IN PROGRESS

 

Saturday morning was very tense.  The captain came to the camp to inform Sgt. McNally that Weidrich’s would not be going out for the 6pm battle, but only for the 1pm battle.  While I was happy to hear there would only be one battle that day as it was viciously hot, the men were quite disappointed and some to the point of anger as historically, Weidrich’s Battery was present and fought gallantly at the battle that was being portrayed at 6pm, the Wheatfield Battle.  This news came on top of the directive that the entire artillery would not be firing at Pickett’s Charge on Sunday, l the culminating event of the reenactment, as the Infantry units reportedly wanted the spectators to focus on their maneuvers.  The cannons were invited to position themselves on the top of a hill far away and “make noise” for the battle if they wished.

 

It was disappointing to see petty politics and arguments among grown men with fake titles before their name.  This kind of behavior, however, is not uncommon in the reenacting world I came to learn.  Weidrich’s , for this very reason, does not have anyone with a rank higher than a sergeant (thus no officers) as they feel that once there are officers in a unit, the politics and “power trips” become an issue and he hobby is no longer focused on what is important – history, family, education and fun.  One reenactor from an infantry unit told me that he was looking forward to the 150th cycle to be over as he felt a lot of the older reenactors were just holding out to complete the 150th and then would leave the hobby, leaving room for the younger reenactors, with less “political aspirations” to take over the hobby and to make it what it once was. 

 

There was much nostalgia for the 135th reenactment of Gettysburg at the 150th.  The consensus was that the 135th was bigger, better and more enjoyable – for the spectator s and the reenactors.  It was strange to me that there would be more reenactors at an anniversary reenactment that was not as momentous at the 150th; however, the 135th reenactment was still of the time when there was only one Gettysburg reenactment. Now there are two.

 

I first learned of the dueling reenactments as I initially contacted the “wrong” reenactment to ask for permission to interview and take pictures at their event as a researcher.  The reenactment was very welcoming and asked just for a copy of the interviews and any other data I collected for their archives.  I was encouraged by their response and called Steven McNally to let him know that my plan to come and research was now in full swing.  During our conversation, it became clear that we were talking about different dates for the reenactment. I thought perhaps I just had the dates confused in my mind, but then Steven said, “You know, there are two different Gettysburgs…”  No, I did not; there was only one historical Gettysburg, why would there be two reenactments?

 

The story, as told to me by several reenactors is that there are two factions of generals who do not agree on who is the actual general and therefore split off into two factions that now each hold their own reenactment.  Some reenactors go to both reenactments and others choose one over the other due to timing or their own political beliefs in who is the real general.  Due to the split, the size of each is smaller than during the revered 135th where they were able to perform full-scale Pickett’s charge.  At this reenactment, Pickett’s charge was about ??? size, with the strength of the Confederate Army at about only XX the size it should have been.