FORT SUMTER NATIONAL MONUMENT, S.C. — For thousands of Civil War re-enactors, the next four years are a chance to capitalize on the public’s curiosity about a century-old hobby that demands such attention to detail that the fights seem almost real.
The die-hards converging soon at the site where the War Between the States began 150 years ago with a Confederate artillery barrage on Union-held Fort Sumter can’t wait to help others understand why they spend weekends tramping through the rain, sleeping in tents in snow-covered fields, cooking on open campfires and enduring mock battles in wool coats under the hot Southern sun.
They’re expecting a surge of interest in a pastime that has roots at the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1913, when Confederate veterans retraced Pickett’s Charge. Re-enacting took hold for good five decades ago during the Civil War’s centennial.
Read the full AP article by Bruce Smith in the April 10, 2011 edition of DecaturDaily.com.
