In our Civil War memory class, we have been recently
discussing the phenomena of reenactments, role-players, “living historians”,
and other groups of people that insist upon repeating history. In order to
continue along this theme, I found a quaint article recounting an interview
with one re-enactor.
Hardly considering himself professional, instead this older
man insists that he is honoring a soldier that has particularly struck a chord
with him. The re-enactor, Jim Smith, is following the steps of Peter Guibert, a
drummer who served in the 74th Pennsylvania at Gettysburg. Smith
feels a connection with Guibert because they were born exactly a century apart
(1844 and 1944, respectively), they were both musicians, and that they share
other “eerie similarities”. Smith has spent a significant period of time
studying Guibert’s life both before the war, Guibert’s movements and
participation in Gettysburg, and how he celebrated fifty years later, and thus
has sustained a great interest in him over time. It is for all of these reasons
that Smith finds it important to reenact Guibert’s march into Gettysburg.
The article that elaborates on Smith’s interview passes no
judgment on Smith’s intentions, but our class has had other opinions of
re-enactors’ actions. To many, people find their fascinations (or what others
would call obsession) pointless, creepy, and in some cases, dangerous to Civil
War memory. All of those points could be warranted. Yet, I feel that this could
be a harsh or unfair assessment of some citizens’ honest and sincere
intentions. Obviously their passions run deep, and perhaps they want nothing
more than to get lost for a few hours, to connect with a time in history that
has touched them in ways they cannot easily relate to others. We as individuals
often do not take the time to understand people’s interests that do not follow
the “mainstream”. But, it could often lead to interesting discussion and
debate.
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