On the rolling hills of Gettysburg, the Civil War unfolds – the war dead strewn the otherwise idyllic landscape, where they will remain until “Taps” is played, or until the call of “Reanimate!” blares over the PA system.

They are (re) (en) acting, participating in a bit of theater, perhaps not for the first time, acting out the past for the present in a liminal space of body and time. This practice points to a particular type of memorial practice – commemory.

] “Seeing the elephant” is a phrase used by Civil War soldiers as well as reenactors. For Civil War soldiers, “seeing the elephant” meant that they had been in battle. Being able to declare this was a source of pride in having fully realized their soldiering/masculine potential. For reenactors, it signifies having had a “profound confusion of time,” that “moment” or a “period rush” (Schneider 35).

Acts of commemory begin with the performative. This aspect creates spaces for the stagings, as well as audiences for the spectacles.

Bodies not only preform, but are affected by, acts of commemory. The affects in the space of the reenactment “stick” to the bodies during the performance(s) of remembering, experiencing, and mourning.

Their performances affectively bind Civil War reenactors to the dead. This binding, or haunting, is the final key component of commemory. It is the potency of the past, specifically of the dead, situates commemory as a duty-bound act of national importance.