th anniversary, which had a remarkable 40,000.

On top of that, a civil war has erupted within the hobby itself as a growing number of reenactors - called "campaigners" or "progressives" by their mainstream counterparts - have split away to form their own groups that take the term "living history" to an extreme. They held their own event the weekend prior, and this not only cut into the number of participants at the official reenactment, but led to widespread confusion amongst the general public about which show is the "real" one.

This combination of an aging population and brutal internal politics may be creating a death spiral for the hobby, one that many, like West Milford's Mike Belgie and his reenacting compatriots, want to avoid at all costs.



A dying breed

For years, many thought that Gettysburg's sesquicentennial anniversary would be the hobby's moment of glory, especially after the triumphant 135th saw tens of thousands of Union and Confederate troops take to the field to perform a raucous full-scale recreation of the infamous Pickett's Charge.

And, although numbers aren't crucial to the reenactors themselves - Belgie says they often enjoy smaller performances more than these "mega-events" because of the increased flexibility and decreased stress - there was a sense that the 150th would draw far more participants than ended up coming, and the low turnout has several wondering if this anniversary was a "coup de grace" instead.

But still, most believe that at least one of the two major engagements held on Saturday, July 6, was a success. Without the numbers, they aren't as muscular as they perhaps could have been, but they are active and intense, and every unit gets to "burn some powder," as they say.

Belgie, 57, is an 18-year veteran of this hobby, and is reasonably high on the reenactor food chain; as a major, he fleshes out part of the body of a half-dozen men who serve on the staff of General Tony Daniels, commander of the Union Army's 2nd Division.

Tall and skinny with gray curly hair, a gray goatee, and a set of glasses permanently affixed to the bridge of his nose, Belgie is a laid-back sort who makes his living as a photographer but is also an ex-Deadhead, ex-security contractor, ex-everything kind of guy.

Daniels, 66, might be described as his opposite. Shorter and thicker, with a weather-beaten face and a dark beard, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Ulysses S. Grant and was born in Newark on 85th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. A Verona native, he taught history for years in Jackson Township, and speaks carefully and deliberately. The letters "SPQR" - the initials of a Latin phrase once emblazoned on the standards of the Roman legions - are tattooed across his left shoulder.

The mercury rises quickly Saturday morning, and as it does, there is some doubt among Daniels' staff as to whether they, or many of their men will participate in the afternoon battle, which is slated to start at 1 p.m. As the hour nears and other units assemble, that doubt strengthens as the mercury climbs past 90, and although a few gear up, Daniels, Belgie, and many of their 800 or so reenactors don't leave the shade of their tents.

At this point, it's far hotter for the recreation than it was for the actual engagement.

The battle kicks off 20 minutes late and is something of a mess from the start. Although the artillery cannonade is fearsome, the main infantry battle occurs over a quarter-mile from where the spectators sit and is blocked by a grove of trees.

As the standing-room-only crowd follows the fight, many end up crashing through a camp and breaking through a thin line of woods before coming out far too close to the action for the comfort of either the reenactors or the event staff, and several women on horseback ride the length of the unruly line, screaming at the onlookers to clear the area. Their efforts are met with a mix of begrudging acquiescence and, in some instances, belligerence, and in the end, it's only the threat of police intervention that accomplishes their goal.

Afterward, back at the cluster of five or six tents that makes up the 2nd division headquarters, the few officers who took the field reveal that the scenario strayed so far from the script that it eventually turned into an impromptu "tactical" - an unscripted battle that is more like living chess than a well-rehearsed play.

"It went well," one officer says, grabbing a Yuengling out of the wooden cooler marked "Adams Express."

"Yeah? I heard it was a cluster-[expletive]," Daniels replies quietly.

"Well... We had a small but effective force," the officer says with a grin. "I think it went very well. The men were happy."

Lunch is served shortly afterward, and a lazy afternoon passes as black ants crawl across the table and horseflies abuse everything with a pulse. The staff drinks cold lagers while discussing everything from (of course) reenactor politics to New York Giants football (Daniels had season tickets for years). Nearby, a band plays poor renditions of rarely heard songs like "Battle Cry of Freedom" and "Bonnie Blue Flag" on the violin.

By the time 5:30 p.m. rolls around, though, the staff is ready to get moving - the sun has tumbled lower in the sky, and a slight wind has made the heat more bearable.

As the men - along with the occasional woman - form up, Daniels mounts Gabriel, the massive 2,000-pound black horse that he rides into battle, and takes his place at the head of the line. He is an imposing sight.

Belgie used to ride, he says, but his back no longer can take the abuse, and a couple of close calls with an unbroken steed a few years back means that he now walks into his fights.

This time, the reenactment appears to go off without a hitch. Few of the officers know which particular piece of the battle they're reenacting, but they know the script and stick to it as Union troops take their positions in a dark woodline at the crest of a steep hill. The Southerners meet with success initially as they fight their way up the slope, but the closer they get to the top, the more blue lines step forward out of the thick leaves and ambush them.

By the time they reach the crest, many have fallen, and the Southerners realize that, having marched into the open end of a horseshoe, they're being enveloped by Union troops who send volley after volley into their flanks.

The federal fire intensifies, and cannons boom in the background. Understanding what the man next to you is saying is, at times, impossible, even though reenactors use only partial charges; if they were using real cartridges, every rifle would be several times louder, and the artillery would literally be deafening. The real battle, it's said, was heard 140 miles away in Pittsburgh.

By the time the bugles blow the "cease fire," it's clear that this is a resounding victory for the Union. When the voice of a woman singing "God Bless of America" clamors out of the loudspeakers, all hats come off, and the thousands on the field fall silent.

After the battle, the feeling in camp is markedly lighter, and the officers smile like a boxer who's just finished his bout.

"The boys had fun today," Daniels says to no one in particular. All nod in agreement.

But, while it was a good reenactment, it is clear that it could have been far larger and far more impressive if more men had shown up.

A 'general collapse'

Hours later, Belgie sips from an aged tin beer stein as he speaks about the day's battle and the divide that's driven down participation. What we're seeing, he says, is not an implosion of the reenactor community - it's more of a "general collapse."

The campaigner group, named the "Blue-Gray Alliance," had maybe 8,000 in its reenactment the week before, but regardless, only about 2,000 would have actually participated in this event, Belgie says. The rest have little regard for mainstream events, which tend to stay close to the history books on the battlefield, but are more laid back in camp. The site of women in the "company streets" (the lanes between the tents), enlisted men with tents larger than they should have, and cars and trucks visible in the distance as there are here would be unacceptable.

Cell phones are banned, coolers aren't allowed, and beer is a no-no. Spectators, Belgie says, are more of a bother than a blessing to them.

"They would rather do it for the reenactors, by the reenactors - that's their motto," he says. "They don't want modern intrusions... You actually cross a time line, and when you cross that line, it is 1863. This is Gettysburg."

He's participated in events like this - most reenactors have at one point or another - but the rules get tiresome, and truly living in the field like it's the mid-19th century is less than pleasant if you're strict about it. And one can't help but get the feeling that mainstreamers roll their eyes at the thought of being "authentic."

"Authentic? The last authentic Civil War soldier was (Alfred) Woolson, and he died in 1956," Belgie says. "Everybody since then is just a reenactor. We're just recreating history so the public gets some education that they didn't get in school."

Pennsylvanian Carl Popadick, another long-time member of Daniels' staff who also portrays pirates, Revolutionary War soldiers, and everyone in between, is a bit more blunt about his feelings.

"They just don't give a [expletive]. They don't care if they teach anybody anything. They didn't want spectators, but to pull something off that size, they needed spectators to pay the way," he says. "They're just using the public - they don't care if they have a good sightline. They don't care if they're comfortable in the field or they have water. It's, 'We got your 20 bucks to get in, so we can have an event for ourselves.'"

Daniels agrees, and it's likely the history teacher in him speaking when he calls the campaigners "exceptionally selfish." And for those that sit around his camp table, drinking beer and whiskey and smoking cigars by candlelight late into the midnight hours, this blatant disregard for the public is a cardinal sin.

"We have a different slant in that we try to portray it as historically accurate as possible for the public to see. Those guys are just in it for themselves," he says. "The event last weekend, they had a handful of spectators, and they didn't care. They didn't even want [them]."

And the idea that the campaigners, who seem to have an increasing amount of influence, are trying to wrestle the entire hobby in that direction, is intolerable, even more so because they're meeting with some success - two years ago, no mention of this war between the reenactors was heard around anyone's table.

Now, it's a constant topic of conversation.



'The kids today are air-conditioned'

The other thing that worries the old guard is that the youth don't seem particularly inclined to take up the mantle that is slowly being abdicated by the graybeards. With many of the current crop of Baby Boomer reenactors reaching the age of 60 or 65, coming out into the field for a weekend isn't an option anymore, Belgie says.

"It's just physically impossible, and in fact, it's dangerous to your health," he says.

New members are needed if the hobby hopes to survive, because guys like him are "gettin' kind of tired."

Where that new blood comes from, however, is still unknown, and with kids spending their free time in front of iPhone screens and Xbox games, convincing them to come out for a weekend to learn to shoot a black powder rifle is harder than one might think.

"The kids today are air conditioned... They're not outdoor people," he says. "I could go to any high school in the country and say, 'We're not gonna' fight a battle, but we're going to go out and camp... You're going to have a rubber blanket, two wool blankets, it'll be a 90-degree day, you're going to put on three layers of wool and carry a musket that weighs 18 pounds,' and they're going to look at me like I got three heads."

Southerners tend to have better luck keeping their numbers up, and Belgie attributes this what he considers a mix of a "good propaganda system" that makes them believe that the South will "rise again" and the anti-government tendencies of its people.

Add to that the relative oddity of actually becoming a Civil War reenactor - which Belgie says has always earned him queer looks, no matter the year - and it's a tough sell to the Millennials.

Nearly everyone on Daniels' staff echoes the same sentiment; they wish they could get their kids to join them, but it rarely happens.

Belgie also notes that they've tried to help African-American regiments, such as the United States Colored Troops (USCT) and the 54th Massachusetts, recruit, but there's been a dismal response - even though 180,000 black soldiers served in the real Union ranks.

"We've tried to help [those units], but they just can't get any interest out of their communities," he says. "They're like, 'You're kidding right? I'm not doing that.'"

Daniels admits that the low turnout for Gettysburg is "a bad sign, no two ways about it," and worries that the hobby might someday shrink in popularity to that of, say, Revolutionary War reenacting, which was immensely popular during the 1970s but is now a shell of what it once was. But he seems more optimistic than Belgie, and believes that a TV miniseries like Ken Burns' 1990 PBS special "The Civil War," or a new movie in the fashion of "Glory" or "Gettysburg" could kick start things again.

"We are a culture that is attuned to what we see on television," he says.

The next couple years will be tough, though, as many old-time reenactors who stuck around just to see the Gettysburg sesquicentennial will now likely retire, he says.

"Right after this event, it's going to be like you pulled the plug in the bathtub. You're going to lose probably a quarter of the guys who are here, because they were staying in it for this," he says. "This is going to have a marked effect on reenacting."

There are some connections that will continue regardless, though, and Popadick points out that people are still closer to the Civil War than they ever were to the Revolution because of heirlooms like letters, Bibles, and other artifacts that are still being passed down within families.

"[They say] 'Oh, I still have my great-grandad's Bible, his glasses, the hat he wore.... So that's still getting passed down, and that's going to help keep this alive," he says.

Daniels also notes that over the last two years, he's seen more young kids around the camp than he used to, and there's always the hope that as the economy improves, reenactors who are either out of work or can't take off the necessary days may begin showing up again. Also, better paychecks mean that more beginners might be inclined to spend the initial $1,500 that it costs to outfit oneself with the appropriate gear.

"The economy has a lot to do with it, the price of gas has a lot to do with it, the weather obviously has a lot to do with it, but I'm feeling a little better about the hobby now than [last year]," Daniels says. "Not like super-optimistic, but I'm thinking, 'Hey you know what...'"

Nothing has been formally proposed among the reenacting hierarchy to prop up the faltering numbers.


A thing worth saving

Ask a reenactor why, what with its back to the ropes, "the hobby" is worth saving, and you'll get a variety of answers.

Daniels is of the opinion that it's important to educate the public on its history, and points out that the crushing multitudes of participants and spectators do, in fact, boost the local economy of whatever town an event is held in.

Popadick says it's important because in a nation that's famously ignorant of its own past, knowing what happened before helps us understand what's going on today. People in the British Isles, he says, not only know what happened 300 years ago, but understand that it transcends the centuries and still affects current events.

In America, that's not the case.

"Our average kids don't know anything about our history, or what happened in any time period," he says. "And what happened in the Civil War definitely affected the way we live today - it literally made America."

Plus, he points out, where else could a conversation like this even take place outside of this atmosphere?

Belgie's answer is perhaps the most revealing. It was the family stories about his great-great grandfather, William C. Louderback, a coal miner who served with the 79th Pennsylvania Volunteers, that piqued his initial interest in the war. Louderback, after all, had been a part of General Sherman's infamous "March to the Sea," which burned its way through Georgia in 1864, and saw action at several brutal battles.

But it was something that happened after Belgie's first night in the field nearly 20 years ago that cemented his place in the ranks.

He'd been dropped off that weekend by his "better half" and told, more or less, "See ya Sunday." When he arrived at the site, the reenactors pointed to a low "dog tent," told him that's where he was sleeping, and gave him a wool uniform to wear.

The next morning, he says, he awoke to a scene that was out of place in time.

"I looked out, and there's five guys sitting around a fire, they've got their pipper on [it], they're boiling coffee, they got the little pans out and they're making bacon, and I'm like, "[Expletive], this is what my great-great-grandfather saw,'" he says. "That's it. You know what I mean?"

Suddenly, he chokes up.

"God, that was a long time ago," he says quietly, sending a thousand-yard stare into the distance.

"You can read a book," Belgie says, pausing momentarily. "It ain't the same....We can't lose this. And I don't know how we're gonna save it, but there's got to be a way to do it."

Whatever their plan is, they'd better start soon. Or else, like the souls of the men they portray, they may end up haunting these fields, wondering what went wrong, and wishing they had one last chance to do it differently.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/community/history/more_history_news/215471381_New_Jersey_reenactors_take_the_field_for_Gettysburg_s_150th_anniversary.html?page=all

New Jersey's role at Antietam, past and present

By Steve Janoski

As the suns descends over one of the many cornfields that divide the rolling hills of western Maryland, a scene not witnessed in over a century-and-a-half is taking place as thousands of men – some wearing blue, some wearing gray – file into a field, their steel rifle barrels glinting in the light as they march.

Minutes later, a thunderous roll of drum beats calls the infantry to battle, and a battery of cannons roars to life, its bellows shattering the quiet country evening as its crew swarms around it. One officer yells to his men, "Alright boys…get ready for hell!"

In one cornfield, a swirling firefight has broken out, and all that can be heard over the din of artillery muzzles and rifle cracks is men yelling in a mad chorus, shouting orders, and firing at each other while horses careen about and the sulfur smoke settles just over the tops of the 7-foot stalks… and for a brief moment, it becomes all too easy to lose one's place in time.

The confusion is endless. Northern sharpshooters thread between the plants in guerilla-fashion more suited for the jungles of Vietnam, but a line of rebels soon overwhelms them, charging forward with their high-pitched "rebel yell." Minutes after, however, a thick line of blue follows and drives those same southerners before it.

An hour later, a bugle blows in the distance to signify that the scenario is being brought to a close, and the firing slows. It appears that the North has won the exercise, called a "tactical" in the reenactment world. 

Unscripted and unmapped, it is a real competition where the Northern and Southern commanders use tactics from the mid-19th century to match soldiers and wits.

Or, as 56-year-old West Milford resident and 17-year Civil War reenacting veteran Mike Belgie said, it's "two generals looking for each other, and they know they're out there, and they're going for it."

Sometimes, at formally-scored events, referees are even present, but many (such as this one) are done on the honor system.

The tactical stands in stark contrast to the reenactment that the public will see the following day in a massive but scripted performance meant to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Antietam, he said, precisely because it is not intended to follow history — the generals have "taken the script and thrown it away."

"When we do a tactical, we're writing our own history," he said.

In this case, the rewritten history mirrors the actual battle as the Union troops continually outmaneuver and outwit the rebels, but the chaotic atmosphere gives Belgie a thorough appreciation for what the soldiers of the mid-1860s went through when the bullets began flying.

"Once the guys got into the corn, the only way we knew where they were was the smoke…that's a great way to run a battle: Which way is the smoke?" he said with a laugh.

Belgie isn't the only one who looks forward to the private battles, said Tony Daniels, a retired history teacher from Jackson Township whose thick brown beard and propensity for smoking cigar after cigar gives him an uncanny resemblance to Ulysses S. Grant. In his 30 years, he said, he has been in nearly 100 of the running fights, and can recite story after story about one match after another.

But for Daniels, who as a general often commands a wing of the army (or sometimes the entire army), going head-to-head with an opposing leader brings out his competitive streak, and he can recall only twice where he lost convincingly.

"Although you're not using real bullets, it's like, 'I don't want this guy to trick me, I want to kick his ass,'" he said. "It's almost like chess, and I love it."

One of the officers on Daniels' staff, Pennsylvanian Carl Popadick, has been reenacting for 17 years and said that when there's no choreography, everything changes, and all the sensations are heightened.

"You get out there in that field, and you're fighting because you don't know what's going to happen. Your awareness changes, it really does," he said.

But even the reenactors are keenly aware that they can get only so close to history, and that even the most hectic tactical is tame compared to the real thing — especially when "the real thing" is Antietam.

During the historical battle, which took place on Sept. 17, 1862, the artillery did a good amount of the work of clearing out the real cornfield, Belgie said, by firing canister — a metal cylinder packed with hundreds of little metal balls and shards of metal — into it.

By the time dusk gathered around the 3,000 or so acres east of the little farming town of Sharpsburg, 23,000 Americans would lie in various states of death or agony, with 3,600 killed outright. That's eight times as many casualties as Omaha Beach, and eight times as many as in 9/11. Even with the horrific wars fought in the 20th century, Antietam today remains the single bloodiest day in American history.

And, nearly 150 years ago to the day, just a few miles away from the reenactors' frenzied fight, the young soldiers of the 13th New Jersey volunteers crouched near another cornfield, waiting for the orders that they knew would send them to their deaths.

Jersey boys' baptism by fire

The 937 men of the regiment had been recruited from Passaic, Essex, and Hudson counties during the summer of 1862, and by mid-September, it was attached to the XII Corps of the General George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac as it traveled north from Virginia in pursuit of an invading southern army.

The stakes could not possibly have been higher. A series of Confederate victories in front of Richmond during May and June, coupled with Robert E. Lee's crushing defeat of another Union army at Second Bull Run in late August, had shattered the Northerners' spirit, and it appeared that one more big win for the rebels might have ended the conflict.

Even if it did not, a victory somewhere in Pennsylvania or Maryland might convince the major European powers — namely, England and France — to intervene on behalf of the South in the same manner that the French had during the Revolutionary War 81 years earlier.

When the two armies finally met, it was along a tiny tributary of the Potomac River called Antietam Creek, and when the 13th New Jersey moved into position on the west side of its banks on the night of Sept. 16, it was impossible for them to know what the next day would hold.

Samuel Toombs, a sergeant who became the de facto regimental historian after the publishing of his 1878 book "Reminisces of the War: Comprising a Detailed Account of the Experiences of the Thirteenth Regiment New Jersey Volunteers in Camp, on the March and in Battle," wrote that the 13th, situated on the extreme right of the federal line, would be a part of the assault force charged with turning the rebel flank and driving it back toward Sharpsburg.

The sounds of skirmishing in the distance made the green regiment skittish; they'd barely heard a shot fired in training, much less in battle.

"It was a trying situation for us," Toombs wrote. "The certainty of death never before seemed so near. The approach of dawn was dreaded as though it was to witness our last day upon earth, and our thoughts wandered back to home and the loved ones there."

For David and Peter Ryerson, two brothers hailing from Pompton Lakes, thoughts of loved ones might not have been of so much comfort — earlier in the year, their 63-year-old father (born in 1798) had fallen at the Battle of Williamsburg, his body pierced by several bullets, while commanding another New Jersey regiment. 

He was buried in the graveyard of the Pompton Reformed Church on Hamburg Turnpike with full military honors.

Months later, the brothers, who were both officers (27-year-old David was a captain in Company C and Peter was a 1st lieutenant), would face their first real battle. Also in that company was Private J.M. 

Shepperd, whom much less is known about other than he was likely from the Pequannock area and fought in the battle.

The order to attack came so early in the morning on the 17th that there wasn't even time to cook their breakfast rations of fresh meat, Toombs wrote, and he described the scene that greeted them as they arrived on the field at around 7 a.m.

"Shot and shell were doing their dreadful work. The roar of musketry grew louder…we lay under a severe artillery fire for some time, and the hissing, screeching sounds which accompanied the deadly missiles in their flight produced anything but a pleasant sensation," he wrote.

An Irish brigade from Boston marched by and into the West Woods, which would have sat to the 13th's front, and the New Jerseyans were ordered to move in behind them.

An unimaginable scene

Belgie, who has been researching the regiment, said that because they were initially held as a reserve, their advance would have been slowed by the mangled bodies of slaughtered comrades who'd fallen earlier in the fighting.

"They would have been stepping over dead bodies, over the wounded, and be trying to keep to their ranks. As soon as they cleared the cornfield, they would have been in range of the (rebel) artillery, and they would have started dropping shells on them," he said.

Once through the cornfield, which prior currents of lead had destroyed, they jumped over the wooden fences that lined the sides of the Hagerstown Pike and began to draw small arms fire from the southerners positioned in the woods.

They continued forward toward the Dunker Church, a small white building that would become infamous because of the severity of the fighting that took place around it, and ran head-on into the troops of legendary Southern General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson.

Confusion reigned supreme — the Union troops were initially ordered to stop firing because it was thought that the soldiers they were shooting at were actually Northerners, but when the "friendlys" began advancing toward them, the firing resumed.

"The advance of the enemy was persistent and in strong force, and they poured a fierce and destructive fire into us," wrote Toombs, somewhat matter-of-factly.

The fighting scattered the regiment, which later reformed and pushed toward the church once more, this time led by Brigade Commander General George S. Greene himself. Jackson's troops, ever the veterans, attempted to ruse the New Jerseyans into believing they were surrendering, but that illusion was shattered when they leveled their rifles and began pouring a murderous fire onto the federals.

After an hour of fighting, Toombs wrote, the 13th was forced back "before the strong fire of the enemy, who were in superior force."

But in reality, Toombs placid field reporting belies the terror that actually occurred; the National Park Service's battlefield guide states that the area where the men of the 13th New Jersey and its sister regiments met the stalwart defenses of Jackson's Confederates was the site of some of the "most horrific fighting" in U.S. history.

A reenactor from the 3rd New Jersey reenactment group noted that, because the exit wounds for the .58-caliber rifles used during the Civil War were so large, men who were gutshot would often have their insides blown out their backs. In the vicinity of the cornfield, he said, this meant that the stalks behind the rows of dead men were colored brown and red with entrails.

Belgie, for his part, admits that he can't imagine what it must have been like to storm the position, and that he would have quickly made a "strategic advance to the rear" in the real battle.

"My ass woulda' been outta' there…I would have been in the rear with the gear," he said.

After seeing horrors like that, it was hard for him to imagine that the veterans didn't have long bouts with post-traumatic stress disorder, even though there was no such diagnosis back in the 1860s.

Some of the units engaged in that part of the field would lose four out of five men — an 80-percent casualty rate unthinkable for any American unit in this day and age. And though it may be hard to truly figure out how the 13th felt during their baptismal firefight, Daniels reached back to what his father, a World War II veteran of the 101st Airborne who was badly wounded during the Normandy Invasion, told him about how men react during battle.

"He said that when you see someone get shot…when they hit the ground, they start digging at their clothes to see where they're shot, and if they're going to live or die. And you don't want to see the looks on their faces," said Daniels. "There had to be a lot of guys who were just scared to death…a lot of prayers, a lot of fear, a lot of rage, and you can get all that out of the same person in 10 minutes during combat where it's (either) your life or the life of the guy across from you."

But of course, no matter who is quoted, or what source presented, it is not possible to replicate the sheer heart-stopping fear that the average soldier felt that day as Americans butchered each other in record numbers.

And few of us will ever know what it felt like to be Private J.M. Shepperd, who probably grew up in some little town along the Pompton or Pequannock River and went off to war never thinking that there was a bullet or shell fragment with his name on it.

Toombs, however, reports that there was, and Shepperd is listed on his roll of those wounded in the fight. He is buried in Pequannock's First Reformed Church, although it's unknown when he died, or how.

Confederate General John B. Gordon wrote that the Union assault had landed "with the crushing weight of a landslide," and that Lee himself had ridden to rally the troops.

"Again and again….by charges and counter-charges, this portion of the field was lost and recovered, until the green corn that grew upon it looked as if had been struck by a storm of bloody hail," he wrote. "From sheer exhaustion, both sides, like battered and bleeding athletes, seemed willing to rest."

By mid-morning, both North and South on the 13th's part of the field would retire, having fought to a bloody standstill, and it would be up to other troops to decide the battle's fate. The 13th had suffered 90 casualties, 9 of whom were killed.

And although by nightfall the Union army would be victorious, Lee's army, kicked in the teeth and badly wounded, was allowed to escape across the Potomac and into Virginia, leading to the war's continuation for three more increasingly desperate and brutal years.

David and Peter Ryerson would both survive the fight to represent Pompton Lakes in more of the war's gruesome battles… but death was not done with the family.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

Recreating Bull Run 150 years later

They come from every nook and cranny of the country, much like their wool-clad brethren did a century and a half before, but instead of arriving by horse and locomotive, they appear in roof-rack laden Fords and Dodges, hauling equipment and pulling trailers.

Many are already adorned in what some what might mistake for a costume; to them, however, it is their uniform, and whether it is the deep blue of a Union soldier or the faded gray and butternut hues of a Confederate, they wear it proudly.

It is here, in an immense, open, dusty field that lies within crawling distance of Manassas National Battlefield in Virginia, that nearly 9,000 reenactors gather in the nearly unbearable heat of a swampy Virginia summer to reenact the First Battle of Manassas, which was to become the opening scene of America’s Civil War.

Their license plates say it all — they’ve come from the sweltering Deep South and rocky New England, from North Carolina and New York and Oregon and from our own area of North Jersey.

When they gathered on these rolling hills back in 1861, they were there because the union had been torn asunder over the scourge of slavery, and the quarrels between North and South could no longer be settled by the politicians and intellectuals in the halls of Congress.

By July 21 of that year, the fight had definitively passed from the hands that could pen compromises to the hands that carried rifles, and the carnage at Manassas would prove that there would be no hasty end to this conflict.

In 2011, however, their reasons are different — much different. These soldiers come not to fight, but to remember those that did; not to die, but to celebrate the lives of those that came before.

Above all, though, they’ve come to educate, and to provide a first-hand look at what it might look like if the ghosts were to rise up and do it all once more.

The reenactment is at its height on Saturday, July 23, and lasts for over three hours.

The heat soars above 100 degrees on the ground as thousands of troops file out of their camps and set up in the open fields. After an artillery duel of sorts and a brief cavalry scrap, a pitched infantry battle forms, one that is tightly scripted and mirrors the actual Battle of Manassas.

Initially the Union soldiers have the advantage, and as they press forward, they begin to drive the Southerners before them, engaging in firefight after firefight but making steady progress. The Confederates begin to retreat up a gentle slope that represents the famed Henry House Hill, which, in reality, lies just a mile or so southeast.

As the rebels pull back, however, the Union army inexplicably stops. The break, which helps the reenactors cool off and recuperate, is not made up; northern General Irwin McDowell paused for nearly two hours after driving the Confederates from their initial positions before renewing his attack.

By the time McDowell chose to advance, a brigade of Virginians commanded by Thomas J. Jackson had reinforced the Confederate lines on Henry House Hill, and his stalwart defense that day would earn him the nickname "Stonewall," and his brigade the sobriquet "The Stonewall Brigade."

The reenactors show all of this.

The men portraying the New York Zouaves charge up the hill, chanting a throaty "Ah-oooh" that thunders like the bark of angry cur, but wave upon wave breaks upon Southern lines.

Soon, more rebel flags appear as new units arrive, and their lines begin overlapping the Union flanks as the battle lines close on each other.

At one point, the reenactors are separated by maybe 20 yards, pouring it on while close enough to see the whites of eyes.

A charge by the 69th New York, which later in the war will become the heart of famous Irish Brigade, meets with little success, and the Confederates move forward and capture a battery of Union cannons, turning the tide of the battle.

Soon, the Northerners will be streaming to the rear, while some regiments, like the 6th New Hampshire — West Milford’s own reenacting unit – try to cover the retreat.

In 1861, the Union troops fled all the way to Washington, D.C., just under 30 miles away; in 2011, they only have to retreat to the back of the battlefield.

In both cases, the South wins the day.



‘It’s not like you’re going home in a box’

Mike Belgie, 55, is from Upper Greenwood Lake, and has been a Civil War reenactor for the past 16 years. He has long white hair that’s normally pulled back in a ponytail, and a graying goatee decorates his face.

He’s a photographer in real life, although he’s taken on an odd assortment of jobs over his years, running the gamut from security contractor to faithful Deadhead.

At this event, however, he will be the head of the Provost (military police), as well as the chief medical officer and head safety officer; basically, he’s responsible for the safety of nearly every man that steps onto the field.

It is late in the evening of July 23 when he finally sits down to talk in front of the half-dozen tents that make up the federal headquarters.

Candles hang from every available post, and the wooden table is decorated with a half-empty bottle of Tullamore Dew, several tin cups, period votives, and other assorted garb.

Belgie says he took an interest in "the hobby" at the 130th reenactment of the Battle of Cedar Creek, which took place in Middletown, Va., in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley.

He and his "better half," Rebecca, went down with friends on a couples’ weekend to see the reenactment, and the spectacle left him dumbstruck, in part because the Civil War played a prominent role in his own family’s story.

Belgie’s great-great grandfather, William C. Louderback, was a coal miner who had served with the 79th Pennsylvania Volunteers. He was a part of Sherman’s army during its infamous "March to the Sea" when that Union general made a promise to "make Georgia howl," and survived the war to live until 1892.

Coming from a military family, Belgie had long known the details of Louderback’s story, but seeing it acted out brought it to life.

"To see this reenactment, standing there watching it, knowing my family history…it was like, ‘Wow, I’m surprised my great-great grandfather could survive something like that,’" he says.

He then saw the 130th reenactment of the Battle of Bentonville and got to walk the grounds of a battlefield where he knew his great-great grandfather had fought so many years ago.

He was hooked.

On one occasion, he says, he got to sleep within 20 feet of where Louderback slept, on the anniversary of the day he slept there before a battle.

It is a little morbid, perhaps, but more than a little remarkable.

At reenactments, though, Belgie is near the top of the food chain, and as head medical officer and safety officer, he’s got more on his mind than simply representing history.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time, I’m worrying about real-world problems," he says. During the battle, he will be all over, attending to reenactors suffering from heatstroke or exhaustion as the temperatures rise to astonishing heights.

It’s been awhile since he was in the infantry line, but he recalls being in the middle of "a good, hot firefight," along with a good artillery barrage, as being amongst his favorite moments.

That’s changed as he’s moved up the ranks, however.

"Now it’s all the planning we do in headquarters, and seeing that transfer to the field, and making sure that all the guys who spend all this time and money to come out and do this, and the public, not only get a good show, but we give them a good education," he says.

Reenacting has changed the way he thinks about the way they fought wars during the 19th century, which was an era when battlefield technology was rapidly outpacing tactics.

The men who would become generals learned older styles of warfare at West Point, and the manner in which their armies fought during the 1860s was much the same as it was during the Napoleonic wars, when soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder to maximize the efficiency of their shoddy muskets, which were not generally accurate past 100 yards. Unfortunately, they were using rifles in the Civil War, many of which were accurate to at least 500 yards, which contributed to the horrendously high number of casualties.

The rifles themselves, such as the Springfield Model 1861 or the Pattern 1853 Enfield, were generally large-caliber, black-powder guns that fired hulking bullets at low velocities, leading to horrific injuries.

However, there were several steps to reload, and even the best trained troops could rarely get off more than three shots per minute.

"I would be a private in the ranks, and we’d fire a volley at the Confederates, but then you’d have to reload because it’s a single shot weapon," Belgie said, "and you’re watching the guy who’s directly across from you and you can see that while you’re pouring the powder (down the barrel), he’s already coming to his shoulder and aiming right at you…"

"I would have dropped my gun and said, ‘Go ahead, you got me,’" he says with a laugh. "It really changes your ideas."

Reenactors take hits, he says, according to an honor code, and the first unit he trained with told him that he’d know when to take a hit — namely if someone was aiming right at him.

"It’s not like you’re going home in a box," he jokes.

Some units don’t like taking those hits, though, and Belgie says that there are guys out there who are "musket proof."

"You could be point blank at them and they wouldn’t go down," he says.

One of his biggest worries, however, is that someone pulls the trigger and a man goes down for real.

"Guys go hunting with these rifles," he says.

All it takes is the wrong cartridge to make its way into the wrong box, and a real bullet could very well be stuffed down the barrel.

"It’s happened," he says.



‘It’s about getting away from middle-management’

Reenactors get into the game for different reasons. Many times they will say that they began reenacting because their parents or their fathers did it, and as they grew up, it just came naturally.

Krist Brembt, 19, is different — he actually got his father, Rob, involved through his own participation.

The West Milford High School graduate has been reenacting with the 6th New Hampshire for about seven years, he says, and his interest stems from local events that used to take place at the regiment’s headquarters at Long Pond Ironworks, just down the road from where he lives.

"I started going to the events, and just fell into the ranks," he says.

He’s extremely knowledgeable about the war, and says that although his first reenactments were quite chaotic, he is now used to the drill.

"It’s gotten to the point where I just wait for the officers’ commands to load and fire. I don’t really think too much anymore. I just do what we’re ordered to do," he says.

Many of the 6th New Hampshire’s members were excited for the reenactment because they got to perform the Napoleonic square, a defensive measure used against cavalry assaults that has the soldiers form a hollow square, facing outwards in all directions.

"It’s the only battle that they would have made the square," he says. "At that point, cavalry charges were becoming outdated."

His father, Rob, works for a marketing firm, having only been reenacting for about two years, is a newcomer at 55 years old.

He says that when his son started as a runner for the 6th NH as a child, he became his taxi.

"I always said that I couldn’t commit to this, but we found ourselves always bringing Krist to events and hanging out, and the guys turned out to be a fun bunch of people," Rob says.

The 6th New Hampshire tends to be the guys who are the last to leave the party, so to speak, and Rob says one of his favorite parts of the event is the after-party that goes on around the campfires as a gathering of the 6th’s musicians perform.

"I’ve played music for years, so I picked up a guitar and sat in with them," he says. "But there were enough guitars, so I taught myself the banjo, and that’s where the fun comes in….it’s the camaraderie and playing the music, it’s just being together with everyone."

He and his son do about a dozen events per year, ranging from huge events like Manassas to small living history exhibits around the New Jersey area.

"For me, it’s about getting away from middle-management," he says. "I’m a private, I don’t have to worry about anything going wrong."



'Like a civic organization'

Hugh Brennan, formerly of Ringwood but now a Hillsborough resident, sits with his shirt around his neck in the late afternoon heat after the Saturday battle.

He is a reenactor with the 3rd NJ, and equates the unit with a civic organization such as the Elks Lodge, but with a higher cause of educating the youth, many of whom, he says, are forgetting history at a rapid pace.

"I think you’ll find…that the vast majority of (reenactors) are motivated by a sense of patriotism and reverence for the country’s past, and a feeling that that’s being lost and not transmitted to the younger generations," he says.

Brennan is extraordinarily knowledgeable about his unit’s history.

On July 19 and 20 of 1861, he says, the unit was guarding the crossings along Bull Run and did not see much action.

Throughout the war, however, they would fight as a part of the "First New Jersey Brigade," one of the few brigades in the Army of the Potomac to be formed all by men of one state.

It would eventually be commanded by General Phillip Kearny (who would lend his name to the Hudson County town after his 1862 death in battle) and would distinguish itself in some of the bloodiest battles of the war.

Brennan says that while it is easy for current historians to play "armchair general," reenacting shows the difficulties that commanders faced back in the time before radio communications and GPS.

"There’s no communications, your maps are no good, and there’s no reconnaissance except some guy riding up the roadway — they didn’t know what the hell is going on, and they were blundering into each other all the time," he says.

During the reenactment, although the spectators can’t tell, some units will be out of place, either advancing too quickly or not at all, and tempers run short on the field.

Brennan notes that the confusion would be compounded if there were real bullets careening through the air.

"We’re not even scared; nobody’s getting killed," he says.



‘War can never be sanitized’

Others, like Dr. Allan Hordorf of Maywood, are here to prove that some facets of accepted history are completely false.

Hordorf is a pediatric cardiologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, and has been reenacting for 24 years. He started as a private, but the last decade has seen him portraying a surgeon, and putting on demonstrations to show the public the aftermath of battle.

"I was concerned that too many people went to see the battles and thought this was all so cool, everybody shooting each other, and nobody was talking about what happened after the battles," he says. "So, I started putting on some demonstrations to give them a clue as to what happened."

His "demonstrations" sometimes end up a little too graphic for the weak of heart, and other reenactors rib him about the spectators who periodically pass out during his talks.

"(The reenactments) are too sanitized sometimes," he says in his defense. "Everybody shoots everybody, they fall down, they get up, it’s sanitized. It can’t be sanitized; war can never be sanitized."

He breaks out his Civil War surgeon’s kit from the 1850s, the pièce de résistance of which is a shiny, foot-long bone saw that saw "real service."

Hordorf says that his pet peeve is the common misconception that wounded soldiers were given a shot of whiskey and a bullet to bite while having limbs amputated. This is totally false, he says; anesthetics were used in nearly every surgery.

"This ‘bite the bullet’ stuff is baloney…it’s ludicrous," he says. "You cannot do lots of procedures without the patients cooperating."

He also spends time speaking on the advancements that the medical field made during the 1860s, although they tended to be more in the way the services were organized rather than in the science itself. During the Civil War, he says, the first ambulance corps was formed to get soldiers off the field, and the first Sanitary Commission appeared in the U.S. Army. Nursing became a specialty, and large, fixed hospitals began to spring up for the first time.

Although doctors knew nothing about asepsis, the 12,000 who ended up volunteering for the role did what they could with the limited knowledge they had.

"They were not surgeons," he says. "There was no specialty, and most of them had never done surgery before…these guys learned on the job…but they did some incredible things, and they saved a lot of lives."

"One thing about war," he continues, "is that the killers and the healers both make great advances, but the question is who does it faster," he says. "The killers are usually better than the healers unfortunately… you don’t have to be as sophisticated to kill."



With ‘Lucifer’ in command

General "Lucifer" Tony Daniels, 64, was born in Newark on the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam.

He bears a striking resemblance to Ulysses S. Grant, and has a thick brown beard and a weathered face that makes it seem like he’s spent more time living history in the field than teaching it in the classroom, which he did for decades after moving from Verona to Jackson Township.

He began reenacting in 1982 after an innocuous conversation with a man wearing a "Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War" jacket while on line at K-Mart during Christmas time, and earned the title "Lucifer" some years ago when he told a snide Virginia woman that his unit was going to burn down her town.

"She was being snotty, and I was just being ‘Jersey’ back to her," he says with a smile. "She started with the, ‘You damn Yankees come down here, blah blah blah,’ and I started saying ‘Get your Lucifers (matches) men, we’re going to burn the town! Leave no two stones upon each other; I want nothing but ashes here!’"

The ensuing outcry left Daniels with a lasting nickname.

He started with the 7th NJ, and when the 3rd NJ spun out of that, he was a charter member. Over the years, he rose in the ranks from a lowly private to where he is now — overall command the federal end of the event.

"I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun to be a general," he says. "When you get to the field and you’re in charge, it’s fun and it’s exciting that you’re making it happen."

Much of his job constitutes planning out nearly every minute of the battle and worrying about the safety about the troops; on Friday, he will be up late into the night reading documents by candlelight. Of course, as with all hobbies, there’s politics and petty issues that need to be attended to, such as playing referee in inter- or intra-unit disputes.

Sometimes, he says, the conflicts are not between his men, but between Northern and Southern battalions that may be camped a bit too close together.

"It’s not so much our side, but a lot of the Confederates are what we call ‘neo-confederates’ or ‘unreconstructed confederates,’" he says. "Some of them are still fighting for the cause."

No matter how realistic the events seem, though, Daniels says the reenactors have to cheat a little.

"We put ice under our caps, I wear a kerchief with ice in it…it’s cheating, yes, but the men living 150 years ago never had air conditioning, they were used to being outdoors all day…they were tough characters," he says. "We’re just not used to it as a people.

"If this were a truly authentic reenactment, you wouldn’t want to get within five miles of this site because you’d have all these guys (defecating) in a trench, and they wouldn’t have bathed for weeks or months perhaps, and they’d be wearing the same clothes day in and day out," he says.

He will be the commander for many of the sesquicentennial events as they arrive, but says that after the last of these, which will be in 2015, he will retire from the hobby for good.

"There’s a lot of people out there that are looking to me to do this, and to get it done, but I promise you this will be my last ride on the merry-go- round," he says. "I will probably be too old and decrepit (by the time it’s over)…and you’ve gotta’ give up and let some younger people (rise)."

It is clear that he loves every aspect of reenacting, however, and he can easily spend hours relating humorous tales from his 30 years in the field, such as when he fell through the ice at one event, or led his troops through a snow-melt swollen Saylor’s Creek at another.

"Some of my best friends that I’ve made in life, I’ve made in this hobby," he says.

To Daniels, there is meaning to what he and his guys are doing, and an obligation to do it right.

"The men that are in hundreds of cemeteries across the country, I think that whatever we do, let’s do them proud," he says. "We can’t do it exactly the way they did, but let’s show people what they did and the valor they displayed….they believed in what they did, and they gave their all for it."


E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com

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