Re Enactors

Civil War re-enactors from the Army of Northern Virginia faced the federal Army of the Shenandoah yesterday to fight the Battle of Taneytown. Actually, there never was a Battle of Taneytown. The battle that might have been was fought instead at Gettysburg, Pa., 19.7 miles up the road from the northwest Carroll County community. But what's a Civil War festival without a battle? "We'll fight the battle that should have been," Jerry Holden, a Carroll County re-enactor taking part in the combat staged for the third annual Celebrate Taneytown festival, said last week.

He won't eat a decent meal for three days. Or get much sleep. Or change clothes. And forget about bathing. We're not talking about the travel woes of some lowly presidential campaign aide. Rather, life gets reduced to those brutally basic essentials when park ranger Vincent Vaise goes on his annual Fort McHenry authenticity bender and refights the War of 1812. "Once a year I think it's good to get a reality check and go whole hog," he says, even if that entails, yes, smelling like one. When not guiding tours at the fort, Vaise, 34, slips into period costume and does double duty as head of the living-history program.

Last July, more than 30,000 fully uniformed Civil War re-enactors gathered in Gettysburg, Pa., to travel back in time and "see the elephant," which in 19th-century parlance meant experiencing combat.They came to restage the fateful, three-day battle fought there in 1863. Among them was a 68-year-old retired dentist from Topeka, Kan., Herschel L. Stroud.Seeing the elephant and not actually getting shot at is a wondrous experience, said Stroud, a wiry, goateed, hyper-energetic man who scuba dives, plays trumpet in a swing band, sings in a barbershop quartet and races sailboats on Lake Shawnee.

About 1,500 Civil War buffs will be re-enacting the Battle of South Mountain next weekend near Boonsboro.The event is expected to be the biggest Civil War re-enactment in Maryland this year.An re-enactment area has been selected because it has no modern vistas.The event is sponsored by the Central Maryland Heritage League, the Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau and the 7th Maryland Volunteer Infantry. The re-enactment features battles both Saturday and Sunday, artillery fire and civilian activities.

SELMA, Ala. -- James Hammonds looked stoic as he surveyed Selma's Civil War battlefield, but he could not resist a sigh: The trenches' gray planks had buckled, leaving gaps in the city's defenses. Hammonds, who came up with the idea 19 years ago of re-enacting Selma's place in Civil War history, said he fears that his town is losing another battle. Almost 141 years after a ragtag Confederate army struggled to defend Selma against Union forces, historical re-enactors canceled the Battle of Selma.

ANTIETAM - The largest Civil War re-enactment of the year will be taking place Sept. 12-14 on a farm just south of Hagerstown. This 135th anniversary commemoration of the Battle of Antietam will draw more than 10,000 re-enactors who will commemorate the bloodiest single day of the Civil War.The battle ended the Confederacy's first effort to invade the North, and it enabled President Abraham Lincoln to shift the focus of the war from states' rights to...

Clinton Wakefield Epps is racing through the woods, sunshine piercing through the dusk, smoky and unreal, heart thumping, hair flying, imagining himself a Confederate infantryman in pursuit of Yankee cavalry.He is rushing forward, out into the clearing -- and there, he's trapped by Union re-enactors. Then it happens: a sudden blow against his neck, paralysis. He is falling, raising his left hand, feeling blood flowing from his neck and struggling to his knees and whispering "Medic."A man pretending to be a Union soldier calls out: "Bang, you're dead."

BOONSBORO -- While the troops under his command primped and practiced yesterday for a battle they knew they would lose, "Brig. Gen." Bob Drane squatted under a white canvas awning and explained how he was going to die.A bullet would hit him in the chest, he said, just as a battalion of North Carolina infantrymen charged forward to reinforce the Confederate left flank. His men would drag him to a quiet spot in the woods, and he would bleed to death. The bugler would sound taps.And today, he'll do it again.

The Civil War really came home last weekend for Clinton Wakefield Epps.Epps, one of thousands of re-enactors who restaged the Battle of Gettysburg on the 135th anniversary of the bloody confrontation, was in satisfactory condition yesterday after being shot in the neck last week with what authorities said was a Civil War-era revolver or replica.The 22-year-old Charlottesville, Va., man, who was shot a little over an hour after the battle began about 4 p.m. Friday, said he was "somewhat disappointed" that he missed most of the event but expressed relief he was not more seriously injured.

The pungent scent of wood-burning fires hung in the air yesterday as women in bonnets and shawls skillfully wove baskets. The men, dressed in knickers and moccasins, pounded iron into shape and smoked pipes, rifles slung over their shoulders. More than 100 history fans filled the field behind the Hays House Museum in Bel Air this weekend for its fifth annual Encampment of Living History, a Colonial-era time warp to raise funds for the museum and to educate visitors. The three-day event began Friday morning and will continue today from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Visitors receive a tour of the Hays House, the oldest building in Bel Air, built in 1788, and can walk through the sprawling encampment to experience Colonial life.