Civil War Reenactment brings history, education to Carpentersville

On August 5 and 6, 2016, the village of Carpentersville, Illinois, teamed up with the reenactment group Stanford’s Battery to bring the Civil War to Carpenter Park. Visitors watched reenactments of battles between Union and Confederate soldiers, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days, reenactors gave living history demonstrations of camp life, drills and artillery.

Stanford’s Battery

Many reenactment groups take their names from real units of the war. The original Stanford’s Battery was a Mississippi artillery battery commanded by Captain Thomas J. Stanford. It served in the Western Theater, fighting at Shiloh, Perryville, Stones River and Chickamauga. Reenactors who portray a unit like this study its history, its guns and the men who served in it, so they can tell its story accurately.

Living History

The living history demonstrations are often the highlight of a reenactment for families. Visitors can see how soldiers cooked over open fires, cleaned their rifles, wrote letters home and slept in canvas tents. Artillery crews show how a cannon was loaded and fired by a team of men working together in a precise drill. Children can ask questions and see, up close, what the life of a soldier was really like.

The War Comes to the Midwest

Illinois was far from the major battlefields, but the war touched nearly every family in the state. About 250,000 Illinois men served in the Union army, and many of them faced Mississippi and Tennessee units like the real Stanford’s Battery in the Western Theater. Events like the one in Carpentersville help people in the Midwest connect with both sides of that shared history.

Read more about the hobby in The Next Generation of Civil War Reenactors, and find flags for your unit in our Confederate flag collection.

Source: Elgin Courier-News: Civil War Reenactment brings history, education to Carpentersville

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