The Civil War Lives On 7

I’d like to suggest that the Civil War still with us into the 21^st century. A few months ago I took a booth at what was billed as the largest Civil War reenactment west of the Mississippi: over 1,000 men and women dressed in period costume complete with homespun trousers, some with flintlock muskets, others with the then-cutting-edge Springfield rifles – all reliving something that obviously seemed of great emotional importance to them.

Frankly, that wasn’t what went through my mind first. No, instead there was a part of me that thought, “These people should all go home and get a life!” It was a weekend in early November – why weren’t they watching a football game or three like normal people?

It wasn’t until the afternoon of the last day that I got my answer. It came in the form of a rousing rendition of “Dixie!” – by a Yankee band! That was astonishing enough [can you imagine such a thing happening during the Civil War itself?] but as I gazed around at the 50 or so people that comprised that ad-hoc audience I saw an equal sprinkling of Yankees and Rebs, some standing, some on horseback, all somehow mesmerized.

And the answer? “every person in this crowd is being healed!”