Manassas

In the wake of Drew Faust's lecture, I went out this weekend to a reenactment to commemorate the 150th battle of Bull Run at Manassas. Faust maintains that reenactments separate the fighting from the political issues and so don't remember war, as they purport to do, but rather separate war from its context, and so are a pernicious form of "memory."

I didn't realize this before, but one of the reenactors told us that there are reenactments of many different wars, including World War II. He is soon going to start reenacting for the German side. This seems to me like it would raise tons of ethical issues. That is to say, there have to be boundaries--you wouldn't reenact, for instance, concentration camps with the atrocities committed there.

On the other hand, it seemed, at least from a couple of reenactors that I talked to, that it is sometimes a concern with learning history accurately that drives reenactors to reenact. One man I spoke to had done a lot of reading in the era and the issues surrounding the Civil War (he certainly put together a narrative that Faust wouldn't have liked, but she couldn't fault him for not having a narrative). Even though he reenacted for the North, he had Southern sympathies (this was something that fascinated me--how the reenactors picked the side that they did--it didn't seem to strictly conform to their geography). That same man maintained that many of the reenactors are conservatives.



I attended the battle as a freelance photographer. Here I am at work. (Photo credit for this and the above battle picture to Francisco; the others are mine.)



Above is a young couple awkwardly (and happily!) flirting with each other. You really can't keep love and war apart, even at reenactments--I met another girl who was at the battle (acting as a refugee who followed the soldiers) with her boyfriend and her father ("Your dad's still lying on the field, but I'm ready to go"). There was a ball one evening as part of the reenactment!

In general, the reenactments seem to be a family affair--we also talked to a father/son pair who started reenacting when the son was 10, before he went off to Iraq as a paratrooper. That brings up another typical reenactor--the veteran, or man (or woman--they do let women reenact, dressed either as a man or as a woman) who couldn't make it into the military for whatever reason.



I was, of course, most fascinated by the girls in puffy dresses. I would totally dress up like this (um ... okay, I already have ...), except on these super hot, 100 + degree days.