They have all the earmarks of ritual gatherings, and this time of year, thousands of people convene to recreate some of the more tumultuous events in our collective memory. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History. It’s the season for Civil War reenactments.
“Typically at a reenactment, men are running into a position. They’re ordered to occupy a certain part of a field and they will take it. They will be ordered to prepare their muskets and then, when the enemy comes within sight, they fire. And this was the way that Civil War battles were typically fought: where men on either side basically got in range of each other and opened fire.”
Tony Horwitz is the author of Confederates in the Attic, and a participant in a number of Civil War reenactments. He says that many people take part in reenactments as a kind of communal rite.
“You’re making a connection with something outside yourself, a larger force. It’s community with people who lived 130 years ago. A sense of community and bonding and that time. A sort of magical way of really stepping out of your self and out of your own time and inhabiting another. People feel quite bewildered by modern society and it might be hard to reach out to the person sitting across from them on the bus, but in a strange way they find it easier to reach back across the decades to their great-great grandfather who served in this war.”
This month the Battle of Gettysburg is being reenacted. It’s regarded by many as the turning point of the Civil War.
For transcripts of this and other programs in our series, please visit our web site at www.pulseplanet.com.
Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.